Activity Centre Planning Strategy

Shopping precincts and industrial areas play an important part in shaping our community. They are community focal points, attracting people for a variety of reasons, including to shop, work, study, and live. We call these areas activity centres.

It's important we make sure our activity centres stay up-to-date with community needs and reflect best practice planning. That's why we've created our Activity Centre Planning Strategy, which guides the future planning, coordination, and development standards of our activity centres, and replaces our 2008 Local Commercial Strategy.

After extensive community consultation, we've taken what you told us was important and incorporated it into our Activity Centre Planning Strategy, which is also informed by a review of the current strategic planning framework, future economic trends, and analysis of best practice activity centre planning. It contains actions relating to zoning, movement networks, streetscapes, open spaces, and public art in and around activity centres.

The Strategy and Actions for each activity centre are based around the following themes:

  • Centre Context

    The context of the centre, such as its immediate surroundings or the role it plays in our community, informs the land uses and development standards of the centre and the surrounding area.

  • Movement

    Movement analyses the existing movement network - such as walking, cycling, and public transport - within and surrounding each activity centre, and details how to improve it.

  • Place

    Place focuses on the potential to improve the overall attractiveness of an activity centre through improvements to streetscapes, open spaces, meeting places, and public art.

Activity Centre Planning Strategy Document Suite

Council has endorsed the final Strategy.

The Activity Centre Planning Strategy is large in scope, covering 18 existing and three future activity centres. For simplification, the Strategy is broken up into two parts:

  • Part One: An overarching, holistic look at the strategy, including background information, outcomes from community consultation, and its broad vision, objectives and strategies.
  • Part Two: An in-depth analysis of each activity centre, including actions and an implementation table.

We've further broken up Part Two, providing a single Activity Centre Planning Strategy and Action document for each activity centre.

Strategy documents for each centre are provided in the tabs below, organised around where they sit in the State Planning Policy 4.2 activity centre hierarchy.

Secondary Centres are multipurpose centres that contain a diversity of uses, and provide important economic and community services. They typically include department stores, supermarkets, speciality shops, offices, professional and service-based businessed. Belmont Town Centre, which includes Belmont Forum and Reading Cinemas, is the only Secondary Centre in the City of Belmont.

Belmont Town Centre is located within the suburb of Cloverdale, and is bound by Abernethy Road, Fulham Street, Knutsford Avenue and Wright Street.

The Centre has been operating as a major commercial hub for approximately 50 years and is a focal point of the City of Belmont. The Centre is characterised by one main building which contains a range of businesses internally and a number of smaller buildings containing numerous tenancies. Immediately surrounding the Belmont Town Centre there are a range of businesses and residential properties that assist in supporting the Centre’s function and operation.

The Belmont Town Centre has steadily grown over time and in a Retail Needs Assessment prepared for the City, it has been identified that the Centre will be required to more than double in size by 2036. The Town Centre presents opportunities to be a vibrant regional hub for the City of Belmont community, providing a range of retail and entertainment offerings in addition to containing housing options.

Download the Activity Centre Planning Strategy for Belmont Town Centre.