Where did the population targets come from?
Where did the North Fitzroy population increase targets / forecasts come from?
The Victorian State Government’s Department of Transport and Planning (DTP) has an active initiative called “Victoria In Future” (VIF), which provides some high level growth aspirations, for the period 2021-2051 and some more detailed 5 yearly population forecasts for the periods 2021-2026, 2026-2031, 2031-2036.
This can be seen here:
The figure for Yarra that has received a lot of press coverage is that Yarra is expected to have 44,000 more dwellings (houses / apartments) by 2051, which would be an increase in dwellings (and therefore population) of 91% vs 2021 figures (the time of the last Australian Census) by 2051.
What would a 91% increase look like applied to North Fitzroy?
The last ABS census was 2021, and the population of North Fitzroy then was 12,781: https://abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/SAL20925
.. so that would equate to 24,412 in 2051.
However, we decided to focus instead on the detailed 5-yearly population estimates provided by the DTP in the VIF to 2036 as a more useful focus (much can change in 30 years!).
If we look at those figures for all of Yarra:
Year Population ( for Yarra)
2021 91521
2026 105828
2031 117928
2036 130128
.. which represents a linear progression amounting to a 41.18% increase from 2021-2036.
Applying that same increase and progression to just North Fitzroy, we get this:
Year Population (Target for North Fitzroy)
2021 12781
2026 14570
2031 16360
2036 18149
