We’ve received the following email from a resident –
“Hello
The planning conference last evening regarding the development on Mavho Street was a joke! We had a great turnout of objectors from Mavho and surrounds. We were disappointed with the way the proceedings were moderated by the Councillor in chair Michael Lipshutz. There were other Councillors present in the room – Mayor and CrLobo. At the end of the session, the objectors left feeling rather dejected about the attitude of the moderator and the inability to have a more open session of Q & A.
We were instructed to discuss the issue just once and if more than one person wanted to reiterate a point about traffic, parking or bulk or privacy, it would not be permitted as it been heard and noted. ( Does the Council ever hear orlisten to anything?)
An important point raised was about what the council saw as medium density and the answer was that they had no idea what the definition of medium density was! Even the planning person could not clarify that one! The response was that this Urban Village Policy was formulated in 2000, way before their time and the community was consulted. We have requested to see the process under FOI. In my opinion, if there is no definition to a important part of a policy -medium density housing within the urban village – there can be no informed voting.
There was one representation from Urbis development. The lady mentioned the site was selected as it was within the urban village scheme and had no heritage listing.Their proposal was in line with the neighbourhood character, which she explained was a mix of everything! We were not allowed to ask her any questions at all! I thought the purpose of this meeting was to have an open discussion about ourconcerns and be able to ask the developer questions. There could be only 2 reasons for this. One, the councillor wanted to get home, two, he was protecting the representative from the objectors. The whole process did not seem particularly transparent.
A resident raised whether there had been an pre application planning meeting with developer and if so, the application of such a nature should have been thrown out of the door to save everyone’s time. The planning rep would not comment whether a pre app session did take place. Clearly this developer, Urbis and builder, Vujic, have a good understanding of the Councils modus operandi!
We’ll continue to lobby the councillors and work on a strategy to get more people involved in the fight against raising monstrosities in residential areas”.
Glen Eira Debates 
February 23, 2012 at 4:41 PM
Lipshutz and his gang are Newton clones doing his bidding. Would someone please instruct this weasel word master that he is not in a court room and that the tactics used at the April 4th C60 meeting are reprehensible. People have a right to say exactly what they want and its his job not only to listen but to act on their words if he is to continue to pretend that he is our representative.
These planning conferences are as the resident says a real joke. They are run by councillors who know nothing and planning officers who seem to know even less -except the party line. A councillor is reputed to have told someone that they have to watch their p’s and q’s because the stooge planning officer then writes a report on their performance and this goes straight to Newton. Maybe true or not, but I’m inclined to believe it. How else would you keep tabs on people when you’re not there.
We now have policies that are vague, useless, and fall right into developers hands. Anything goes if you don’t have clear standards and definitions – again to the advantage of developers. With Glen Eira it’s even worse. On the few occasions where there is some attempt at definition and clear clauses, the planning department either ignores them or makes recommendations that contradict their own policy. That this has gone on for so long is nothing short of scandalous.
Planning in Glen Eira needs to be chucked into the rubbish bin. That’s as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow.
February 23, 2012 at 4:55 PM
I have been through this pathetic process a number of times and have always had the same frustration with it. It was supposed to be a process for discussion between objectors and the applicant but I have never been engaged in any discussion, just had to sit and listen to the mostly unsubstantiated muck that the developers regurgitate themselves or through their highly paid ‘experts’. Council will tell you that these meetings are an ‘extra’ beyond what they are required to provide in the planning process – gee!! – we are so lucky to have to waste our time again and again with a totally useless process attended by incompetent councilors and the often incompetent staff of the GE planning department. I recall back a number of years to one planning conference where the planning officer argued that the site coverage for a particular development was 81% (an incorrect figure included on the developer’s plans) when the site coverage was clearly and absolutley 100% – even when shown her error she refused to budge from her statement – what a joke when we have to deal with such poor quality staff
February 23, 2012 at 4:57 PM
Being a new resident I went along to the community planning consultation and was chatting to the gentleman seated next to me. I was quite taken back when I asked him about planning in Glen Eira and he said to me “I can’t comment on that because they don’t do it”
Having read this post – I am beginning to suspect he was right.
February 23, 2012 at 5:11 PM
New resident Davo
Welcome to the real world of living in Glen Eira – a council with no planning that is of any consequence to the future of our municipality, where developers rule, where we get no support from council, where planning officer reports supports developers all the way and where residents get nothing! Do you have an option to move – I suggest you do because planning is nothing but infuriating and unjust and a waste of our precious time as we try to defend ourselves against inappropriate development with absolutely no interest from council
February 23, 2012 at 5:39 PM
Once again, have your revenge by voting out the conservative or fake independent councillors in October.
Cast your vote carefully do not be fooled by the call of I am an independent. 98% of the time this is warning for you to look closer. Almost all will be Liberal or Labor stooges, or other minority groups not being upfront with what they are and who they represent
Vote for candidates that declare up-front who and what they support.
No one running in Glen Eira will be an independent, they will pull the mat out from under your feet and treat you with contempt
February 23, 2012 at 9:28 PM
You show your ignorance. In this country a stooge is a candidate that is only standing to divert preferences to a preferred candidate. If a stooge gets elected something has gone terribly wrong.
February 23, 2012 at 7:05 PM
Rest assured they will not be aboe to vote in favoour of anything they promise due to various laws si if they say the opposite tio your wish list then all may be ok.
Another thing I attended the planning discussions years ago and because I know requirements of a certain number of hard courts for basketbakk in reference to oarking required (an educated guess) No one heard and there you go another park grab for parking when land coulod have been purchased for this purpose in the subdivision which took lace in the immediate area. Oh but there would have been a cost!!!!!
February 23, 2012 at 7:48 PM
This appears to be another example where the rhetoric and the reality simply do not match up. On the one hand we have a report from an actual meeting which was undoubtedly designed to simply meet the requirements that council has made public – that is, we’ve had a meeting of developer and community/objectors. Council’s website however, presents an entirely different vision of what such meetings are supposed to achieve and the “atmosphere” in which they are meant to take place. I’m quoting from the Council website -“A planning conference is an important prerequisite to an application being considered by Council. The planning conference is chaired by a Councillor and provides the opportunity for applicants, objectors and residents to make submissions in respect to planning applications that have been referred to a Council meeting for a decision.
The purpose of the planning conference is not to determine the application. Rather, the conference provides a public and open forum where discussion of the proposal can occur between the parties with a view to identifying affected resident concerns, possible means for addressing the concerns and opportunities to improve the proposal”
What occurred wasn’t “open”, there was no “discussion” and it doesn’t sound like there was any attempt to “improve the proposal”. I’d say that this is just a further example of why residents should not believe a single word that this council publishes, states, says. They cannot be trusted is the lesson to be learnt from all this.
February 23, 2012 at 7:54 PM
Akehurst pats himself on the back all the time claiming that there is great satisfaction ratings with this process of planning conferences. Okay, how about the guts to publish every single “satisifaction survey” conducted and I’m not thinking of developers – but a survey that is conducted with residents and objectors. Let’s for a change ask some decent questions like – did you think you were given enough opportunity to voice your opinion? were your questions answered to yourfull satisfaction? did you learn anything that you didn’t know before about planning? was the planning officer helpful? was the councillor in your view helpful? what ranking would you give to the way this conference was run (from 0 to 4). Then have the balls to publish every single one of these “surveys”. Then there’d be an honest appraisal of how well this council is serving its residents!
February 23, 2012 at 8:48 PM
Lipshutz limiting discussion, determining content, displaying arrogance? What a surprise!
February 23, 2012 at 9:42 PM
I don’t think that this development has much chance in success even though it may be withing the Urban Village footprint. The land is simply too small.
It will be a reduced number of units for sure. I doubt that the majotity of Councillors will support it.
February 23, 2012 at 10:42 PM
You’re missing the point. This isn’t about whether councillors end up accepting or rejecting anything. It’s about doing what you say you’re going to do – an open discussion with the hope that a compromise between developers and residents can be achieved. From the post it’s clear that this didn’t happen and I’d bet it’s not the first time that planning conferences are run this way. Lipshutz should not be allowed anywhere near these things. All he is capable of doing is trying to shut down meetings when residents haven’t had their chance to speak – as he attempted with the c60 but was howled down.
February 24, 2012 at 7:10 AM
What sort of a world lives in your head. The developer is never going to forgo one dollar. Planning is about laws. Thankfully there will be a new planning schem in place by this time next year and VCAT will not be used. No more planning conferences. Hopefully the laws will be clear, unlike the wordy crap that currently poses as a law.
February 24, 2012 at 10:18 AM
Lipshutz is a poor moderator and ran the conference like a courtroom. Natural justice was denied.
February 24, 2012 at 12:39 PM
Lipshutz is a poor moderator, and a traitor to the residents that were silly enough to faith in him. So who is he representing as a Glen Eira councillor. Oh yeah now I remember he is an independent.
February 24, 2012 at 10:58 AM
Even though Urbis sent along a “representative” it was only for show and there never was any intention for this to be anything else but a snow job. Not the first time something like this has happened – that’s when they even bother to show up. The MRC certainly don’t bother.
It would be far better if the charade was stopped and honesty prevailed. These planning conferences waste everyone’s time. They rarely if ever solve any problems or disagreements between residents and developers, but it gives council the ability to spruke their wonderful systems. Little do outsiders know the reality and what actually goes on.
It’s also worth raising the point that unless residents do all the work and inform each about the development that’s going to go up next door to them, nobody knows anything. Council’s notifications amount to maybe a handful of people and that’s it. This has come up at the community forum I attended. People just aren’t told about applications and when they find out it is invariably too late. Again, this looks good on council’s books. They can publish figures and say we have very few objections so that they look good.
February 24, 2012 at 12:06 PM
The council received at least 44 objections in writing for this Mavho development! There were 40+ attendees at the planning conference and only half a dozen were given an opportunity to speak. There was no Q & A permitted to be directed at the Urbis rep. Councillor Lipshutz was a disgrace. It was worse than being a classroom with a super strict teacher! THE ARROGANCE!!
February 24, 2012 at 6:51 PM
I’ve had my own less than satisfactory experiences of Planning Conferences, including having misinformation get propagated by a Councillor (there is a difference between 58% and 100% site coverage), and having a Councillor attempt to silence speakers who wanted to list all the ResCode standards that a development failed to comply with. There is some standard boilerplate text that planning officers include in their reports about “consideration has been given to all written objections and matters raised at the planning conference”, whether true or not.
There isn’t a definition for “medium density” that I could find. Its not in the Planning Scheme, or Activity Centre Design Guidelines, or M2030, or M@5M. The Guidelines For Higher Density Residential Development (4-storeys or bigger) Objective 1.2 caution that “local context and character might limit development potential to appropriate scale and medium density development”. This could imply that medium density development is around 3 storeys. In reality its deliberately kept a fuzzy concept to fit in with the “performance”-based approach our Dear Leaders prefer (prescriptive standards are avoided). An operational definition is whatever a developer can pursuade Council or VCAT to grant a Planning Permit for in “Housing Diversity” areas.