Geoff Akehurst’s benign ‘interpretation’ of Matthew Guy’s proposed planning reforms (which we’ve already commented on) is clearly out of step with other councils. Several motions that are to go before the MAV board meeting illustrate this. (See motions 21-23 under ‘State Council Business Papers’ at: http://www.mav.asn.au/publications/bulletins/mav/Pages/issue-898.aspx).
Then yesterday we get this Media Release from Guy. Of further concern is the composition of the ‘expert advisory committee’ all from the gung ho, pro-development lobby, and the helter skelter intent to rush through legislation that will create mayhem for residents whilst denying them most of their objection rights.
Final step for Victoria’s zone reform
Friday, 14 September 2012
From the Minister for Planning
Planning Minister Matthew Guy has today announced the final step in ensuring the Victorian Coalition Government’s zone reform package delivers productivity growth and drives investment and liveability outcomes for Victorians.
An expert advisory committee consisting of Ministerial Advisory Committee Chairman Geoff Underwood, Chris Canavan QC and Liz Johnstone of the Planning Institute of Australia will review all submissions and provide advice back to the Coalition Government.
With the ten week consultation closing on 21 September the expert advisory committee will report back to the Coalition Government by 30 November 2012, ensuring that zone reform will be in place early next year.
“Having council and industry representatives provide thorough advice back to the Coalition Government and a fair and reasonable review of submissions will ensure that zone reform reflects the views of all Victorians,” Mr Guy said.
“This is a marked departure from Labor’s sham consultation processes,” Mr Guy said.
Earlier this year, the Coalition Government introduced a package of sweeping reforms to planning zones.
Proposed reforms to Victoria’s residential, commercial, industrial and rural planning zones include:
- The introduction of a new Neighbourhood Residential Zone, a new General Residential Zone and a new Residential Growth Zone;
- Improvements to the existing Mixed Use Zone, Comprehensive Development Zone and Activity Centre Zone;
- New and more flexible Commercial 1 and Commercial 2 Zones replacing five existing Business zones;
- Reform to support tourism activities in Farming Zones, the Rural Conservation Zone and the Green Wedge Zones; and
- Significant reforms to rural zones to promote the growth of agricultural activity.”The Coalition Government considers planning zone reform as a key part of its planning reform agenda and an important step to provide greater certainty to residents, councils and investors,” Mr Guy said.
“Modernising Victoria’s planning system is not optional; it is a vital plank of social and economic reform for our state’s long term future.”
Glen Eira Debates 
September 15, 2012 at 2:20 PM
The best way to avoid close examination is to stack the playing deck to ensure compliance and then rush everything through in the shortest time possible. Very similar to what repeatedly happens in our council.
September 15, 2012 at 2:53 PM
Stonnington’s response to the planning changes, and in particular, the language the officers employ in their report, should be noted carefully by all Glen Eira residents. It confirms once and for all which side of the fence our administration and lackey councillors are on. The full report is available at the agenda items for 10th September council meeting – http://www.stonnington.vic.gov.au/your-council/council-meetings/2012-council-meetings/
Below are some edited highlights of the Officers’ Report.
Analysis of the zones has been undertaken by officers in preparation for consultation with stakeholders and residents. In response to requests for further information by community groups and individuals, Council held a community information session on 30 August 2012. Peter Allen, Executive Director of Statutory Planning Systems Reforms, Department of Planning and Community Development and local Member for Prahran Clem Newton-Brown both presented on the reforms. The event was received well with approximately 60 residents and stakeholders in attendance.
Officer’s assessment of the implications of the new zones has identified major concerns, refer Attachment 1. The main issues are as follows:
• Lack of strategic justification and identification and understanding of economic and social impacts of the reforms.
• Expansion and dispersal of commercial uses into the residential areas adjoining Activity Centres.
• A lack of detailed information on key issues including transitioning to the new zones, consultation, resourcing, strategic context, current planning applications and VCAT appeals.
• Reduced residential amenity from ‘as of right’ commercial uses in residential zones and the intended expansions of Activity Centres into residential zones.
• The reforms encourage high density housing in all Activity Centres, without context or control.
• There is no economic study, no housing strategy, no capacity assessment or targets to provide the context which justifies the reforms.
One of the key deficiencies with reforms is that it has been released and will be implemented before the development of the new Metropolitan Strategy. They are a strategy implementation tool and the strategy does not yet exist.
The impact of the proposed changes will remove from decision making, consideration the quality of building design and amenity impacts.
Officers have undertaken a draft rapid Social Impact Assessment (Attachment 2). This has been prepared on behalf of eight (8) Councils for the Inner South Metropolitan Mayors Forum August 2012. It considers many of the issues raised in this report.
Objectives of Stonnington’s Municipal Strategic Statement (MSS) will be challenged by the introduction of high density residential development in all Activity Centres including neighbourhood activity centres. Many policies in the MSS will become redundant without triggers for a permit.
The introduction of these significant reforms deserved more research, justification, consideration and consultation.
These reforms change the fundamental principals embedded in the planning scheme, without the necessary detail to understand and assess these changes.
The political purpose of these reforms is to provide developers with greater opportunities for development and stimulate economic activity. The other purpose is to give residents greater certainty and stop redevelopment in select residential areas. In doing so, it fails to address the broader planning, economic and social consequences of only considering these two extreme interest groups.
The combined impact of these changes will have a significant effect on the future character and liveability of Melbourne and its long history of community participation in planning.
WE ALSO REFER RESIDENTS TO THE ATTACHMENTS FOR THE ABOVE. ON SOCIAL/ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT HERE’S ONE EXTRACT –
“Similarly, changes to buildings and works have potential benefits, but the question needs to be asked if these benefits will be realised, and at what cost to the community. For example, building heights are not specified for non-residential uses, without going into details on the pros and cons. It first needs to be acknowledged that there is a inequity between commercial and residential development.
This is significant as it reflects the overall direction of the reform enabling a bias in support of the free market, rather than understanding the potential for inappropriate development to the detriment of not only the needs of the community, but also to the detriment of appropriate local planning that has made the areas for development so attractive in the first place.
There is some ability for Councils to provide some long-term direction and planning, generally through schedules to zones and permit conditions. However, to fully assess potential impacts, this needs to be further explored before the zones are formally introduced.”
Finally, we note that for one of these attachments, Glen Eira was named as a ‘member’ of the 8 inner councils who took part in these discussions. Just for once, it would be good if Glen Eira actually kept its residents informed as to what is going on, rather than having to find out the truth via other councils far more transparent approach to information dissemination!
September 16, 2012 at 11:48 AM
Residents got a look in at Stonnington. In Glen Eira nobody had the opportunity to say boo. Even getting it up on the website is too late. I want to know what our 9 councillors were doing since July when the proposals first came out. Useless bunch.
September 16, 2012 at 4:05 PM
People should be very, very afraid of the Government’s intentions with respect to Planning. It doesn’t help that the development industry (developers, government, council, VCAT, MRC…) are habitual liars. The new proposed Zones are not benign, but until they’re actually applied nobody knows how they will personally be affected. The Government has however spelt out that the main motivation is money (economic benefits, profit, removal of constraints that protection of amenity requires).
There is a bizarre lack of self-awareness in our decision-makers when it comes to making planning decisions. On the one hand, Planning Schemes are used to bludgeon objects into submission—justifying granting a Permit because of a couple of clauses in a Planning Scheme. On the other, clauses in Planning Schemes are ignored or rejected because they would otherwise constrain the amount of money a developer could make. Then again, no decision-maker is required by law to *apply* a planning scheme, they only have to consider it. All the so-called Standards are only guidelines, and they explicitly don’t apply to buildings of 4- or more storeys. They are excluded. The logic that you need fewer standards to protect people from huge buildings escapes me.
The current Zone system is a mess and badly needs to be cleaned up, but the the changes are being used to sneak in a bunch of undesirable consequences—well, undesirable for the people affected. Herein lies the much of the problem. Government and Council keep on identifying people living in targeted areas of ordinary residential suburbs and attacking their amenity so that the rest of the community can have theirs protected. This should be offensive to everybody, but self-interest has seen the majority of people, including Council and Jeff Akehurst, simply shrug and ignore the problem.
Despite Matthew Guy’s assertions on 7:30, the Government has *not* defined the boundaries of Major Activity Centres. If you look at the published report into the boundaries for Camberwell, Coburg, Doncaster Hill, Preston, Geelong, you won’t even find a map. The authors did however reveal that DPCD thinks the boundaries should be at leat 800m from the heart of an Activity Centre, and that Activity Centre Zone should be used to manage most of the land contained inside them. The report also reveals that proximity to public transport is a key decision criteria, and added that includes buses.
I did see in Jeff Akehurst’s report that he urged Council to “fast-track” the application of new zones and *not* let the public have any say about the mapping from old to new. I’m not surprised: it will not be “neutral” as claimed. Council is very unlikely to want the unilateral imposition of its Housing Diversity policy to be subject to scrutiny. The whole point of creating ghettos containing only 1- and 2-bedroom apartments, from Council’s viewpoint, is to maximize the dwelling count that gets reported to DPCD. Its not about the needs of communities or building healthy communities. I have no idea how a Council Officer can state so baldly that these areas are well-served by open space when they have none. What little we had in Carnegie got bulldozed to build a huge multistorey building. [The building does serve a purpose though—Transport spokespeople have used it to inform us there is no money and no plan to tackle level-crossings in the area.]
Very recently people of the “calibre” of David Southwick and Elizabeth Miller spoke in Parliament ostensibly in support of the Government’s proposed changes to PAEA [VicSmart Planning Assessment Bill]. Other than increasing scope for corruption, the Bill doesn’t actually do much: it doesn’t specify new processes to simplify low-impact applications for example. That is left up to Council. Well Councils are free to assess low-impact applications currently with expedited procedures. Glen Eira does, and it must grate Jeff Akehurst that his tiered system hasn’t been given the public recognition he craves. The trouble with the [lousy] legislation is that its open to abuse. We don’t know what new classes of application will be introduced, or what the new procedures for them will be. It is consistent with the legislation to claim that all applications are low-impact and can be handled by an individual officer without appeal, and that officer can delegate it to their preferred choice of mate who’ll “do the right thing” if there’s a conflict of interest. All with no need to document reasons for their decisions or be subject to public scrutiny.
David’s abuse of his privileged position has been widely commented upon, but I’ll add that his example seems to be irrelevant to the matter at hand, which was the Planning and Environment Amendment (VicSmart Planning Assessment) Bill 2012. Still, it stuns me that after 150 years of treating the centre of the Caulfield Racecourse Public Reserve and Public Park as a rubbish dump, nobody in authority is concerned about the governance arrangement. Its valuable land, the public has been denied its fair use of that land, and the public has essentially no say in the management and facilities that land provides. The MRC wanted concrete paths for vehicles for its own purposes, not for a public park. I do wonder if David has been lobbying Melbourne City Council about concreting the remainder of the Tan track. On past form, Andrew Newton would seek to erect barriers at either end of it along Alexandra Ave and let the vegetation spill out onto the road.
Back to the new Zones. Its almost pointless responding to yet another Government proposal. Geoff Underwood participated in M2030, reviewed comments as part of VPSMAC, rejected or ignored much of the criticism, made such weak suggestions that the Government even found them acceptable, and now gets to review submissions regarding the new Zones. Does anybody seriously think he is going to criticise himself? The only certainty that I forsee for the new Zones is that amenity will continue to be lost, and the impact will be very unevenly distributed over the population.