The You Yangs Ward carries a heavier development pipeline than almost anywhere else in Greater Geelong — and much of it is being paid for by private capital, not ratepayers. That's a good thing when it's sequenced properly, and a problem when infrastructure lags. Here's where everything stands.
01 / The pipeline, at a glance
Figure 01 · Every major project, one table
Status as at September 2026.
| Project | Where | Who pays | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lara West growth area | Lara West | Private developers + $37m DCP infrastructure | Under construction |
| Parkview Lara (800 Bacchus Marsh Rd) | Lara West | Private | Stage 4 selling |
| Greater Avalon Employment Precinct PSP | Avalon | State (VPA) + private landowners | PSP in preparation |
| Avalon Airport industrial precinct | Avalon | Private (Avalon Airport / Fox) | Building — Cotton On first tenant |
| Avalon international flights | Avalon | Private | Resumed March 2026 |
| Lara Six Ways intersection | Lara | State ($16m) | Planning complete, start TBC |
| Lara caravan park (16 ha) | Lara, near Serendip | Private ($10m+) | Permit granted Dec 2025 |
| Lara Canterbury Rd rezonings (114 ha) | Lara south | Private | Amendments exhibited |
| Staughton Vale school (PA2604229) | Staughton Vale | Private | Ministerial permit under assessment |
| You Yangs battery storage | Little River | Private | Access & conditions contested |
| Lara West community hubs | Lara West / East | Council + DCP | Concept stage |
| Avalon–Lara Station bus route | Lara / Avalon | State | Announced, launching |
"Private" means the capital is coming from developers or businesses, not from council or state budgets. It doesn't mean there's no public cost — roads, drainage and schools still have to follow — but it does mean the ward is attracting investment rather than waiting for it.
02 / Lara West — the biggest thing happening
The Lara West growth area is the single largest residential development in the ward, and it's been coming for over a decade. The land, bounded by Bacchus Marsh Road, Patullos Road, Windermere Road and O'Hallorans Road, was rezoned to the Urban Growth Zone with a Precinct Structure Plan gazetted in 2013. The PSP was approved in February 2014 and guides how approximately 390 hectares of land is expected to be developed.
The plan supports a residential community of around 11,000 people in approximately 4,000 new homes, and invests $37 million into new roads, community infrastructure and sporting grounds. It also provides for an employment precinct bringing 300 new jobs, a large neighbourhood activity hub with 185 ongoing jobs, three new schools, community services, sporting facilities, parklands and walking trails.
The lead private player is Parkview Lara at 800 Bacchus Marsh Road. Their planners have secured approvals including an urban design framework for the future neighbourhood activity centre, and planning permits for 500 residential lots, a neighbourhood activity centre, regional active open space, two schools and an employment precinct. Stage 4 is currently launching with lots ranging from 238–344 sqm.
Lara West on paper
- ~4,000 homes, ~11,000 people
- Three schools, a town centre, indoor stadium
- Employment precinct at Bacchus Marsh & Patullos Roads
- $37m of developer-funded infrastructure
Sequencing
- Houses arrive faster than schools and buses
- DCP money collected stage-by-stage, so big facilities come last
- Six Ways carries the traffic before it's upgraded
- A 20-year build-out means today's buyers wait longest
03 / Avalon — the biggest thing coming
If Lara West is the ward's biggest residential story, Avalon is its biggest economic one — and it's mostly private money. The Greater Avalon Airport Employment Precinct sits on more than 3,500 ha within the Avalon Corridor, described by Regional Development Victoria as Victoria's fastest growing logistics corridor.
The Victorian Planning Authority is working with the City of Greater Geelong to prepare a Precinct Structure Plan and Development Contributions Plan for a state-significant employment precinct in Avalon — the document that will govern what gets built where. According to the state government's calculations, the plan will deliver capacity for 8,000 new jobs and support the long-term operations of Avalon Airport, which is expected to deliver capacity for 26,500 across the overall precinct.
The private investment is already flowing ahead of the PSP. Avalon Airport's own industrial precinct is under construction, with Cotton On as the first major tenant. A new $8 million freight processing centre opened in October 2025, and the airport resumed international flights from March 2026 — the first time since 2020. A new bus route between Lara Station and Avalon Airport was included in the announcement and is expected to launch in the coming months.
Figure 02 · Avalon's investment stack
| Layer | Detail | Funder |
|---|---|---|
| Airport operations & terminal | International flights resumed 2026; passenger and freight growth | Private — Avalon Airport (Linfox/Fox family) |
| Freight processing centre | $8m facility opened Oct 2025 | Private |
| Industrial precinct | Under construction; Cotton On anchor tenant | Private |
| GAEP Precinct Structure Plan | Governs 3,500 ha; 26,500 jobs capacity | State (VPA) planning; private development |
| Beach Road upgrade | Proposed — M1 to airport connection | State — advocated, not funded |
| Avalon Airport Rail Link | Long-term aspiration | State — advocated, not funded |
| Lara Station–Avalon bus | Announced; launching | State |
Notice the pattern: the private layers are moving. The public enabling infrastructure — Beach Road, rail — is still at the advocacy stage. That gap is where a local councillor's voice actually matters.
04 / Approved and waiting
Lara Six Ways. Covered in depth here. $16 million from the state; planning complete; construction date still unpublished eight years after the first community sessions.
The Lara caravan park. A genuinely local private investment. Long-time Lara residents Dean Hinch and his family, along with several other Lara locals, came together to propose it. In December 2025, Geelong councillors gave approval for a new $10 million-plus caravan park in Lara — 48 caravan and 14 tent sites, as well as 56 cabins — on a 16-hectare site within a farming zone between Serendip Sanctuary and You Yangs Regional Park.
It's worth noting how it got through. Council officers had recommended the planning committee reject the application, which it viewed as being inconsistent with the Lara structure plan which seeks to maintain farming uses and rural landscape settings north of the Lara settlement boundary. The seven-member committee unanimously supported an alternative motion. Supporters mostly highlighted the flow-on benefits to small businesses in Lara. That's councillors exercising judgement against officer advice — which is exactly what they're elected to do, provided they explain why.
05 / Awaiting a decision
Canterbury Road East rezonings, Lara. Two proposed amendments covering land totalling 114 hectares, bordered by Canterbury Road East to the north, Princes Highway to the south and east, and the Melbourne to Geelong rail corridor to the west. The land is currently in the Farming Zone, just 1.5 kilometres south of the Lara Town Centre and Lara Train Station. Both sites have been identified in the Settlement Strategy, Lara Structure Plan, Social Infrastructure Plan and G21 Regional Growth Plan as suitable for development. This is private land seeking residential rezoning — potentially the next Lara growth front after Lara West.
Staughton Vale school (PA2604229). A ministerial permit application for use and development of an education facility (primary and secondary school), display of business identification signage and removal of canopy trees. Covered in full here. Privately funded, decided by the Minister rather than council, and the subject of active community response through SVANAG.
You Yangs battery storage. Private renewable infrastructure near Little River. Covered here — the project itself is less contested than its single-road access and emergency management conditions.
06 / The bigger regional context
The ward sits next to the largest greenfield planning exercise in regional Victoria. The Northern and Western Geelong growth areas constitute the largest greenfield planning project in regional Victoria with a combined future population of approximately 110,000 new Geelong residents, spanning 5,500 hectares from Lovely Banks to Fyansford.
It's moving slowly, and contentiously. The Creamery Road PSP — the 345 hectares of rural land wedged between the Geelong-Ballan Road and the Geelong Ring Road just north of the Midland Highway — is planned for 4,500 homes. It narrowly passed at a council meeting in August 2026 after passionate debate among the councillors, including an unsuccessful attempt to defer the matter. The council also heard from a representative from Villawood Properties, the precinct's largest landholder and lead developer, who stated outright the development would not proceed under the PSP and its $823,453 per hectare infrastructure levy.
Why does that matter for the You Yangs Ward? Because it sets the template. Developer Bill Bisinella's argument is blunt: over 12 years, 31,400 housing approvals have been granted and only around 8,500 new residential lots have been created through rezonings — a net deficit of approximately 22,900 lots. If greenfield supply stalls to the south, pressure on Lara's remaining rural land — Canterbury Road, the Lara East fringe, the land toward Little River — intensifies.
Figure 03 · The infrastructure levy argument
Why the Creamery Road fight matters here.
This is the tension in one sentence: charge developers too little and ratepayers fund the infrastructure; charge too much and nothing gets built. There's no clean answer, and anyone who tells you there is hasn't read the numbers.
07 / What private investment means, honestly
Why this pipeline is a good thing
- Jobs — Avalon alone targets 26,500 across the precinct
- Housing supply in a state that's badly short of it
- Developer contributions fund infrastructure ratepayers otherwise would
- Tourism accommodation (caravan park) keeps visitor spending local
- Confidence — capital goes where it expects growth
What to watch
- Infrastructure arrives after the houses, not with them
- Farmland north of Lara is under permanent pressure
- Rural access roads (Little River, Anakie) weren't built for industrial traffic
- Officer advice gets overridden — sometimes rightly, sometimes not
- Private timelines shift with interest rates, not community need
08 / What I'd be asking
Not "should this happen" — most of it is already decided or beyond council's reach. The useful questions are about sequencing and accountability:
- Publish a ward-level infrastructure tracker. What each PSP promised, what's been delivered, what's overdue. Lara West is 12 years in — residents should be able to see the scorecard.
- Tie Six Ways to Lara West stage releases. Every stage adds traffic to an intersection that's still waiting for a start date.
- Get Beach Road on the state's funded list, not just the advocacy list. Avalon's private investment is real; the public road to it isn't.
- When councillors override officers — as on the caravan park — publish the reasons in plain language. Overriding is legitimate. Unexplained overriding erodes trust.
- Make the Canterbury Road rezonings the first Lara precinct planned with infrastructure triggers written in, not bolted on later.
Private investment is a vote of confidence in this ward. Our job is to make sure the roads, schools and drains vote the same way — on the same timeline.— David Greenwood OAM
Know of a project I've missed? Council's advertised applications register updates weekly. Email me and I'll add it.
