“Master Builders supports Infrastructure Victoria’s push for the state government take the lead in organising higher-density development in Melbourne’s suburbs,” Radley de Silva, CEO of Master Builders Association of Victoria, said.

“The approvals process is far too slow and burdened with conflicting interests to be efficient in rendering smart and timely decisions on applications,” Mr de Silva said.

“Council members are beholden to the wishes of their local constituents, and do not take the broader view that communities must find ways to increase density with responsible planning and development if Victoria is to sustain its economic vigour and liveability,” he said.

“Without a centralised decision-making body to take planning decisions out of the hands of councils, our rapid population increase will only worsen the problem of housing affordability and the costs associated with building.

“This is an opportunity to fix a flawed system—one that enables councils to create separate and inconsistent planning schemes, and that has been proven not to work,” Mr de Silva said.

“Not every project needs the same level of scrutiny in the review process,” Mr de Silva said. “We support broadening the number of applications that can be processed through the VicSmart ‘as-of-right’ process to include small secondary dwellings for use or rental by parties unrelated to the main dwelling, dual occupancy, low‐rise townhouses, apartments and other forms of medium-to-high- density housing.”

“It becomes more urgent every day to provide not just homes, but aged care facilities, schools and transportation infrastructure we will need to accommodate the estimated eight million residents by 2051,” Mr de Silva said.