Policies & strategies

To maintain our beautiful natural environment, the plan outlines how we are protecting it against urban development.

The Health & Wellbeing Strategy is informed and guided by the Health & Wellbeing Advisory Committee (community members) and Health & Wellbeing Steering Committee (service partners and key stakeholders).

The Health & Wellbeing Advisory Committee meets bi-monthly.

The Health & Wellbeing Steering Committee meets quarterly. 

The Healthy and Active Ageing Plan sets the direction for Council over the next four years in supporting older residents. It outlines priority areas and helps guide the programs and services that Council provides to the community.

After extensive community consultation, the Yarra Ranges Housing Strategy, and Neighbourhood Character Study, were Adopted by Council at the Council Meeting of 11 June 2024. The Agenda and Minutes from the Meeting are linked below.

The Housing Strategy is Council’s long-term plan to manage future housing growth and change so that it best meets the ongoing needs of the community.  The Housing Strategy identifies the location for new residential development at varying scales. The Housing Strategy underpins Council’s housing policy in the Planning Scheme and provides for the next fifteen years of population growth.

The Neighbourhood Character Study (NCS) was developed and publicly exhibited concurrently with the Housing Strategy. The NCS expresses how new development can be managed across suburban areas of Yarra Ranges to protect valued neighbourhood assets and character.

The development of the Housing Strategy included two stages of community consultation:

• Stage 1: The Housing Strategy Discussion Paper – exhibited from 1 March 2022 to 5 April 2022
• Stage 2: The Draft Housing Strategy – exhibited from 25 October 2023 to 11 December 2023
  
  

Linked in the attachments below, these two reports explain the Stage 2 consultation in detail:

• Draft Housing Strategy Consultation and Engagement Report
• Draft Housing Strategy Engagement Feedback Report

The reports include feedback from the community and responses from officers regarding the issues raised.

Yarra Ranges has a long-standing commitment to reconciliation, our hope is that this plan reaffirms our commitment and narrates the story of the land and the incredible people who have contributed to the Yarra Ranges Reconciliation journey.

The foundation of the Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) is based on the advice and guidance of the Yarra Ranges Indigenous Advisory Committee (IAC), who strongly encouraged this plan to:

• Fall under the umbrella of Reconciliation Australia’s RAP requirements,
• Integrate the concept of Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Being and Doing and;
• Include a strong truth-telling theme.

By positioning the RAP under the umbrella of Reconciliation Australia, it ensures the RAP sits alongside a national standard of development and accountability.

The Innovate RAP ensures there are tangible initiatives under four areas of focus, relationships, respect, opportunities, and governance.

 

Connected, the Yarra Ranges Council's Integrated Transport Strategy is the key strategic document that guides transport planning and decision-making over the next two decades.

Connected outlines the most pressing challenges and the big moves required to make getting around in Yarra Ranges more convenient, safer and more sustainable.

Our community members have told us that while they rely on their cars they also want more public transport, with better connections between modes (such as cycling, walking and public transport), better footpaths, more walkable neighbourhoods and cycling networks separated from roads.

Connected creates the framework and direction to align transport investment and policy decisions with the aspirations the community hold for the Yarra Ranges of the future.

A well implemented Integrated Transport Strategy ensures we are all pulling in the same direction, to get the outcomes we want, to create a Yarra Ranges that is:

• safer
• healthier
• more connected
• sustainable, and
• more inclusive.

Connected will guide Council’s decisions around transport infrastructure for the next 20 years and is the result of expert analysis and significant community feedback.

Read the strategy document(PDF, 47MB)

 

Yarra Ranges Council has developed the Integrated Water Management Plan to set the strategic direction for the sustainable management of water resources for Council operations over the next 5 years.

The Kilsyth Recreation Reserve Master Plan was adopted by Council on 12 September 2023.

 

The Melbourne East Region Sport and Recreation Fair Access Policy (the Policy) addresses known barriers experienced by women and girls, transgender and gender diverse people in accessing and using community sports and recreation infrastructure.

The Policy aims to progressively build the capacity and capabilities of the Melbourne East Regional Sport and Recreation Strategy (MERSRS) Group and associated stakeholders in identifying and eliminating systemic causes of gender inequality in policy, programs, communications, and delivery and allocation of community sports and recreation infrastructure.