ABSTRACT: Recent metropolitan strategies for Australian capital cities propose to curtail outward urban expansion and increase the density of existing urban areas while generally retaining low densities on new outer urban greenfield developments. The use of urban growth boundaries (UGBs) has probably been the most controversial element of these strategic plans. Central to this controversy have been competing positions of the impact of UGBs on land price and housing affordability, in particular the claim that UGB’s increase the cost of housing by limiting the supply of new land for housing or by imposing costs through bureaucratic planning procedures. The claim that UGBs raise land price has been a critical factor in influencing government decisions to increase the supply of land on the fringes of Australian cities. All Australian state governments have demonstrated sensitivity to this claim and receptivity to developer advocacy. Yet the expansion of outer urban land supply contradicts a fundamental intent of metropolitan strategies, that of growth limitation. In this paper we review the purposes of UGBs and their potential impacts on land price, drawing from an international literature. We examine evidence of land price trends and their relation to UGBs drawing from a sample of detailed land price data, using Melbourne as a case study. Within this analysis of the potential for and evidence of price impacts of the UGB, we review Melbourne’s policy framework, including the ongoing revisions to the city’s UGB. We argue that an understanding of the impacts of UGBs by Australian governments is essential when considering policy responses and that a better understanding of the potential uses of UGBs would lead to policies more consistent with the stated intent of metropolitan strategies.