Introduction
The City of Melbourne Mayor, Robert Doyle, is one of many who
have called for a set of regulations to control access to daylight,
minimum apartment size and other residential apartment design
standards. Many Victorians share his concern and that new
apartments in Melbourne fall below an acceptable community
standard. Some categorically do not agree; feeling worried that
such a code will give rise to "tick a box" urban design
and fearing a move towards the 2014 equivalent of the vanilla brick
"flat code" of the 1960s and 1970s.
Commonly referred to as "one of the few ways that the NSW
Planning System is superior to that of Victoria", the NSW SEPP
65 has functioned as NSW's Residential Flat Design Code for 12
years. It has imposed standards concerning apartment size, length
of corridors within apartment buildings, access to ventilation and
daylight and many others and has been implemented through the NSW
Planning System.
