From today’s Melbourne Bayside Weekly
BY REBECCA THISTLETON
GLEN Eira residents want a plan that covers the entire Caulfield Racecourse precinct after two proposals were approved separately.
Residents were unhappy with recent council decisions regarding the racecourse and said plans were made without adequate consultation and transparency.
The council recently released a joint statement with Melbourne Racing Club increasing public access to the middle of the racecourse. A separate decision to rezone land outside the racecourse for priority development has also been made.
Supporters of Caulfield Reserve member, Roslyn Gold, said residents were worried the council may be powerless against the Melbourne Racing Club. Ms Gold said the two plans should not be developed in isolation because they would be disconnected from the broader Caulfield area.
According to Glen Eira Council’s minutes, ‘‘council has no more control over the racecourse than it does over the average residential property’’ because parts of the racecourse are Crown land.
Ms Gold said the council should have a planning guideline that included the racecourse, Monash University’s Caulfield campus and Caulfield station to ensure decisions were made with residents in mind.
She said the existing plans were poorly advertised and residents were now realising the implications.
Glen Eira Council community relations director Paul Burke said the council was asked to consider matters relating to the Caulfield Racecourse, not the university or Caulfield station, at the recent meeting.
The plans were discussed at a public meeting of the Caulfield Racecourse Precinct Special Committee, he said.
‘‘Very few members of the public turned up, which would indicate that the level of objection was very low,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t know how much more transparent you can be (than) by dealing with it in a public meeting.’’
Glen Eira Debates 
May 23, 2011 at 10:25 AM
And so it is nothing more than spin. We all know that when you turn up for a so called ‘consultation’ organised by this council that nothing residents say is genuinely considered. But it appears if you don’t turn up in large numbers Mr Burke is totally dismissive of the community. Residents will not be listened to by this administration!
May 23, 2011 at 10:38 AM
Paul Burke, spokesperson for Glen Eira Council and who is on record as being against the Crown Land Swap (Tab Carpark) with the Booran Road/GlenEira Road Freehold land should be well aware of the lack of public understanding of the complexity of the activities between the Melbourne Racing Club and Glen Eira Council. All media are not being used to inform residents well before decisions are made on their behalf. The Glen Eira Council website is woeful in finding Strategic Planning applications, the Glen Eira Council notices in local papers and the Council newspaper not accompanied by articles expanding on the Notices to the public. The Glen Eira residents need to be informed by their elected Councillors and their staff as to the background to new strategic planning decisions i.e. Crown Land applications, Zoning change requests in strategic areas of Glen Eira etc. Glen Eira Council and staff needs to improve their communication skills.
May 23, 2011 at 10:49 AM
Over the past few months we have reported on the ‘inverse correlation’ that exists in regards to notifications to residents about planning applications. The trend is absolutely clear. When the site and issue is uncontroversial, then literally hundreds of notifications are sent out. When the issue may be contentious, then the number of notifications, and/or advertising, remains woeful. The fact that this has occurred time and time again cannot be ‘accidental’. It seems that this is another administrative policy. The result is that the community is kept in the dark until it is too late.
May 23, 2011 at 11:48 AM
Yup, 130 odd people showing up to a meeting that’s had almost no publicity, plus nearly 40 bods damning the c60 is, according to that guru of reading the public mind, equated with little objection. Oh, and the fact that it was the MRC staging initial meetings also doesn’t matter. Shows what this mob really want and how they treat residents. Getting really sick of this bullshit that comes out of Burke’s mouth.
May 23, 2011 at 9:43 PM
Actually this isn’t more Burke spin–what Paul is doing is dissembling. While “spin” these days is a perjorative term, dissembling should be much less socially acceptable. He was present at the C60 public meeting and knows the room was crowded, with many people having to stand. He’d also be aware that the Chairperson attempted to close the meeting prematurely and deny several speakers an opportunity to express their views at that meeting. And he’d know that that the Chairperson described the planning application with respect to the centre of the racecourse as having been withdrawn.
The planning application for the centre of the racecourse, as it happens, hadn’t been withdrawn, and was decided by Council without canvassing community input. The CEO even used his extraordinary power to declare key information “Confidentional”, which the less charitable of us might think to be an abuse.
Far from being irrelevant, the environment and context of a development *is* relevant to a planning application. Cr Lipschutz erred. I suspect he even knew that. The Objectives of Planning in Victoria make it pretty explicit too. If you confine yourself to simply what fits within a property’s boundaries, you’re not planning for the community, and you’re certainly not complying with the Planning & Environment Act or Glen Eira Planning Scheme.
By far and away the most serious comment Paul made is that he doesn’t know “how much more transparent you can be (than) by dealing with it in a public meeting”, with respect to the recent machinations of the suspiciously constituted Caulfield Racecourse Precinct Special Committee. I’m prepared to believe him, that he doesn’t know how to make decisions transparently. On the available evidence, councillors are also struggling, see for example the blog post here “From 14 to 7: What’s the Real Stor(e)y?”
Transparency would require that decisions are made in accordance with the all relevant legislation, that the matters required to be considered were considered, *and* that the decision comes with a rationale explaining how the decision was reached based on those considerations. Council simply fails this test. They decided it was appropriate to remove third-party appeal rights for residents affected by C60 while offering little protection of amenity, certainly with the explicit intention of providing less protection than they themselves expect others in the municipality to have. They failed to address traffic management, which *their* policy explicitly requires them to do. They have set a new benchmark for height within walking distance of single-storey dwellings. They failed to explain their lack of concern for shopping centres in Glen Eira, focusing only on Chadstone and Malvern Central, despite both residing in Stonnington. They have devoted so much energy to helping an alleged non-profit organisation make heaps of money while ignoring the many messes they’re encouraging elsewhere.
One other piece of dissembling: the “agreement” concerning the centre of the racecourse doesn’t in itself improve public access. MRC reserved the right to withdraw access if they decide public access is incompatible with horse training activities. Nor do planning permits have to be complied with, the key criterion being how much money is at stake and the power and influence of the developer. The MRC is very very powerful and has highly placed friends.
May 23, 2011 at 10:45 PM
Excuse me – “the MRC reserved the right to withdraw access if they decide public assess in incompatible with horse training activities”. So much for the Council and MRC Joint Communique re removal of training dated July 2009. So much for the MRC’s VEAC submission and submission to the infamous C60 Planning Panel since they both incluced reference to the communique. So much for this current Council and Administration,
May 23, 2011 at 10:06 PM
Esakoff is Council’s spokesperson and Newton. She was present at the April 4th meeting. Did she okay this Burke statement? Was she even asked? This is another example of how councillors allow Newton and Burke to stage manage everything. In the end, this will be fatal, since you can’t have 130 people attending a meeting and the truth not getting out. Esakoff has already signed off on her re-election results. All that’s left now is to get rid of those goons at the top. My advice to all Mayors is just keep signing every piece of garbage that’s put in front of you. That’s the road to consigning this council to oblivion.
May 23, 2011 at 11:42 PM
The MRC never sends out letters as other developers do. It simply puts little cards in the letter box with the junk mail so as residents have no idea what it all means.
If one does object then some of these letters seem to disappear as a way of eliminating objectors.
Then if we residents (130,000) are represented by Mr Montebelo, a solicitor but the club for its 8,000 members affords Senior COUNCIL AT ABOUT $10,000.00 PER DAY.Well it’s no wonder we did not score any runs , although Ms S. Ross said Mr. M WOULD BE GOOD. Another point of interest the SC came to every day and evening session, but, alas the “Bell” didn’t come out after dark!
So is it any wonder that the MRC won the development race hands down and that the
GEC specialists were happy to reach their decisions as they had not been to the sessions either but, held a kangeroo court, type of quick brush up on hearing how the residents felt, but took no notice.
There seems to be no traffic considerstions or ‘OPEN LAND” dedicated for the ten or so thousand people who will come to the 5.5 hectares daily.
Then was it deliberate Mr Burke that you reported the C60 AS PASSED AS A BUILDING WORTH THE MEASLY SUM OF $750,000 rather than $750Million?
Now councillors we are not happy with the plan to give us a “pip” in the centre of the racecourse. THE AREA REPRESENTS ABOUT 15% OF THE TOTAL AREA AND WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE ON ALL DAYS OF THE YEAR.
Don’t be hoodwinked by the $1.5milllion being spent… it is mostly for a one and a half kilometre by three metre wide
“concretised path” for the parking (1200cars) on race days and the Caravan and Camping show days and for the kilometres of black chain 2.1 metre mesh fences which are to be part of the relaxing scene in the pip of our Racecourse Reserve. This money is a fraction of the declared gross revenue of $300million by MRC in 2009. The not for profit club now owns 12 hotels and about 800 poker machines, bought with the proceeds of the cheap use of our Racecourse Reserve not to mention the concessional rate deal from our council too!!!
THE GLEN EIRA RESIDENTS DESERVE SOME OF THIS LUCK TOO!
of $300million