Darebin resident Maria Poletti is disappointed. Credit:Meredith O'Shea How could this happen? Because the government handballed the fine print of how it would apply to local councils to sort out, but retained the ability to approve or knock back their proposals. Key interest groups - first-home buyers, downsizers, long-term residents, urban planners, small developers and real estate agents - are already sceptical about the supposed benefits of Plan Melbourne, it is emerging. How might the dwellings around you be developed? What will it mean for your amenity and streetscapes? What will it mean for the value of your property or your future choices? This week, we trawl through the inner and middle ring suburbs. We meet those celebrating the new scheme, and others warning that the champagne promises may be a little premature; that Plan Melbourne may turn out to be yet another big planning headache. AS the secretary of the Beaumaris Conservation Society, Chris Sutton has been fighting local inappropriate development for years.

He is delighted his south-eastern suburb has been given the protection of the Neighbourhood Residential Zone (NRZ) and that battles at VCAT over future developments may be over. The NRZ in Bayside restricts development to two per lot, with a mandatory height limit of two storeys. Mr Sutton would also like to see minimum lot sizes restricted to 400 square metres, as well as supporting controls to ensure future dual occupancy development respects neighbourhood character. ''But it's a start, and the zones will evolve over time.'' His local council will be hoping this resident satisfaction is replicated across much of the electorate: the City of Bayside has requested 83 per cent of its suburbs be allocated to the highest protection NRZ, and is waiting to hear if the Planning Minister has approved. The council has been working for years on a housing policy that would ensure that development would not ''destroy'' the neighbourhood character of this historic area of Melbourne. Chris Sutton, of Beaumaris, is pleased with how the suburb is being protected. Credit:Paul Jeffers ''We believe that the distinctive neighbourhoods of Bayside are worth protecting, not just for the people who live there but for all Melburnians,'' says Bayside mayor Laurence Evans.

Bayside Council has planned for another 7500 dwellings to be built in its municipality by 2031, which is 1000 more than it was originally allocated, he says, and a reasonable share of the 165,000 that is expected to be absorbed by the whole of the southern region by 2031, he argues. ''You can't really compare Bayside to huge municipalities like Cardinia and Casey that have the capacity to absorb a lot more new dwellings than we do,'' he says. Another wealthy municipality that has carved out a high proportion of its suburbs to the most protected zone is inner-eastern Boroondara, with 76 per cent of its residential land allocated to the NRZ. Mayor Coral Ross says the figure is justified because the heritage, neighbourhood character and gardens of the leafy eastern suburbs are integral to the city's reputation as the world's most liveable city. She says there are ''ample opportunities to accommodate additional population in appropriate locations without wrecking the character valued by generations''. But it's a protection that's been unequally applied. In inner-northern Darebin, resident Maria Poletti is frustrated that just 36 per cent of the municipality is to be protected under the NRZ. As a member of the Darebin Appropriate Development Association, Ms Poletti has been campaigning for years to protect the streets around her home in Preston from a rash of apartment developments. ''They've been knocking down lovely old family homes and putting up one and two-bedroom apartment developments that are completely changing the character of our suburbs.'' Ms Poletti says she had hoped that the new planning reforms would have protected her area from future development. ''The minister said he believed in protecting family homes and backyards, and said that 50 per cent of the suburbs would be protected under the new reforms.'' However, when it became clear that Glen Eira and Boroondara were going to get around 80 per cent of their suburbs protected, she began to suspect council areas such as Darebin would be getting a lot less. ''It's just been really frustrating that the rules seem to have been changed and the character of our suburbs are going to be further eroded by development.'' Among those who would love to be able to buy one of those family homes in Preston are Emily Krisenthal, an associate university lecturer, and Stuart Harris, a high school teacher. The couple are currently renting a home with a big back yard, which would easily sell for $650,000. That's a price well out of their home-buying budget. If they wanted to stay in Preston, they know a more likely option would be one of the two-bedroom units Ms Poletti is objecting to. They are looking further afield in Thomastown, Lalor and even Beechworth - although they fear what that would mean for their employment. ''It's hard thinking we'd have to think about starting a family in a place without any yard. But we really love Preston and after five years we're really starting to feel at home in our neighbourhood.''

Meanwhile in Box Hill in the City of Whitehorse, resident David Harris has been watching house after house in the streets around his 1950s weatherboard home falling to bulldozers, to be replaced by new project homes and higher density developments. It's a trend that is likely to accelerate now his area has been zoned General Residential (GRZ), which allows medium density development of up to three storeys. Mr Harris says he's not anti-development per se, but he's frustrated that the houses - among the tens of thousands built in the middle ring of suburbia to cope with the flood of new residents after World War II - have been described as ''obsolete'' by some urban planners. He suspects that is more a matter of fashion than design, quality or efficiency. They are not valued as highly as the Californian bungalows and Edwardians in other parts of the suburb, but 1950s houses ''are practical, cheap to run and homely'', Mr Harris says. ''In an age of excess, it seems those qualities are regarded as obsolete.'' What concerns Mr Harris even more is the developments replacing the modest weatherboards. ''What we have at the moment are greedy speculators squeezing the most out of what they can get. It's the same as in the 1960s when they were building flats on large blocks in places like Thornbury. Residents objected to them at the time and 50 years on you can see how right they were.'' Even those satisfied by a high level of protection afforded their streetscapes by an NRZ may have a shock in store, some experts say.

While higher-density developments of three and four storeys can be built in specific areas, especially around neighbourhood shopping centres and railway stations, in many suburbs there are now strict restrictions on what can be built in suburban streets. The development of three-per-lot villa units or townhouses in the suburban street - common in many suburbs in recent decades - is likely to be a thing of the past, and those that currently exist are likely to skyrocket in price. That's likely to affect a growing group of residents that would have liked to stay in their suburb, but not in the big family home they currently own - the downsizers. Smaller homes suitable for older people wanting to downsize are as rare as hen's teeth in municipalities like Boroondara and Bayside. In North Balwyn, a three-bedroom villa unit sold recently for $1,220,000, fought over by four bidders, all of them locals wanting to scale down, says agent Julian Tonkin of Jellis Craig. ''There's a big demand for these kinds of properties from local people wanting to downsize, but those kinds of developments in North Balwyn are really rare so competition is pretty fierce,'' he says. Spiralling land values, plus the uncertainty over whether such developments will be financially viable for developers, are likely to quash further supply, he says. An ageing population in Bayside is also increasingly desperate for such accommodation, says buyers' agent Kristen Hatt. ''There are lots of older people in Bayside who would like to be able to move out and move into a smaller dwelling. They want a unit with two bedrooms and a study, a bit of a yard and a double garage.'' But she fears that the new zones mean developers won't be able to build those kinds of developments. The mayor of Bayside says older people who want to downsize will be well catered for in the General Residential Zones around the railway stations and shopping centres in the municipality. ''They'll be able to live in apartments and townhouses around those activity centres where they'll have easy access to train stations and shops and other facilities,'' he says. However, Ms Hatt says that living in an apartment would not be their first choice for her clients: ''They don't like the idea of dealing with body corporates and lifts, of having no yard and of living so close to neighbours they don't know.''

In the south-eastern municipality of Glen Eira, where 78 per cent of the residential area has been locked up in the NRZ, Elsternwick resident Murray Mehmet, says he fears the new zoning rules will further restrict his opportunities to find suitable local accommodation when he wants to downsize. In his early 60s, he says the kinds of developments being built are not suitable. ''People like me who are living in large period homes, they want to downsize to something of good quality and with a bit of style, and in a good location. But there seems to be a real mismatch between what is being developed and what the demand is from people in the suburb. Most of it seems to be built for investors, and it's of a really low quality.'' In Glen Eira, the GRZ that allows moderate density is restricted to ribbon developments along the main arterial roads such as Kooyong and Inkerman roads. Mr Mehmet says he believes higher density development should be allowed a block or so back from those roads, that would enable multi-unit developments to be more appealing to potential downsizers. Elsternwick, with good infrastructure, transport and facilities, would be an ideal location for more European-style medium-density development, Mr Mehmet says. ''We don't want those ugly six-packs, but you can have well-designed developments that don't detract from the area, but in fact make the streetscape more interesting.'' Even in outer suburban Knox, where nearly 30 per cent of residential areas may be allocated to the NRZ, Nawzat Baroun-Agob, a registered builder, says it could become even more difficult to carry out the small-scale developments he and his wife Baydaa Kokab have been building for the past decade. ''It's really going to affect subdividing because there's demand in the established areas to have more properties like units or houses there,'' he said. ''With the Bush [Suburban zones], it was hard before, and they're going to make it much harder.''

Mr Baroun-Agob said the proposed zones by the council meant some properties were no longer able to be subdivided, while homes on larger blocks that can be would continue to increase in value. Small developers aren't the only ones to feel the brunt of the restrictions: they may even counterintuitively devalue properties, Jellis Craig agent Julian Tonkin says, especially for those that have clearly reached the end of their usable life, but that will be too expensive to redevelop as townhouses under the new rules. As developers are excluded from suburbs like Brighton and Camberwell, they will move their operations to middle-ring suburbs such as Oakleigh, Box Hill and Glen Waverley. However, the moderate developments encouraged under the GRZ could impact the value of property in those areas, says property valuer Greville Pabst, of WBP Property Group. ''Over time, the character [of those areas] will change, and when that happens, I don't think they're going to be desirable places necessarily to live in,'' he says. Planning consultant Colleen Peterson says that's not necessarily the case - if developments are built sensitively to fit in with the character of the community. ''It is entirely possible to build high quality medium density housing that is responsive to its suburban environment and to neighbourhood character.''

Planner Rob Milner believes Australia needs to look more to Europe as a guide for how to create higher density suburbs that have a strong sense ofcommunity. ''In Australia we are wedded to this idea of low density suburbs, but what that will inevitably mean is that we're going to end up with what is more like Asian style cities, with their huge apartment towers, rather than well-designed smaller-scale apartment developments throughout the suburbs.'' With Christina Zhou and Larissa Nicholson