Greater Bendigo gazettes 206ha industrial rezoning, 3,000 jobs

The Victorian Government gazetted Amendment C296gben to the Greater Bendigo Planning Scheme on 6 October 2026, rezoning the first stage of the Bendigo Regional Employment Precinct to Industrial 1 Zone. The amendment also inserts Schedule 34 into the Development Plan Overlay and updates the scheme’s Planning Policy Framework, covering land along the Calder Alternative Highway and the Wimmera Highway south of Marong, a satellite township on Bendigo’s western edge.

Why it matters

Gazettal moves the precinct from a VPA-led structure-planning exercise to a zoned site the City of Greater Bendigo can now assess directly. Until gazettal, the land sat in an interim planning status while the Victorian Planning Authority ran the structure plan that set out road, drainage and land-use intentions for the site; the amendment converts those intentions into an enforceable zone and overlay. The council becomes the responsible authority for development plans and planning permit applications on the land, a shift from the VPA’s coordinating role during the structure-planning phase. IN1Z is the standard Industrial 1 Zone used across Victorian planning schemes for industrial uses, while DPO34 is the site-specific overlay schedule that requires a development plan to be prepared and agreed before any permit can issue; the overlay is what lets council stage subdivision, roadworks and drainage infrastructure as the precinct builds out rather than approving the whole site in one pass. The Department of Transport and Planning ran targeted consultation on the draft amendment between 1 December 2025 and 13 February 2026, drawing 26 submissions. Unresolved submissions were referred to the Victorian Planning Authority’s Projects Standing Advisory Committee for advice before the amendment was finalised and gazetted. No private developer or landowner is named in the gazetted documents or the council’s published material, and none is named here.

The numbers

At full build-out, the VPA’s published project page states the precinct delivers 206 hectares of zoned industrial land, within a broader 294-hectare area south of Marong that the council preferred after its site assessment. The VPA says the precinct will provide access to around 3,000 jobs, and the council cites about 3,000 direct jobs. The 26 submissions received during the formal consultation window were considered by the Department of Transport and Planning ahead of the Standing Advisory Committee referral that preceded gazettal.

What’s next

With IN1Z zoning and DPO34 now in force, the City of Greater Bendigo can receive development plan and planning permit applications over the precinct, with Schedule 34 governing how subdivision and infrastructure staging must proceed. In practice, the first test of the new zone will be whichever development plan is lodged first, since DPO34 requires that plan to address the staging and infrastructure conditions before any individual permit application can be assessed against it. The VPA’s and council’s published records do not disclose a construction start date, a builder, or a proponent for any stage of the site, and neither names a private developer. Future reporting will turn on the first development plan lodged under the new zone and who lodges it.

Bendigo land supply is also being tested elsewhere in the city, where a 72-lot estate fight at VCAT is running on a separate timetable.