Mid-rise standards update

Updated November 2025

The Victorian Government is developing new Mid-Rise standards for 4 to 6 storey residential developments.

The Department of Transport and Planning (DTP) has prepared the draft Mid-Rise standards to replace and extend the existing 4-storey apartment standards in Clause 57 of all planning schemes.

What’s happened so far:

• The draft standards have been circulated on a confidential basis and are not available for public distribution.
• The draft Mid-Rise standards are proposed for residential buildings of 4 to 6 storeys – making them most applicable to new developments in the following zones types:
  • new Housing Choice and Transport Zone (HCTZ)
  • Residential Growth Zones (RGZ) and
  • Mixed Use Zones (MUZ).
• A number of the proposed standards reduce and weaken the existing requirements, to manage amenity impacts such as overshadowing and overlooking.
• The draft standards will confine (or completely remove) the ability to review a planning decision through Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) if a mid-rise development is ‘deemed to comply’ with the standards.
• No evidence of architectural testing has been demonstrated in the draft mid-rise standards – making it very difficult to understand the impacts of the proposed changes.
• There is no sense of how building heights under the draft standards could or should be tailored for developments that could impact heritage areas.

The Department of Transport of Planning and Transport has advised that:

• implementation of the new Mid-Rise standards is planned by the end of 2025
• the Mid-Rise code is confidential and not intended for further circulation.

Councillors were provided with a report about the draft Mid-Rise standards at a council meeting in October (including the Department’s proposed Mid-Rise code).

You can also read Council’s submission to the Minister for Planning, proposing ways to improve the draft Mid-Rise standards and expressing concern about the confidential nature of the standards.