Item 9.4 – Regent St. Magee/Forge (Motion: refuse amended plans)
Magee never ‘opposes anything to try and be popular’…’we impose guidelines to keep streets such as this intact…I would like to commend the developer and the applicant …but at the end of the day it’s just in the wrong place’. ‘We as a council assess every planning application on its own merits….’.’If I bought a house opposite a school I would expect (traffic)…I do feel for the applicant. I do wish them the best of luck in finding an appropriate site, but unfortunately this is not an appropriate site…It’s up to us at Council to protect our city’.
Forge supported Magee but also mentioned ‘a dangerous situation where we’ve got people coming’ in and out of school. Remarked about a fatal accident of 20 years ago where a child was killed and’we can’t afford these changes’ where one child injured is one too many. To the developer – ‘you have to make your application safe’. Cited one objector’s comments that this is more suitable for aged care facility since it is a large area for development and wouldn’t have the same amount of traffic.
Lobo started off by stating that it’s a year since this application first came before Council and that ‘King Kong is now back on the Empire State Building’. ‘As councillors we need to embrace our residents…we have received …….over 100 objections’. Called the proposal ‘a monstrosity’.
Pilling claimed that the ‘opposition is over the top’ and that ‘there is always two sides to an argument. Opposition is ‘over indulgent’.
Hyams pointed out to gallery that council wasn’t making a decision on the application tonight, but merely on the potential amended plans. If council rejects, then officers will be opposing this at VCAT; if council accepts then officers will be supporting it at VCAT. ‘I would also like to commend the applicant for making this’ more acceptable…..can’t see how this application complies with our policy….Now I prefer not to oppose a development which is primarily community minded…like this one…but given our planning policy….I don’t think we have any choice except to oppose this.’
Penhalluriack began by stating that this ‘is a difficult one’; that he agreed with Hyams that this is not the right location. Penhalluriack then outlined the many discussions he’d had with objectors, cars driving in and out of the carpark, the ‘convoluted appeals to my decency, appeals for sympathy, demands’ for rejection..’the whole gamut’. ‘The most significant concern …is the bulk of the building, the noise and disruption factors. Loss of character of the street…..’The opposition to this proposal is overwhelming..but of course this has to be balanced against common sense and what the law requires…..You can’t speak tonight so I actually wrote down’ what objectors had written in emails’. Penhalluriack then cited from these emails: ‘overdevelopment of the land’, ‘idiotic decision’ ‘directly impacts the amenity of the area’…. One letter cited the ‘incompetence of council staff’. Penhalluriack stated: ‘Now that sort of comment …does not endear me to vote for this motion….’.
Lipshutz started off by repeating Penhalluriack’s comment that councillors ‘have an obligation to listen to their residents’…’We are the representatives of the residents and often …I’ve got to say that I don’t get intimidated….I actually thought it was disgusting hearing ‘No School in Regent St’, it’s intimidatory and I cannot be intimidated…I also received many, many emails…totally abusive, some of them racist…I can be appealed to by cogent and reasoned arguments….and when you speak to me in a proper way I can be moved …to send emails that are threatening, abusive and racist I think is absolutely appalling’. ‘That is not the way to go about it’ and I almost changed my vote! ‘But I won’t because ultimately I have to do what is right’
Esakoff summed up saying that she was proud that Glen Eira supported good education ‘whenever and however it comes’ and that a year ago she rejected the application and still believes that ‘it is not a good fit’. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything but Cr Lipshutz has opened the door and …my disappointment, the absolute disgust at some of the emails and comments that I received …there are some people….who ought to be ashamed …at some of the things that were written’.
Magee is ‘trying to be incredibly fair with the applicant as well as the residents’… ‘Cr. Lobo I think was offensive …has certainly not come to Regent St. like King Kong. I think that is wrong…I certainly don’t appreciate what was said and I offer my apologies to the applicant…If we don’t listen we can’t learn, and if we can’t learn we can’t improve’. (Carried unanimously)
Item 9.9; DELEGATIONS – Hyams/Pilling (Motion to accept)
Hyams – delegations is ‘just housekeeping’ due to changes in legislation. He was ‘comfortable’ with recommendations.
Penhalluriack then stated: ‘Just a comment …these delegations concern me …they grant a lot of power to the officers’ especially in regards to the DPC (delegated planning committee)…’there seems to be a lot of vagueness about’ this committee…sometimes …’it seems to be quite large decisions’ that this committee makes. Akehurst responded: ‘can’t supply a scientific answer…..delegations have basically been in place since 1995…involves trust between delegates and councillor group….we give to council those matters that we believe council needs to make a decision on…some councils have a more definite view..objections…we don’t do that….our power of delegation is superior …rather than some numerical act…if council wants to see more applications I can give them …1100 applications per year…..ask for more staff’. Penhalluriack responded by saying that his question was not about trusting officers
Lipshutz contended ‘that some councils spend up to 1am in the morning’ looking at planning issues, and ‘we won’t do that, nor should we’!!!!!!!!!!..’these delegations have been in for some years, they work well…overall I think this is appropriate’.
Hyams – ‘there are various acts in parliament which require council to carry out various functions ‘. Hyams then gave the example of even where there are no objections, certain applications such as a water tank on council land still goes to a full council. (unanimous decision).
Public Questions
Mr Varvodic submitted 27 public questions – all of which were taken on notice and not read out. Lipshutz read out a prepared statement regarding his ‘right of reply’ at the December 14th Council meeting and his statement ‘when did you last beat your wife’. Lipshutz stated in part: ‘I want to clarify the response that I had made to Mr. Varvodic…that was meant to be rhetorical….I unreservedly apologise for any misunderstanding….my comment was strictly rhetorical….”
Glen Eira Debates 
February 2, 2011 at 2:46 PM
What a joke lipshits is. When the Regent St. application was first up he voted for it. Now that amended plans are in, and supposedly improved – what does this man do – vote against it!!!! Yet he still has the gall to say that he always does what’s right. Come off it liphits. You are as phoney as the rest.
Even the Jewish News praised you at the time –
Glen Eira Jewish councillors (bar one) vote against Jewish school
AJN Watch’s reporter at the Glen Eira council meeting this week was extremely disappointed seeing that despite council officials positive recommendations, the (Jewish) mayor and most (including Jewish) councillors opposing the application for Yesodei Hatorah College to build in Regent Street, Elsternwick.
The only councillors who voted in favour were the always-reliable communal stalwart Michael Lipschutz and newcomer Frank Penhalluriack. The Jewish community should remember this at the next Council elections.
What is the jewish community going to say now?
February 2, 2011 at 2:52 PM
Forgot to add that if people want to read all the comments from that time then go to http://ajnwatch.blogspot.com/2010/02/yesodei-application-fails-at-council.html
February 2, 2011 at 4:56 PM
How far in the application process would a permit for a Mosque have gone?
February 2, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Dear Sean,
everyone has the right to put in an application. Everyone has the right to appeal to VCAT if council refuses that application, or residents have the right of appeal if council accepts the application. We can only hope that every application is treated equally and fairly by our 9 elected representatives and the countless unelected bureaucrats.
February 2, 2011 at 7:25 PM
yeah anyone has the right to believe anything you like if you believe that jews, christians, moslems are treated the same way by this council as say “Calathumpian, also spelt “callothumpian”, “carathumpian” and “calisthumpian”, is used in a non-judgmental way to describe a religion or philosophy when it is relatively original, held by a small group, personally assembled, or not institutionalized. In addition it is sometimes used as a non-specific example of a religious or political persuasion. For instance “just because a Caluthumpian believes ‘x’, does not make it right”. does not that sound like lipshutz?
Calasthumpian (possibly apocryphal origin from Latin “calathus” = rubbish bin) is a description applied, sometimes pejoratively, to individuals who believe things that mainstream believers (at that time and place) tend to regard as rubbish.
A corollary is that Carrothumpian may be spelt however the user wishes.”
yeah, we are all treated like “calathumpian rubbish bins” by this council
February 2, 2011 at 10:56 PM
The full blown self importance of Lipshutz is quite frankly, unbelievable. If all these comments attributed to him are accurate, then I as a resident simply do not want a bar of this man. I find his entire approach to the community reprehensible. The camouflaged apology to Mr. Varvodic is actually not an apology. It is a legal manoeuvre that remains self serving and hypocritical. The implied error is laid at the feet of Mr. Varvodic; it is his ‘misunderstanding’ which is the root cause – not the tirade of Lipshutz. Nor does he mention, or apologise, for the other slurs attributed to him at the previous council meeting. I seem to remember something about ‘living under a rock’. Only snakes and lizards do that, don’t they?
Even more reprehensible is the attack on objectors for being “racist’. It is now becoming obvious that this term is bandied about, not for its basis in fact, but for the political mileage it might garner. I would simply like to know, how a man of principle can vote for an application 12 months ago, and when the same applicants submit an improved application, Lipshutz can vote against it. Where is the consistency, much less principles? I’m particularly irked by the grandstanding which always insists that the ‘right’ thing is being done – especially when ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ is determined exclusively by Lipshutz himself.
Having said all of the above, I don’t believe that councillors should be targets for intimidation, and abuse. However, it also needs to be pointed out, that when residents feel that they have no say in matters, when they are made to feel entirely redundant in the alleged democratic process, then they have recourse to the only way possible – chants, and placards. If Lipshutz was a man in tune with his community, then he would be able to realise that such actions are not those of the lunatic fringe, but the actions of people who have had enough. The truth of the matter is, that what Lipshutz finds ‘disgusting’ is democracy at work – and how dare he deny residents the opportunity to express those views. If anyone should be ashamed, it is Lipshutz and his cronies.
February 3, 2011 at 6:15 PM
Well pointed out Fed Up.
So lets get this straight as this is our closet spiritual leader at work here, or Master Puppeteer as some kindly put it.
Lipshutz votes Yes to a planning application, and then all of a sudden does a turn coat and votes No to a similar application, Why?
Lipshutz lets fly with a disgusting tirade at Mr Varvodic for asking questions that he obviously doesn’t like. He then issues a token fake apology which nobody believes anyhow, and then has the cheek to claim that people are making offensive comments about him?
One word HYPOCRITE.
February 3, 2011 at 11:34 PM
I have just read the Lipshutz statement in the minutes. Absolutely appalling. And it reflects badly on the Mayor that she let him get away with it.
One of the problems with public questions is that there are plenty of conditions placed on what sort of questions can be asked and how they should be put but virtually none about how they are responded to – no requirement to actually answer the questions directly or anything about showing some respect for the questioner.
Regarding the Regent Street school, the behaviour of both Lipshutz and Penhalluriack demands explanation. Previously, both voted in favour of the development, yet then voted against it when it had been amended to make it more acceptable (height, setbacks, parking, etc).
And they had the gall to suggest that the behaviour of objectors nearly caused them to change their minds. Well, guess what guys – you did change your mind, without any apparent explanation. Lipshutz in particular loves to talk about making the “right” decision (in fact, there’s nothing he likes better than talking about his self-professed integrity), so how does he figure he made the “right decision” on both occasions?
February 7, 2011 at 5:17 PM
Great speech Cr. Lobo on the development in Regent as well as on Hill streets. It was pathetic to hear the concluding statement from Magee in which he points out that Cr. Lobo was offensive to the developers. Does Magee understand English or does he need to go back to one of the East Bentleigh schools?