When Trevor Dance moved to Sunbury in 1989, the population hovered around 15,000 and the local shire's motto was "City Living, Country Style".
Today, Sunbury's population has topped 39,000 and it's not quite "the country" any more.
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Melbourne's growth comes at a cost
Melbourne is growing faster than any capital city in Australia, but at what cost?
"There were houses here back then, but nothing like the expansion we were seeing," said Mr Dance, standing on the edge of a valley owned by the Catholic Church's Salesian Society. The land will likely soon be carved up for housing.
Two precinct plans to be considered in August by the Andrews government will add an estimated 55,000 residents to Sunbury.
The hearings will result in swathes of privately owned grassland and bushland being redeveloped. As part of this, developer Villawood – which is working with the Salesians – was asked to pay $286,000 to "bring forward the facilitation of development of the land".
"This next bit takes it to a whole new level, where the city just can't cope," said Mr Dance, who is campaigning to stop Villawood's development on a part of Sunbury known as Jackson's Creek.
Villawood's Sherwood Heights development will see 400 homes built on the land. It says the development will open up the picturesque landscape, but more than 3000 people have signed an online petition demanding better protection for the area.
The expansion of Sunbury, birthplace of the Ashes and host to the 1970s Sunbury Rock Festival, is part of a wider population expansion: Victoria grew by 146,600 or 2.4 per cent in 2016, a much higher rate than the Andrews government had planned for.
If it maintained its current growth rates, Melbourne would have a population of more than 10 million by the middle of the century – well in excess of current government forecasts of 8 million.
Urban growth projections produced by researchers from RMIT's Centre for Urban Research in collaboration with the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN). For further information, contact Dr Georgia Garrard, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University.
With a relatively high birthrate and high numbers of overseas migrants, Melbourne's population has grown by about 100,000 a year for the past four years.
And, according to Mr Dance, what's happening in Sunbury to accommodate growth is a microcosm of what's going on in Melbourne: housing arrives long ahead of the infrastructure.
"They say the infrastructure is going to come, but it isn't there for what's here now, let alone what's coming," he said. "We don't just want a sea of houses from Mount Macedon back to Melbourne, but that's the way we are heading."
Documents released to him by the Victorian Planning Authority under freedom-of-information laws show Villawood was asked to pay the government the $286,000 to provide it with staff to help rezone the land, along with three other developers. In total they were asked to provide funding of $650,000 as part of having their precinct structure plans considered, the documents show.
A spokeswoman for the Victorian Planning Authority said these sorts of agreements were "a common practice that ensure developers are investing in reports required for precinct structure plans – and not just the taxpayer".
Similar agreements were in place for nearly all precinct structure plans being co-ordinated by the Victorian Planning Authority, she said. "They do not influence timelines or outcomes of background reports."