Ministerial approvals in Melbourne since 2010 in blue, and applications in yellow. In green are buildings under construction. Credit:Source: Planning Panels Victoria But an independent panel of planning experts – which sat for eight weeks and heard submissions from scores of witnesses – recommended in their 249-page report that this "floor area uplift" plan was unworkable. The plan, the committee wrote, was "vague and may be open to misinterpretation". A misinterpretation could gift developers massive windfall gains. The planning experts also said the developer benefit lacked "equality, consistency, accountability and transparency". "There are too many opportunities for inconsistent outcomes in the 'negotiation' of agreements for public benefits," they wrote. The scheme, they told the minister, should be abandoned.

Despite this, Mr Wynne approved it on November 23, as part of laws that set limits to how high a developer can go on a site. The laws mean that, if a developer builds to the very edges of a site, a tower could rise to just 18 levels. But Melbourne's new rules still offer more generous conditions to developers than virtually any other city in the Western world. The scheme put in place by Mr Wynne, his expert advisers warned him, was "generous" and "already high as compared to international standards". And this was before extra height was granted for "public benefits". In their analysis of the unfettered development in recent years, the planning experts said the CBD had been hurt by "hyper-dense and high developments".

This was especially true in "much of Southbank and Elizabeth Street" between La Trobe Street and the Queen Victoria Market. RMIT planning academic Michael Buxton was among those to present to the panel. He said offering extra floors in return for "public benefits" was scandalous. Mr Wynne's new laws were "really not going to make any serious difference" to the flood of poor quality skyscrapers Melbourne was getting, he said. "This is a pretend planning control. It's a control that really doesn't control much at all." Professor Buxton said Mr Wynne's new laws were designed to achieve twin aims: "To pretend [Labor is] protecting Melbourne from overdevelopment, and their real agenda – to not change the current situation so developers can keep doing what they're doing." He said the Andrews government was "trying to hoodwink the public" while keeping the construction sector happy.

"It's not just massive investment firms and capital, it's also the unions. When you have got big capital and big unions working together, combined with weak government, you have got a potential disaster." The minister has met regularly with Professor Buxton since Labor came to power at the end of 2014. But, told of Professor Buxton's latest criticism of his handling of the planning portfolio, Mr Wynne said he had lost patience with the academic. "Buxton's comments, as always, are impractical and unhelpful," Mr Wynne said. "While he is searching for relevance, we are getting on with delivering planning reforms which are workable and encourage innovation, while protecting the city." While the panel of experts disagreed with the "uplift" rules, the government argues they are clear and consistent because of the publicly available guide to what public benefits must be provided in order to get more floor area.