Southbank Precinct: Flood Risk and Development Planning

Southbank is one of Melbourne’s most significant urban precincts, supporting high‑density residential, commercial and cultural development in a central city location. Victorian state and local planning policy identifies Southbank as a key area for ongoing renewal and investment, reflecting its accessibility, employment role and global city profile.

At the same time, parts of Southbank are subject to flood risk from the Yarra River, Port Phillip Bay tidal influences and local stormwater runoff. Recent updates through Planning Scheme Amendment C384 to flood mapping – including climate change allowances – have improved understanding of these risks and highlight the need for development to respond appropriately to a complex flood environment within an already highly developed precinct. 

Melbourne Water has worked with government partners to develop a coordinated planning approach that enables growth to continue while ensuring buildings and communities are safe and resilient now and into the future. 

What is a Local Floodplain Development Plan?

A Local Floodplain Development Plan (LFDP) is a planning tool enabled under the Victoria Planning Provisions that provides a localised response to flood risk management and guides land use and development. 

The Southbank LFDP applies only to land in the Southbank precinct covered by the Land Subject to Inundation Overlay – Schedule 4 or Special Building Overlay – Schedule 4 in the Melbourne Planning Scheme. Planning applications for buildings and works within these areas must be assessed against the Southbank LFDP.

How the Southbank LFDP works 

The Southbank LFDP is designed to support development that meets the LFDPs safety and resilience requirements to proceed now, while major flood mitigation infrastructure is still being planned or investigated, and to ensure new buildings are resilient to future climate change impacts. 

Key elements of the plan include: 

A clear, coordinated and defensible framework that enables more safe development to proceed now, while appropriately managing flood risk in an evolving floodplain context, rather than deferring development until major mitigation infrastructure is delivered. 
A consistent and transparent assessment methodology through the adoption of a two‑tiered design approach: 
- the 2040 1% AEP flood event to assess safe pedestrian access and egress, reflecting an interim planning horizon; and 
- the 2100 1% AEP flood event (plus appropriate freeboard) to define the Nominal Flood Protection Level (NFPL) for buildings, aligning development outcomes with longer‑term climate change and sea level rise projections. 
Greater certainty for applicants, regulators and the community by replacing multiple, development‑specific flood assumptions with agreed precinct‑wide flood levels and performance requirements, improving decision‑making efficiency and reducing risk over time.

Planning Scheme Amendment 

To facilitate the implementation of the LFDP, the Minister for Planning has approved Amendment C490. The amendment provides that an application for a planning permit to develop land affected by LSIO4 or SBO4 (Clauses 44.04 and 44.05 of the Melbourne Planning Scheme) is required to be consistent with the LFDP.

We will continue to work closely with the Department of Transport and Planning and other government agencies to: 