This is a contentious post because it asks the most basic questions – how should a council support its residents? What is the best way for a council to ensure that it is protecting the amenity of its residents? How much money should be expended on defending council planning decisions and supporting resident objectors? Is it better for example, to spend half a million dollars on erecting concrete plinth curbing in Caulfield Park, or using this money for expert testimony at VCAT? How much money should a council spend in defending its decisions at VCAT?
Glen Eira spends practically zilch on outside ‘experts’ – except when it suits their agendas! We’ve taken the time to go through various councils’ VCAT appearances and to note how often they employ outside expertise. We draw no conclusions as to outcomes. We’ve simply gone through sequentially 20 decisions for each of Glen Eira, Kingston, and Bayside and ask readers to once again compare how Glen Eira operates, in stark contrast to these other councils. They do not appear to have too many qualms in hiring experts to defend their cases. They spend rate-payers’ money trying to defend council decisions and supporting residents. Glen Eira cannot claim the same.
Below are tables for each council. Please note that the 2 times that Glen Eira hired ‘outsiders’, these cases involved the MRC where council’s lawyer practically did all the work for the MRC, and its ‘valuer’ when a resident objected to increased valuation on their property. All the rest of the time council officers have presented the case. It then becomes highly questionable whether these same officers, who possibly recommended the permits or conditions, can actually then turn around and argue against the original recommendation!
|
VCAT HEARING |
COUNCIL REPRESENTATION |
| Pascoe v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| Younes v Glen Eira | Officer |
| Baxas v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| Imperium Design v Glen Eira C | Officer |
| Furman Construction (Vic) Pty Ltd v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| Fredman Malina Planning v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| Chipp v Glen Eira CC (Correction) | Officer |
| Sharp v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| Healy & Anor v Glen Eira CC & Anor | Mr I Pridgeon, solicitor, Russell Kennedy |
| Mokro Pty Ltd v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| Arch 10 Pty Ltd v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| Blue Wolf Development Group Pty Ltd v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| Glenhawk Pty Ltd v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| Cullity v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| Delanex Pty Ltd v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| Popov v Glen Eira CC & Ors | Officer |
| Elfman v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| Stanjkiewicz v Glen Eira CC & Ors | Officer |
| Glavinic v Glen Eira CC | Mr John Kennedy, of Patel Dore Valuers Pty Ltd appeared for the respondent municipality. (Note: this was about a resident contesting Council’s rate valuations!)
|
| Gryngras v Glen Eira CC & Ors | Officer |
| Homes v Glen EiraCC | Officer |
| B Central Development Group v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
| McCabe Architects Pty Ltd v Glen Eira CC | Officer |
BAYSIDE
KINGSTON
| APPEAL | REPRESENTATION |
| Pace Development Group Pty Ltd v Kingston CC [2012] VCAT 831 | Mr Cameron Gentle, town planner of Hansen Partnership Pty Ltd. |
| Takla & Anor v Kingston CC [2012] VCAT 820 | Officer |
| Rodlink Pty Ltd v Kingston CC [2012] VCAT 694 | Mr Redmond McNamara, town planner of Hansen Partnership Pty Ltd.
Evidence was called from Mr Chris Coath, traffic engineer of GTA Consultants
|
| Transpacific Waste Management Pty Ltd v Kingston CC & Ors | Mr Ragu Appudurai, Solicitor, and Mr Stefan Fiedler, Solicitor, of Russell Kennedy.
They called the following witness: Robert Henry Amaral, Geotechnical Engineer |
| Fastnet Consulting Pty Ltd v Kingston CC (Correction) | Ms. Maggie Ene, Town Planning Consultant, Brown & Tomkinson
|
| Frederick Nudel & Associates v Kingston CC [2012] VCAT 611 | Officer
|
| Tsganas v Kingston CC & Ors [2012] VCAT 602 | Mr R McNamara, Planning Consultant, Hansen Partnership |
| Camelia Woods Pty Ltd v Kingston CC [2012] VCAT 551 | Mr Cameron Gentle of Hansen Consultants.
|
| Guastella v Kingston CC (Correction) [2009] VCAT 2015 | Mr Peter Soding (planner) of Tixxis Pty Ltd
|
| Di Cosmo v Kingston CC [2012] VCAT 93 | Mr Cameron Gentle, town planner of Hansen Partnership
|
| ARPC Consultants Pty Ltd V Kingston CC & Ors | Mr Gary Wissenden, Town Planner of Hansen Partnership
|
| Pace Development Group v Kingston CC [2012] VCAT 38 | Mr Stuart Morris QC, barrister, assisted by Mr J Dabscheck, solicitor, Maddocks
He called the following witnesses:
|
| Boxtel Homes Pty Ltd v Kingston CC [2012] VCAT 3 | Mr G Wissenden, Town Planner of Hansen Partnership.
|
| Boxtel Homes v Kingston CC [2011] VCAT 2208 | Mr Gary Wissenden, Town Planner of Hansen Partnership Pty Ltd.
|
| Rushworth & Ors v Kingston | Officer |
| Taylors Development v Kingston | Officer |
| PMC Developments Pty Ltd v Kingston | Ms Fiona Slechten, planning consultant of Brown & Tomkinson Pty Ltd. |
| Bjbac Pty Ltd v Kingston | Mr Cameron Gentle, town planner, Hansen Partnership Pty Ltd
|
| Murray v Kingston | Mr Peter Soding, Town Planner of Tixxis Pty Ltd.
|
| Salemi v Kingston | Mr Redmond McNamara of Hansen Partnership |
Glen Eira Debates 
July 19, 2012 at 2:25 PM
Fair enough that you shouldn’t throw good money out after bad, but the differences between these councils is amazing. They’ve all got budgets so it must all go back to priorities and culture of the place. Sounds like Bayside and Kingston care a lot more about planning and what happens than does Glen Eira. The upshot is that if you keep getting trounced by vcat because you haven’t prepared a good enough case or the planning scheme is inadequate then they become the fall guy all the time.
July 19, 2012 at 4:12 PM
No – I can tell you from personal knowledge that Kingston employs so many consultants to present at VCAT for 2 main reasons a. because they have a policy of not letting officers represent Council when the Councillors have overturned an officer recommendation and b. the Council officers simply do not have the time to prepare and present at VCAT. In fact, it is, more often than not better when an officer defends their decision at VCAT because it makes them a better planner as they have to provide justification for the decisions they make. Thus they end up making better decisions in the first place. So I congratulate Glen Eira for encouraging their officers to defend their decisions. Just because a lawyer is representing Council at VCAT doesn’t mean that they are more qualified to represent Council at VCAT. They are lawyers, not planners and do not regularly work within the statutory framework except when appearing at VCAT. Their view is not always based on good planning but rather defending a position that they have been engaged to defend. For this reason they are not always successful, but still end up costing ratepayers significantly more than if the planning officer was arguing the case.
I also know that Bayside engage lawyers so much because the Councillors think that if they engage lawyers then the residents will think that the lawyers will do a better job and as I said above, that is not always the case. Also, like Kingston, Bayside Councillors don’t like officers representing Council when the Councillors have overturned an officer recommendation. Bayside Councillors frequently overturn officer recommendationis, not because the recommendation is flawed, but for their own political reasons. You will find that Bayside’s success record at VCAT is appalling. The reason for this is that so many planning decisions are made for political reasons and are not based on good planning.
July 19, 2012 at 6:54 PM
Can’t believe what you’ve written. Let’s get incompetent officers to do the job so that they can “learn” to do the job better and make “better decisions”. You’ve gotta be kidding! So when they stuff up put it all down to a “learning experience” and to hell with the impact it will have on residents and community. You gotta think that when people are employed they already know what they should be doing and if they don’t then they shouldn’t be fronting up at vcat and not working on planning applications full stop. I don’t want amateurs. I want top notch professionals which Glen Eira according to your argument aint got!
July 19, 2012 at 5:28 PM
Dear Tucker,
your argument might have some merit if it were not for the fact that Kingston’s ‘experts’ were mainly planners! Secondly, most of the Glen Eira decisions if you care to check them were not the result of councillors overturning officer recommendations, but decisions made via ‘Manager” or DPC. Few were by council resolution!
July 19, 2012 at 10:01 PM
Kicked a bit of an own goal there Glen Eira.
Tucker makes some good points – and seems to be well-informed.
Why waste money on hiring planners when you’ve got plenty working for council? I thought you were opposed to spending money on consultants.
Surely if you are going to be represented by a planner, you should be using the ones who have worked on the application.
Your admission that most Glen Eira appeals were against the officers’ decisions (not council decisions) actually supports the idea that the officers should be the ones defending the decision before VCAT.
Do you have any information about which approach has been more successful – council planners, hired consultants or lawyers? Surely that is the real test. And a comparison of cost would also be valuable – I’d imagine the cost of Bayside’s lawyers would be huge. Can you give us a cost estimate – you seem to be very good at estimating legal expenses.
July 19, 2012 at 7:13 PM
The thought that jumps into my head reading these comments is that I have absolutely no idea who managers are or who makes up the dpc. We’re not living in Russia with the faceless men. These facts should be published and made public. It’s one way of ensuring accountability and if Joe Blow and Fred Smith and John Brown sit on the dpc all the time and their records at vcat are overturned all the time then that’s one way of assessing how good they are at their jobs. This way the secrecy protects those who aren’t doing their jobs properly.
July 19, 2012 at 10:34 PM
Strange that you shoud mention the nameless managers and the unknown make up of the Delegated Planning Committee. This blog is often criticised for nameless-ness yet this blog is not making any decisions – only reporting the events.
July 19, 2012 at 10:53 PM
Council website says “The DPC is comprised of three Council officers from Council’s City Development Directorate, and chaired by either the Director of City Development or the Manager of Town Planning.” Also according to the annual report these people are Jeff Akehurst and Ron Torres.
But presumably the other members of DPC are not always the same officers.
And you will find the name of the officer representing council at VCAT on the VCAT website listings.
Not sure how much secrecy going on there.
July 19, 2012 at 11:27 PM
You’re supporting my case Glen Huntly. No names are given and I’d bet that 99% of residents, even those who show up to these planning conferences have no idea who the officers are. According to you the names are in the annual report. Terrific – so people have to hunt through completely different sets of papers and documents in order to put a name to somebody. That’s not transparency. That’s making it as hard as possible to find out anything about who makes decisions.
If you look at other council minutes too they always list the officers present. Glen Eira doesn’t. Plenty of reports in the minutes or agendas also don’t have names that go with them. Rule by no-body someone said ages ago. That’s Glen Eira in a nutshell. No names, no responsibility, no-one to blame and no accountability. Except for Newton. It all should land in his lap.
July 19, 2012 at 10:34 PM
Smart Aleck your just a hater. You offer nothing but an immense dislike, even hatred of Council Officers.Ask around and you will soon realise the respect the Industry has for Mr Akehurst and his excellent team of able and commited Officers.
July 20, 2012 at 8:22 AM
Akehurst- isn’t his son a glen eira property developer? Bit of a conflict don’t you think?
MODERATORS: We have no knowledge as to whether Mr Akehurst’s son has developed property in Glen Eira. However, we did locate the following Leader article which we’ve copied intact.
No room for niceties in Windsor
Real Estate
22 Apr 09 @ 06:00am by Ainsleigh Sheridan
Peter Game objects to a neighbour’s building being made “even more massive than it already is”.
A YOUNG developer has rejected his Windsor neighbours’ accusation he’s exploiting a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruling using his father’s extensive planning knowledge as a council officer.
Raef Akehurst, son of Glen Eira Council city development director Jeff Akehurst, sought approval to build a three-storey dwelling in Williams Rd in late 2006.
Neighbours Peter and Elizabeth Game were among 37 objectors to the plan, saying the house was out of scale with the streetscape (Stonnington Leader, December 12, 2006).
But VCAT member Des Eccles granted the permit in June 2007, subject to conditions.
One condition was the finished floor levels be above flood level to Melbourne Water’s satisfaction, up to 280mm higher.
Melbourne Water did not later require the floor levels to be raised.
But Raef Akehurst now seeks to amend the permit and raise the third storey’s ceiling height by 300mm, believing VCAT is “not going to knock it back because it’s a little higher than proposed”.
“Des Eccles basically said (raising it 30cm) was not a make or break issue for him,” Mr Akehurst said.
Mr Game said Mr Akehurst had “through his father … an inside knowledge of how things are done and is exploiting it … but it’s not illegal”.
“The crux is that he’s gone through the fine print and seen a way to improve the building,” Mr Game said. “The objection is that it will make the building even more massive than it already is.”
But Mr Akehurst dismissed Mr Game’s comments.
“It’s not inside knowledge at all; it’s publicly available,” Mr Akehurst said.
“I’m close to my father, but I’m running the project … I spent hours personally reading through the res code.”
Objections will be presented at a VCAT hearing on Friday, May 1.
July 20, 2012 at 9:01 AM
Actually Anon all I need to do is take a walk around the my block, try to back out of my drive or patronize any once unique shopping area around a train station to assess “Mr. Akehurst and his excellent team”. Going to the Council offices and actually talking to a planning officer about a planning issue only confirms the assessment – as does reading any officer’s report, re a planning permit application, included in the Council meeting minutes.
Take an objective look along Dandenong Road – a prime target for development – compare the no. of developments on the Stonnington side with the Glen Eira side. Sure Stonnington has some but it is vastly outweighed by the developments on the Glen Eira side.
It’s no wonder that Akehurst is respected within the developer dominated planning community.
July 20, 2012 at 11:46 AM
Why would you spend money on representing the residents at VCAT or on traffic management or on acquiring open space or on community consultation or on drainage.
Much better to spend it on aiding developers, concrete plinths in parks and self promotion.