The apartment boom around East Brunswick has led the local council to ask the planning minister for higher building standards. Credit:Penny Stephens Moreland Council covers areas including Brunswick, Brunswick East and Coburg. All three areas have large supplies of dormant industrial land now being used for residential development. In the financial year just finished, the council received planning applications for 2000 buildings - up from around 1500 just four years ago. The council says it desperately needs better planning laws to stop bad apartments being built. "We don't want the dog-boxes that people find it hard to live comfortably in," said mayor Samantha Ratnam, a member of the Greens who ran as a candidate in last month's federal election. "We want the outside of the buildings to have good design, and to have separations between buildings and setbacks, so people don't feel like they're living in a concrete jungle."

A major apartment development under way in Brunswick last year, now nearing completion. Credit:Penny Stephens Mr Wynne is expected to soon release his own - potentially weaker - rules on better apartment design, although a date for their implementation has not yet been set. Moreland Council has offered to include a sunset clause on its proposed rules so that the upcoming state laws would override them. But Mr Wynne has also rejected this. Another apartment project about to get under way in Brunswick East. Credit:Penny Stephens His spokeswoman said the state government would soon introduce its Better Apartments policy, to fit in with tougher laws governing the construction of skyscrapers and high-rise towers in the CBD.

She said changes to planning rules could impact the property market, affecting both developers and residents. "So we have not allowed a separate, short-term set of rules for one council." But Cr Ratnam said tougher rules were needed. The council argues the worst elements of the poorly designed apartments it was seeing included: Long, poorly lit corridors with no natural light leaving residents feeling isolated Little or no daylight in bedrooms, with some relying on "borrowed" light with no windows.

Tiny living spaces with little area to move around, making them difficult to furnish and easily cluttered. The council's apartment design code took five years to complete, and would be the first of its kind in the state if it was approved. Musician and animator Al MacInnes recently moved out of a pocket of Brunswick near Anstey railway station that is undergoing the suburb's most intense development.

Between buying in 2008 and selling last year, Mr MacInnes had seen nine apartment developments go up in the streets around his family's house. He and his partner decided to move because they did not want their children growing up "in the middle of five building sites". He said trying to influence how his neighbourhood was developed - either through Moreland Council or at the state planning tribunal - had proved extremely frustrating. "You go to Moreland, you state your case to them and sometimes they are sympathetic and if they are, the developer just takes it to VCAT, and it just agrees with the developer," he said. He said concerns to his local MP were directed to the planning minister, whose office then directed him back to his council.

"Pretty much you get fobbed off ... this terrible circular thing happens and you realise you are just powerless," he said. Nic Maclellan, the spokesman for local group the Brunswick Residents Network, said there were concerns about the quality of apartment blocks going up in the neighbourhood. He said some developments were well designed, planned and built, while others were terrible. "The quality of large apartment blocks is quite varied - some have quite good standards, while others don't meet appropriate standards for ventilation and natural light. That kind of thing has long term implications for the suburb," he said.