City of Melbourne Context

What's coming next door, what's been permitted, and what the City forecasts, for sites in the City of Melbourne. Other councils don't publish these, so elsewhere this doesn't show, and that doesn't mean nothing is coming.

The pipeline

Under Layers, in Buildings and land: developments under construction, approved and applied for, each switched on its own. Click one for its address, floors and homes.

From the City's Development Activity Monitor. It's the Monitor's status that counts: the shapes come from a separate dataset that hasn't been updated since October 2024, and its own statuses are out of date.

• In 3D where the City has a shape. On 5 November 2026 that's 183 of 323 live developments: under construction 35 of 58, approved 141 of 213, applied for 7 of 52.
• A point where it hasn't. No shape is made up.
• Height is the top of a development's highest part less the base of its lowest. Against the Monitor's floors that comes to a median 3.4 m a floor, and 172 of 181 fall between 2.5 and 5 m. The rest are drawn flat, with a dashed outline, and aren't used as a height.

Approved isn't built. Permits lapse and get amended. Homes approved or under construction come to 29,533, twice the City's forecast growth from 2026 to 2036. In Docklands it's 7,858 against 1,047. The pipeline is what could come, not what will.

Some may be counted twice. The Monitor lists a lot once per building and once per application. Several rows can be separate towers, or a newer scheme that may replace an older one, and it doesn't say which. 7,807 of those 29,533 homes are on lots with more than one live application. They're marked and counted apart rather than guessed at. In the sun sum all of them stand, so shade there can be overstated.

On your site

A site's card, under What's coming:

• On this site: a live development whose shape covers a fifth or more of the site or of itself, whose point falls on the site, or whose address matches one on it. For a buyer it's the first thing to know.
• Nearby: live developments within 200 m, nearest first.

Sun with the pipeline

Sun and outlook for a building's homes also works out each home's winter sun with the approved and under-construction buildings built, and says how many homes lose any and by how much. Applied-for buildings don't count, as they often change, nor do those without a shape or a height that can be trusted. How many are left out is stated.

The buildings they'd replace stay in the sum, which makes little difference where a tower replaces something low.

The Check doesn't change

Clause 55's overshadowing and overlooking standards protect existing windows and open space, and an approved but unbuilt building isn't an existing one. So the pipeline changes nothing the Check passes or fails. The Check lists what's coming beside its findings. A responsible authority or VCAT may still weigh an approved building, so talk to your planner.

Building permits

On a site's card: every building permit, occupancy permit and final inspection certificate on the City's register at the site's addresses, and at those within a reach you choose, with a CSV download. The Check lists those on the site.

The register has only an address, so permits are matched to Vicmap's addresses by street, locality and number, ranges included: 530 Collins Street is inside 522-534, on the same side of the road. Of 20,000 recent permits, 98.9% matched a Vicmap street and first number.

• It's an address match, not a title search, and not a substitute for a Section 32 or a property report. Permits under an older address may not show.
• A date in the future is shown as the City has it, and marked.
• A street that can't be read is named, rather than counted as having no permits.

Forecasts and supply

In Housing Balance, Development Feasibility and the PDF: the City's forecast of homes, people and jobs for the site's small area to 2043, with the homes in the pipeline there. It's context, and it isn't scored.

The City's forecast and Victoria in Future differ: homes in the municipality in 2036 are 126,109 and 136,762. Neither is the truth, so both are shown. In Growth, the City of Melbourne can use the City's forecast as its total. Its jobs forecast is shown there, not allocated.

Limits

• City of Melbourne only.
• The shapes date from October 2024, and 43% of live developments have none.
• A development is found on a site by its shape, its point or its address. The City's property ids don't match Vicmap's, so one spread over a second lot, with no shape there and an address that doesn't cover it, shows as nearby at best.
• What counts as in the City is the City's own small areas. A site across the boundary counts as in it.
• Sun leaves out trees and the ground's slope, as it does everywhere.

Sources