Towers all the go
BY THE end of this decade, Dandenong Road, which runs through several sleepy south-eastern suburbs, could be home to an abundance of apartment towers.
Carnegie is the next suburb earmarked for a project, with developers lodging plans to build 173 flats within two apartment towers, the tallest rising 11 levels.
On the site of a rundown office at 1060 Dandenong Road, between Grange and Koornang roads, the development would include a commercial podium at the lower level, facing the road. The apartment buildings will fill up the 4152-square-metre block, which backs on to the train line between Caulfield and Carnegie stations.
In the introduction of the application, lodged with the Glen Eira council two months ago, the developer cites the Melbourne 2030 planning policy and the Melbourne @ 5 Million amendment, which were annulled by the Baillieu government in 2011.
The design, it says, responds to the dense mixed-use nature of Carnegie.
Elsewhere in the area, a $500 million development including an office building, and hotel, both rising about 12 levels, is proposed for part of the Chadstone Shopping Centre, in Dandenong Road.
Closer to town, plans are also advanced to develop apartment towers on the Caulfield Racetrack, near the Caulfield station.
PS: There’s an informative new post up on GERA’s website analysing the history of council’s approach to neighbourhood protection, height limits, etc. See: http://geresidents.wordpress.com/
Glen Eira Debates 
February 18, 2012 at 10:57 AM
Traffic along Grange, Koornang, Neerim roads is already a disaster. Turning into Dandenong road from Grange Road requires the patience of a saint. 11 storeys with 173 units will make this whole area unliveable. Judging on past history our councillors will probably say that eleven storeys is too high but we’ll give the developer 8 storeys and cut the number of units down to 150. In that way they can pat themselves on the back and use the argument – again – that the developer will go to vcat and get what he wants so we can’t just refuse this application because residents will then be stuck with the 11 storeys. It’s about time that this bogus argument was revealed for what it was – the spin of a totally pro development council who doesn’t give a stuff about its residents.
February 20, 2012 at 11:56 AM
Carnegie is a traditional established residential suburb, including those areas that Glen Eira Council have targetted for unfettered development. The State Government through the detestable Melbourne 2030 policy published a map of Melbourne with the names of some suburbs on it and called them Major Activity Centres. Ever since, M2030 has been used to bludgeon residents into accepting whatever developers seek to impose on their communitities, without ever insisting on the reciprocal responsibilites listed in the document. It remains a fraud of incalculable magnitude. DPCD privately admits it knows very little about the suburbs it has nominated for “special treatment”. Worse, it has clustered a bunch of small “Major” Activity Centres” in Glen Eira, sandwiched between Principle Activity Centres, and left huge gaps in the coverage to the north.
The article suggests M2030 and M@5M have been annulled. I don’t know what the basis for that is, as both are Reference Documents in SPFF part of Planning Schemes, which includes Glen Eira Planning Scheme. Being reference documents they’re not supposed to carry the same weight as Incorporated Documents, but are merely background material to assist in the decision-making. The practical effect though is to mention them as if they support the decision VCAT wants to make: “I find strong policy support for the proposal” meaning the document talks about increasing density near train stations. *Every* proposal talks about increasing density, its the magnitude that’s in dispute, along with *all* the other factors required for a healthy community. These invariably are ignored.
The proposed towers seeks to have a private road for its own use, and to pump traffic out of Egan st into Koornang Rd, a known traffic congestion spot. Its common for vehicles to take 20 minutes to move 200m along Koornang Rd because of the level crossing. State Goverment has no money for the elimination of that level crossing. All investment is elsewhere in the State: helping out Louise Asher in Brighton, or Regional Rail Link, or Penisula Link, or eliminating level crossings on the Epping-South Morang extension.
While I don’t like relying on out-of-date policies and statistics, Council leaves me little choice. It has adopted its “Urban Village Structure Plans” from 1999 based on data from 1992, and the proposal is inconsistent with those plans. They’re not really Structure Plans though, not in the sense of the set of Practice Notes published by DPCD. Jeff Akehurst refuses to do true structure planning. Whereas Whitehorse learnt from the Mitcham Towers debacle and introduced an interim planning framework in the wake of it, there is an absence of policy covering the area containing the proposed tower. Other than don’t build residential accomodation there because its needed for industry and employment. What little policy there is/was mostly expired in 2007.
February 21, 2012 at 12:51 AM
It’s all just staggering. The Glen Eira Council is encouraging all this so as there will be more income and of course no extra services to provide. The area has already been allowed to be overdeveloped at more than twice the rate governments have recommended yet there have been NO BRAKES APPLIED. We may as welll move to Europe it will be more spread out there and may I remind all readers that we also have plans for about three fifteen storey buildings between Dandenong rOAD AND THE rAILWAY LINE, BY COURTESY OF Monash and the university’s stated intention to close Sir John Monash Drive, which they re-named for us from the more suitable Station Street a few years ago.