3. Planning the New Suburb

1. The Look of the Area in 1946
2. Demographic Change
3. Planning the New Suburb
4. The Pattern of Subdivision
5. Education and Community Facilities
6. Industry
7. Shopping Patterns
8. Roads and Perennial Roadworks
9. Reafforestation
10. Endnotes

The 1944 Town and Country Planning Bill gave local authorities power to prepare a planning scheme and powers to regulate land use. There were some local moves to do so, but generally local authorities were slow to act. In 1949 the Town and Country Planning Act gave the MMBW the job of preparing a plan for the development of the area within 15 miles radius of central Melbourne. Meanwhile an attempt was made to regulate development by issuing interim development orders. Mulgrave's first IDO was issued in 1951.

When the MMBW plan was published in 1954, what it appeared to do was restrict development in the south and east of Mulgrave. Much of the Shire was zoned rural with a minimum subdivision size of 5 acres. Given that residents had been anticipating suburbanisation since the late 1920s, this could be seen as a restriction of personal freedom. Tony Dingle notes that it was Melbourne's '...first systematic attempt to limit the individual's right to use or dispose of his personal property free of restrictions.' ^[2]

A great deal of money was involved, as the value of land zoned rural was considerably less than that of land subdivided for housing. However, locals did adjust to the idea and there was a general belief that the 'green belt' of rural zoned land marked the limits to subdivision.

As it turned out, this was not to be the case. The MMBW's planners had envisaged the land zoned 'reserved living' as a reserve for future subdivision. Over the years, progressively more rural land was rezoned reserved living and then residential until the tide of subdivision had washed down the hills to Dandenong Creek. This process was largely complete by 1976 when the first stage of Jell's Park opened as the beginning of a major green wedge.

The MMBW's plan of 1954 ran in parallel with the Shire of Mulgrave's own planning scheme of the same year. This was enforced through a series of interim development orders. Mulgrave's scheme zoned more land as industrial, particularly in the south of the shire, in Clayton. Land zoned 'residential A' on the shire's scheme was comparable to land zoned 'residential C' on the MMBW plan, except that under the council scheme, everything needed a permit, whereas detached houses did not under the MMBW scheme. Essentially, the operation of its own planning controls through the interim development orders gave Mulgrave and then Waverley Councils more influence over development than some other local authorities, including Oakleigh.

The pattern of residential development was influenced by planning controls and the phasing of the rezoning of rural land, but equally important was the availability of water and sewerage. During the 1950s houses were built faster than the MMBW could connect them, even when there were sewers to connect to. In 1957 the Silvan to Mount Waverley conduit was finished, bringing an extra 110 million gallons of water per day to the eastern suburbs.^[3] This eased water supply problems. Adequate sewerage took longer.

Partly the problem was topography. Melbourne's sewerage system was built to follow the drainage lines of the Yarra and take effluent to the Werribee sewage farm. The Southeastern Purification Plant and its associated trunk sewer for the eastern suburbs was not operational until 1975. The first section of the Dandenong Valley Trunk Sewer, which served the area draining to Dandenong Creek, was not opened unti11980. ^[4] In 1971, the MMBW took over responsibility for sewerage in the Dandenong Valley. A number of local treatment plants of varying sizes were installed, including one on Shepherd Road, which served development east of Springvale Road. Despite this, septic tanks remained a feature of houses in the area for at least another decade.

Septic tanks were an environmental problem, polluting creeks with overflow. In theory, in 1968 the Board was given power to insist that new subdivisions were sewered. In practice, sewerage and water supply, paid for by the subdivider, only became compulsory on new subdivisions after 1973.

A further important feature of the overall planning framework was open space. Parks and the 'green belt' were important in planning philosophy from at least the 1920s. As progressively more green belt was covered in houses, parks assumed greater importance as open space. The 1954 plan set a standard of 7.5 acres of park per 1000 people and set aside a number of reserves in the Oakleigh/Mulgrave area. Following revisions to the Local Government Act, effective from December 1966, Waverley was able to require 5% of all new subdivisions to be set aside as open space.

Although the MMBW set the overall planning context, it was the councils of Oakleigh and Mulgrave/Waverley, which dealt with day to day implementation. In that context, Oakleigh Council had much less freedom of movement. Much of the residential zone was built before the war and much more was subdivided but not built. Ken Johnson, for instance, in his work on Clayton, found that most post-war development took place on pre-war subdivisions of market gardens.^[5] This may explain why 1950s and 1960s housing was built on checkerboard street plans that were already old-fashioned in 1940. The residential area of Clayton was substantially built up by 1968, although building in the industrial areas to the north and east of Clayton continued for some years.

The step-wise growth of Oakleigh's area also interrupted planning. The area known as East Oakleigh or Huntingdale was transferred from Mulgrave to Oakleigh in 1948. It was found that there were factories in the area that did not conform to either the uniform building regulations or council by-laws. The area was also unsewered and the roads unmade. In 1951 there were complaints that the roads were so bad it was impossible to collect the night soil. Residents had to bury it in their back yards. Some of the houses under construction were described as 'shacks', presumably because Mulgrave's by-laws allowed for smaller houses (7.5squares until 1951) than in most areas of Oakleigh.^[6]

In 1959 Oakleigh nearly doubled in size when the Clayton district was added to the city. This included part of what had been Springvale, as well as the southwest corner of Mulgrave. The new area of housing and industry was growing rapidly at this time. The wooden working class houses were not dissimilar to those in Oakleigh, but the industry tended to be on more spacious sites.

Until 1951, Mulgrave generally allowed smaller houses than in Oakleigh but they were on bigger blocks. In 1927 the Metropolitan Town Planning Commission noted that a Mulgrave by-law provided for a minimum allotment size of 7,500 sq. feet with a minimum frontage of 55 feet.^[7]

In 1951, Mulgrave adopted the uniform building regulations and specified that all future housing should conform with column 4 of table 803 of the UBRs. (By-law 54). This was also the standard adopted from 1954 for houses in areas zoned residential under the MMBW plan. They had to have a mimum lot size of 7, 800 sq. feet and a frontage of at least 55 feet. In addition, the Shire of Mulgrave Planning Scheme specified setbacks. In residential areas the building was to be set back at least 35 feet, 25 feet on minor roads.

The combination of lot size and setbacks left plenty of room for trees, both on the street and in gardens and made a vital contribution to the character of Waverley.

Throughout the late 1920s and 1930s, Mulgrave had passed subdivision plans to the Metropolitan Town Planning Commission for approval. This and the later date of development combined to make checkerboard subdivisions very rare in Mulgrave. Courts and crescents were the norm, but even within this new fashion the central reserve on Sherwood Road, regularly planted with palm trees and with further reserves at each corner, was exceptional. The roads and trees stood alone, waiting for their houses, until after World War 2.

A much more common pattern was to build the houses first. Then individuals planted trees on their own blocks and the roads came later, sometimes much later. The pace of development after World War 2 was frantic and limited only by the availability of building materials. Despite the shortage of timber in particular, weatherboard houses went up. In October 1949 the Shire passed a by-law prohibiting weatherboard in a few areas. Only brick, stone, concrete and brick veneer walls were to be allowed on the west of Stephenson's Road north and south of Mount Waverley station and on the east of Warrigal Road, north of High Street (By-law No 54).

Nicholas built their Aspro factory on a 24 acre site on the corner of Warrigal and Waverley roads before the area was zoned residential. Generally, the 1954 plan banished industry away from the Glen Waverley rail line. Factories were to use the Gippsland line and Dandenong Road and industrial land was zoned accordingly. The north and west within a mile or so of the Glen Waverley line were to be residential and virtually all of the land east of Springvale Road was zoned agricultural. In 1954, only the Glen Waverley station was allowed to push housing east of Springvale Road, in the block to Gallaghers Road.^[8]