When a McDonald’s representative appeared before a local council in Melbourne on Monday night to defend its plan for a new 24-hour store in the area, he tried to reassure locals the proposal was “modest and efficient”.Despite that, Darebin city council listened to impassioned submissions – including a petition of more than 11,000 signatures – and voted 6-3 to reject the plan to open an outlet on trendy High Street in the inner-north suburb of Northcote.What comes next? As some Darebin councillors noted before voting, the rejection of the McDonald’s sets the council up for a potential costly legal confrontation should the company appeal against the decision in the Victorian civil and administrative tribunal (Vcat).McDonald’s has confirmed it intends “to pursue all available avenues to progress this site”.McDonald’s – which has more Australian restaurants than any other fast-food company apart from Subway – has been foiled before, tried again and, in many cases, succeeded.

Experts say the company has a range of strategies that it can deploy when opening a new store in the face of community opposition.How does it do it?Dr Liz Taylor, a senior lecturer in urban planning and design at Monash University who has researched fast-food planning conflicts, says McDonald’s is often prepared to play the long game.“They’re very organised, very strategic and very well-resourced,” she says.“They always have very high-paid lawyers working for them and they’re prepared to wait years.”The decision in Darebin comes after the City of Sydney’s planning tribunal voted this year to block McDonald’s from opening two new 24-hour stores, in Newtown and Redfern.

The company has confirmed it is “continuing to explore our options for a new store in Redfern”.“You can’t spend your whole life trying to stop a McDonald’s,” Taylor says.“So they probably rely on the fact that community groups can only spend so much time objecting to something and they burn out after a couple of years.”Generally speaking, Taylor says McDonald’s may be willing to compromise enough to get a store over the line, such as by making amendments to improve potential traffic problems, but in most cases “they’re not going to back away from an expansion”.A McDonald’s spokesperson said the Northcote site is appropriately zoned for commercial use and its application meets all planning requirements.

“We value community feedback and are committed to being a good neighbour and playing an active role in the local community,” the spokesperson said.Taylor says McDonald’s played a part in “moulding” planning rules to suit the fast-food industry, at least in Victoria, where the company lobbied the Kennett government in the 1990s to make favourable amendments to the metropolitan planning schemes.“In 1994, the definition that came in across the state for ‘what is a restaurant’ was specifically worded to include takeaway restaurants and so on,” Taylor says.“The amendments were prepared specifically at the request of McDonald’s Australia Limited.”Sign up: AU Breaking News emailTaylor says McDonald’s has designed and uses the planning system to its advantage.

“They’ve either directly adapted the planning codes or they know how to use them to be not treated differently and not get permit triggers and things like that,” she says.“When it suits them, they are just like any other restaurant.”For example, in Marrickville the local council says McDonald’s has paid a private certifier for a complying development certificate to turn a former Westpac branch into a new restaurant in a building it leases.The company has used a clause in the state’s planning laws intended to cut red tape that allows a “straightforward development” to be privately certified instead of relying on a development application, allowing it to bypass the local council and potential community opposition.The council anticipates McDonald’s will apply for a development application to extend trading to 24 hours a day once the store is up and running.

Since its arrival in Australia in 1971, McDonald’s has had a long history of fighting for its new stores in front of planning tribunals,Sign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksafter newsletter promotionIn one famous example, it overcame a spirited community campaign in Tecoma on Melbourne’s outskirts in 2012,Vcat ruled in favour of the new McDonald’s store despite outrage from locals, prompting some of them to stage a two-week sit-in protest at the site,But, as the ABC reported at the time, that wasn’t enough to “stop the bulldozers from moving in”,Garry Muratore, one of the Tecoma activists who fought the outlet and was part of a group who took a petition against the store to the company’s headquarters in Chicago, accuses McDonald’s of acting as though “they just feel like they’re above the law”.

Muratore says he’s shared Tecoma’s story with more than 60 organisations and advised people in similar situations from all around Australia and as far away as Italy.“Basically give them our template.We do say, ‘The caveat is, hey, we didn’t win, but we certainly hurt them,’” he says.“At the time Vcat didn’t consider public opinion but now they have to consider it.”While McDonald’s often develops sites owned by other people or entities, the company also owns a lot of its own real estate.

McDonald’s Australia Limited has spent more than $36m on property in the past five years in New South Wales alone, property records show, including blocks that already have McDonald’s stores on them.In July the company bought a block of land in Dubbo that is home to one of its restaurants for nearly $4.5m.In 2024 it bought one of its own restaurants in Wollongong for about $14m.The year before that it paid more than $5m to acquire the only McDonald’s in Broken Hill.

Prof David Nichols, an expert in urban planning history at the University of Melbourne, says the company may be moving away from the traditional franchise model in Australia.In the US the company already has a reputation of leasing buildings it owns to its restaurant franchisees, for a profit.A McDonald’s spokesperson said it has always been a franchise business and approximately 85% of its stores are owned and operated by more than 200 franchisees.“While our preference is to own the land where our restaurants are built, we have a mix of leased and owned sites that are run by local franchisees,” the spokesperson said.“We take great pride in partnering with our franchisees to serve our customers and communities, and there are no plans to change this successful model.

”Nichols says the size of McDonald’s works in its favour.“They’re bigger than anyone else,” Nichols says.“Sure, they can retreat occasionally, strategically, but maybe they can just keep their powder dry, as they say, and come back later.” He says the McDonald’s “modus operandi” seems to be taking a “domino approach” where it wants to create as wide a network as possible, with fewer gaps between outlets, which in turn makes it easier for it to open new stores.Personally, Nichols says he sympathises with people who think: “We don’t need this American crap in our community, perhaps even in our nation.

But what are you going to do? It’s here,And a lot of people really like it,”