Keilor North rezoning plan sparks developer interest in overlooked pocket

The paperwork is moving. Keilor North, wedged between the Calder Freeway corridor and the established residential streets off Holbrook Road, is the subject of a rezoning amendment that, if gazetted, would convert roughly 14 hectares of General Residential Zone 1 and remnant light industrial land into a mixed-use corridor capable of supporting medium-density housing, ground-floor retail and community facilities. The Brimbank City Council planning committee reviewed the draft amendment in late June, with a final decision window closing in October 2026.

For most of the past decade, Keilor North barely rated a mention at Saturday auction clearance conversations. It sat in the shadow of better-marketed neighbours, Keilor East drawing the owner-occupier crowd, Keilor Downs pulling first-home buyers with its shopping centre anchoring tenant confidence. Keilor North kept its head down: affordable, quiet, and structurally undervalued. That dynamic is now shifting, and the rezoning is only part of the story.

What the Amendment Actually Means on the Ground

The specific precinct under review runs along a 1.2-kilometre stretch north of Old Calder Highway, taking in several lots between Taylors Road and the service road running parallel to the freeway. Under the current zoning, a developer cannot build above two storeys on most affected parcels without a planning permit that would almost certainly be refused. Under the proposed Mixed Use Zone classification, four storeys becomes the default threshold, with six possible under an approved development plan.

The Keilor Community Hub on Douro Road, a council-operated facility hosting the Keilor Neighbourhood House and a range of social services, sits within 600 metres of the amendment boundary. The Hub's catchment expansion, funded under the 2024-25 Brimbank Council Community Infrastructure Plan, anticipated precisely this kind of residential densification in its long-range planning documents. The Keilor Village shopping strip on Old Calder Highway, currently dominated by single-storey convenience retail, would sit at the geographic heart of any future mixed-use development.

Registered land values tell the clearest story. Comparable lots zoned General Residential 1 in Keilor North were trading at between $680,000 and $740,000 per 600-square-metre block in the March 2026 quarter, according to data from the Brimbank rate assessment rolls. A rezoning to mixed-use typically reprices development-potential sites at a 35 to 45 per cent premium relative to residential base value, meaning the same lot could credibly list above $1 million post-gazettal. Investors who bought in the past 18 months at pre-rezoning prices are sitting on paper gains that have not yet shown up in any headline index.

The Risk Side of the Ledger

Not every rezoning proceeds cleanly. Keilor North's amendment has attracted a small but organised cluster of objectors centred around the Keilor District Progress Association, whose members have raised traffic management concerns around the Taylors Road and Old Calder Highway intersection, an already-congested crossing that VicRoads flagged in its 2023 Calder Freeway Interchange Study as operating at 94 per cent of theoretical capacity during peak hours. If the council requires a traffic impact study before proceeding, the timeline could slip well past October.

Infrastructure sequencing matters too. The local potable water network servicing the amendment area runs through ageing mains that Greater Western Water acknowledged in its 2025 infrastructure audit as requiring staged upgrading before sustained medium-density load could be supported. That upgrade is funded but not yet contracted.

Buyers looking at Keilor North right now should pull the planning amendment documents directly from the Brimbank City Council website, the reference is Amendment C242brim, and check whether any specific lot they are considering falls within the core amendment boundary or the broader investigation area, which carries less certainty. An independent town planning review costs between $1,500 and $3,000 and is worth every cent before committing on a site whose value proposition rests almost entirely on a regulatory outcome that is not yet locked in. The fundamentals here are compelling. The calendar, though, is still doing its work.

This article is general information only and is not personal financial or investment advice. Consider your own circumstances and seek licensed professional advice before making financial decisions.