Bendigo continues to grow out, not up, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics population data.
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Annual population growth of 1.6 per cent – to 113,617 in 2017 – is in keeping with long-term projections, but greenfield development areas are proving consistently popular across the region.
Ascot-White Hills (5.3 per cent) Strathfieldsaye (3.5 per cent) and Eaglehawk (2.3 per cent) were the fastest growing suburbs last year.
Interestingly, central Bendigo’s population declined marginally – by 0.2 per cent – to 14,653.
City of Greater Bendigo director of strategy and growth Bernie O'Sullivan said with 1800 people entering the region each year, the city had to consider ways to manage growth.
“In the Greater Bendigo planning scheme, our residential housing strategy encourages a compact Bendigo where we try to avoid urban sprawl with a mix of greenfield and infill developments,” he said.
“Having a variety of housing types so people can have a choice of where they live, is important.”
And while that choice was evidently further out, Mr O’Sullivan said the council aimed to encourage mixed-used developments in central Bendigo which combined apartments and retail spaces.
The council has earmarked a number of sites, including the old Gillies pie factory on Garsed Street, as buildings it would like to see reborn into higher-density accommodation.
The ‘compact Greater Bendigo’ comes at a cost, according to PRD Nationwide managing director Tom Isaacs.
“Affordability in central Bendigo is really tough,” he said, referencing the apartments on Mollison Street, some of which sold for upwards of $800,000 in 2016.
“Inner city values have really jumped,” he said.
Developers and agents were considering how to create a greater availability of higher density, more affordable housing stock in the inner city, he said.
Bendigo’s first medium-density housing project, which will see 104 units created on Lansell Street, East Bendigo, was approved by the state government planning minister in November after lengthy deliberations from Bendigo council and an independent planning panel.
Nearby residents opposed the development, with most of the 100 individuals who lodged submissions to the City of Greater Bendigo in May disagreeing with the size and close proximity of the proposed lots.
Mr Isaacs said from an agents perspective, there was a hunger for the top end stock, but developers had to allow for greater density to improve affordability.
