YIMBY Melbourne

"The fact that most of the residential land in our cities is locked up under highly restricted zoning makes sense of why we can't build the homes we need." The Australian Zoning Atlas is out now (see the link below)!

EVENT: Our very own Katie Roberts-Hull will be representing us at a lively discussion about what's causing the housing crisis and how to fix it! Join us @ Table Scraps: Housing, who gets to belong? Tuesday, June 2nd

Grattan Institute’s new report shows that letting Australian homebuyers choose the car-parking they need will: → make housing cheaper, → get more homes built faster, and → create more walkable cities.

Our own Jonathan O'Brien represented Abundant Housing Network Australia at the recent Commonwealth Inquiry into Productivity. Here he is talking about why our cities are the engines of Australia's economy:

Jonathan O’Brien, Lead Organiser for YIMBY Melbourne, accused [the NIMBYs] of being “tone-deaf”, saying the proposal appeared to be compliant, and the apartments would get built. “Grandstanding against common-sense inner-city housing is just a really embarrassing look in 2026”

“Old people don’t need places to live” say local NIMBYs. Plans to build a mid-rise retirement village on the site of an abandoned building received 51 formal objections in Vermont.

Parliamentary inquiry into community consultation practices finds that local government ‘opt-in’ consultation is biased against renters and the young →

A massive victory in the war against upper-level setbacks! The Mid-Rise Code offers greater housing certainty for Melburnians. It also winds back one of the most damaging and poorly evidenced planning controls: upper-level setbacks.

Should the code prove effective, the government should expand its applicability by expanding the Residential Growth Zone and establishing Activity Centres around more of Melbourne’s train stations.

A massive victory in the war against upper-level setbacks! The Mid-Rise Code offers greater housing certainty for Melburnians. It also winds back one of the most damaging and poorly evidenced planning controls: upper-level setbacks.

The common-sense removal of upper-level setback requirements represents a planning ethos that respects evidence over established legacy planning norms, and represents the profession’s willingness to evolve to meet the challenges of today.

A massive victory in the war against upper-level setbacks! The Mid-Rise Code offers greater housing certainty for Melburnians. It also winds back one of the most damaging and poorly evidenced planning controls: upper-level setbacks.

Huge thanks to everyone who made our last event such a success. We heard from Brendan Coates and Alain Bertaud, followed by a panel joined by Jonathan O'Brien and Matthew Bowes (subbing in for Brendan).

TONIGHT 👇 Join Alain Bertaud (author of Order without Design) and Brendan Coates (Grattan Institute) to discuss how to make Australian cities work better for everyone. [Link to tickets in next tweet]

Are cities just giant labour markets? Alain Bertaud argues that cities should be designed by millions of individual trade-offs, not a single planner's estimated "average".

Melbourne's planning reforms are nation-leading 💪

But this doesn't mean the work is done 👇

💯 bang on the money. Younger Australians are facing worse and worse trade-offs in pursuit of housing affordability. To reverse intergenerational inequality, Governments must make our major cities accessible again.

PRESS RELEASE → Whilst YIMBY Melbourne applauds the Coalition’s more positive housing vision, their plans leave too much to be desired.

The Grattan Institute shows the Activity Centre Program adds 110k+ feasible homes to Middle Melbourne. Any "alternative" that cuts this capacity will only hike prices and kill housing choice. We cannot afford a net loss in feasible housing. Impactful reform must stay.

PRESS RELEASE → Whilst YIMBY Melbourne applauds the Coalition’s more positive housing vision, their plans leave too much to be desired.

[Hosted by our Lead Organiser — Jonathan O'Brien] Australia gives billions of dollars to charity each year. But the rules governing where those dollars can go are outdated and often misaligned with impact. Is the DGR system the biggest handbrake on Aussie charity? 👇

Help shape the future of Melbourne’s Activity Centres! Community Reference Groups (CRGs) are being formed right now to provide local feedback to the upzoning plans. If we want walkable, transit-oriented, and affordable neighbourhoods, we need YIMBYs in the room!