As part of Hansen Partnership’s commitment to the long term protection of our environment, we were pleased to be able to work with DELWP to develop new regionally focused planning controls to protect and elevate the significance of some of our key waterways. The study specifically focused the Barwon, Leigh, Moorabool and Yarrowee Rivers or the Rivers of the Barwon, and the urban riverine reaches of the Maribyrnong River, Moonee Ponds Creek and Werribee River or the Waterways of the West.

Amendment VC201 was gazetted on 16 December 2022 to introduce planning controls to deliver committed short-term actions contained in the Victorian Government’s Rivers of the Barwon Action Plan and Waterways of the West Action Plan.

A series of new Significant Landscape Overlay (SLO) schedules were developed and have now been introduced for the Rivers of the Barwon and the Waterways of the West, which are applied an interim four-year basis. The SLO’s provide a consistent approach to managing landscape and riparian environs throughout these waterway corridors and offer a local layer of protection, supported by strengthened State and Regional policy content.