The Brief
The City of Melbourne is working towards net zero emissions by 2040, and Amendment C376 is part of how it achieves this target. The amendment writes new sustainability and green infrastructure requirements into the Melbourne Planning Scheme. These mandatory and discretionary standards cover energy efficiency, on-site renewables, urban heat, water, waste, ecology and sustainable transport. Before it could be adopted, the City engaged Fieldwork to test that the policy held up in practice: that the proposed changes would be achievable on real buildings, and the cost of meeting them viable.
Our Approach
We took the draft policy and applied it to six projects of varied scales, that already held a planning permit – a single dwelling, two multi-residential, two office buildings, and a large mixed-use development. The sites were anonymised to all outside the project team, while we used the permitted planning applications for our assessment.
For each development, the City’s ESD consultant assessed how the building performed against the amendment and where it fell short. We translated that data through an architectural lens, with a series of annotated plans and a schedule of changes. The aim was to assess the performance gap between the permit and the Amendment requirements, and how the architectural changes would be executed in reality.
Every change was tabulated and passed to a quantity surveyor to price, so the amendment’s cost implications could be assessed where uplift was required. The final report informed Council’s submission to an independent planning panel, which recommended adoption of the amendment, and Council’s final decision to adopt the amendment.
Impact
After minister approval, the changes proposed within Amendment C376 were adopted and carried through Melbourne’s Planning Scheme, where they now set the sustainability requirements for new development. This means new buildings across the city are designed to a higher sustainability standard from the outset.
Amendment C376: Sustainable Building Design
An architectural and cost study for the City of Melbourne
The Brief
The City of Melbourne is working towards net zero emissions by 2040, and Amendment C376 is part of how it achieves this target. The amendment writes new sustainability and green infrastructure requirements into the Melbourne Planning Scheme. These mandatory and discretionary standards cover energy efficiency, on-site renewables, urban heat, water, waste, ecology and sustainable transport. Before it could be adopted, the City engaged Fieldwork to test that the policy held up in practice: that the proposed changes would be achievable on real buildings, and the cost of meeting them viable.
Our Approach
We took the draft policy and applied it to six projects of varied scales, that already held a planning permit– a single dwelling, two multi-residential, two office buildings, and a large mixed-use development. The sites were anonymised to all outside the project team, while we used the permitted planning applications for our assessment.
For each development, the City’s ESD consultant assessed how the building performed against the amendment and where it fell short. We translated that data through an architectural lens, with a series of annotated plans and a schedule of changes. The aim was to assess the performance gap between the permit and the Amendment requirements, and how the architectural changes would be executed in reality.
Every change was tabulated and passed to a quantity surveyor to price, so the amendment’s cost implications could be assessed where uplift was required. The final report informed Council’s submission to an independent planning panel, which recommended adoption of the amendment, and Council’s final decision to adopt the amendment.
Published
29.07.2025