Source: http://www.facebook.com/katedempseyforgleneira

Source: Australian Jewish News, October 12th, 2012

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT, 1989

Section 55B

Heading to electoral advertisements

The proprietor of a newspaper must cause the word “advertisement” to be printed as a headline in letters not smaller than 10 point to each article or paragraph in the proprietor’s newspaper containing electoral matter, the insertion- (a) of which is, or is to be, paid for; or (b) for which any reward or compensation or promise of reward or compensation is, or is to be, made.

Penalty: In the case of a natural person, 10 penalty units; In the case of a body corporate, 50 penalty units.

Section 56(2)

A person must not-

(a)  print, publish or distribute; or

(b)  cause, permit or authorise to be printed, published or distributed-

a how-to-vote card which is not a registered how-to-vote card and which contains a representation or purported representation of an endorsement in the prescribed manner.

Penalty: 60 penalty units.

3) In a prosecution of a person for an alleged offence against subsection (1) or (2), it is a defence if the person proves that the person did not know, and could not reasonably be expected to have known, that the card was not a registered how-to-vote card.

The following email was sent to all councillors and candidates in response to an email from a resident –

Dear Mr. XXXX

Thank you for your e-mail of today.

You will receive a response soon from our Mayor Cr. Jamie Hyams.  As you have endorsed a copy of your e-mail to me as a Councillor, I thought I would give you an interim response.

I am not sure if you are aware that the Council works according to the framework and directives given to us by the State Government in respect to developments. Based on that the birth of a policy takes place.

Also you may have heard, the state government is aiming  to have 5 million people in Victoria by the year 2030 .

Therefore, developments have to mushroom within our suburbs as the government does not like to extend the developments outside built up areas due to the cost of exorbitant amount of money to establish new infrastructure.

Unfortunately, we will find it very challenging  to have more open spaces even if people are pledging that they would  ensure more open space unless of course we have the ability of performing a magic.  Same applies to ther (sic)pledges.

As I said in my second paragraph above, your dilemma in the captioned subject mayl (sic) be addressed in due course.

Kind Regards

Oscar Lobo

Councillor

Tucker Ward

PS: Below is what the resident sent to all candidates/councillors!

Magee was taken ill just before the start of the council meeting and hence was an ‘apology’. We wish him a speedy recovery.

LIPSHUTZ – moved that the minutes of the Local Laws committee be deferred until next council meeting. Pilling seconded. Reason was the the minutes in the agenda weren’t ‘as full as they should be’ and that they didn’t reflect what occured, so more ‘fulsome’ minutes are required. Did say that the committee has been looking at Local Law 326 (organised sport). Said that there had been plenty of press coverage on the frisbee story and that they’d been told that kids had ‘been fined’. That then became a ‘story not that they were fined but that they would have to get an allocation’. Said he asked officers what happened and they told him that a complaint had been made that about ’30 or 40′ people were playing with ‘football boots’ across cricket pitches. A ranger investigated and found that this wasn’t true – there wasn’t any football boots and nothing about cricket pitches. In the end ‘Yoav Silverstein contacted Council’ to ask about an allocation. ‘He was told that a one off allocation cost $120 or a 6 month allocation cost $300’. Said that this is the same for eveyrone if they wanted a barbecue. Said that the ‘whole purpose’ of allocations was to provide ‘certainty’ and paying ‘means they have priority’ but it ‘doesn’t mean’ that if kids want to play frisbee they need an allocation. Claimed that there had been a ‘total blowup by the press’. Said that the ‘truth is that no-one was warned off…..welcome to play….no fine….. Went on to say that the law should be reviewed and the reason it hasn’t been dealt with as yet is because ‘our corporate counsel has been involved idn other matters’ such as the VCAT ‘which has kept her quite busy’. In the next council the ‘whole local law will be reviewed’ which is ‘far better’ than doing it piecemeal and so ‘do the whole local law as one’. assured everyone that no permit is required if they want to play ‘catchy’, football. ‘but if you are an organised sport’ then you do need a permit. Went on to say that council has ‘reasonable laws reasonably enforced’ and in this instance the law has been ‘enforced reasonably’ and ‘no-one has been fined’.

PENHALLURIACK – said he was pleased that no one was fined. Said that this issue with the local law 326 had been going on for quite a whiile. Said that Mr Varvodic was fined and then the fine withdrawn and they organised a permit. The definition of ‘organised’ has been something that he’s tried to get the Local Law Committee to look at for a long time and clarify because ‘it’s fine for Cr Lipshutz to say reasonable laws reasonably enforced but sometimes the law is not reasonable’ . Said a law is only ‘reasonable’ when it can be understood by the public. this law can’t be easily interpreted. Said he doesn’t know what ‘organised’ means any more than Lipshutz does. Said he was pleased that the ‘ex-chairman (Lipshutz)’ of the Local Laws Committee was ‘now going to be working on it’ because ‘it is long overdue’.

HYAMS – when the Local Laws Committee gets together in the new council he hoped that ‘they would get around to looking at the Alcohol free area’ in Bentleigh as ‘has been agreed they should’.

TANG: said that the meeting discussed the Tree register and there was discussion about how the laws could be enforced and there were ‘sub-issues’ that should be ‘captured in any subsequent minutes’. Admitted that the issue of organised sport has been around from even before he was on council – schleppers football team – but they were more ‘frequent’. Didn’t think this was about one individual but how to interpret what ‘organised sport’ means. Problems not about the law but ‘how you interpret it’.

LIPSHUTZ: Agreed with Tang that it was a ‘definitional problem’ and that the Local Laws Committee ‘would deal with that’. Said that he didn’t believe it was ‘coincidence’ that the issue has come up ‘two weeks’ before the election in order to ’embarrass council’ and that the reports in the media are ‘totally wrong’ and that journalists should have made ‘proper enquiry’ when the ‘allegation is simply not true’.

Public questions

At least 15 questions that we know of were declared invalid on the excuse of the electoral act and hence were not read out, much less answered. This is reprehensible since none of the questions had anything to do with ‘electoral matters’ – in short, it was another instance of avoiding accountability and responding to residents’ concerns. Even those questions which were responded to, failed to answer the question asked, or basically indulged in semantics and dissembling.

Question 1: asked if Council’s submission on the Planned Zoning Reforms would be made public. The answer stated that the ‘submission’ was already available on council’s website. Untrue and incorrect. What is available on council’s website is not the actual submission, but the Akehurst ‘report’ which was tabled at council on the 4^th September 2012! The public has not seen what went in to the department! So much for transparency and answering public questions honestly!

Question 3 – asked for the results of the ‘monitoring’ of Frisbee games in Caulfield Park. The response said that there’s a “regular gathering’ in Caulfield Park by people playing ‘what appears to be’ Frisbee!

Question 4 – asked about the traffic management plans for major events at Caulfield Racecourse saying that for the past 3 events this had been substandard – either they notices went out too late, or they were incorrect. Wanted to know what Council had done about this. The response went into the need for traffic management plans to be provided and that in September Council had received from the MRC the plan for the spring racing carnival. It said that residents would be notified ‘at least 2 weeks’ prior to the events. The MRC provided notice after the 2 week deadline so that they ‘didn’t meet’ the requirements and ‘council will be drawing this to the attention of the MRC’. Big deal we say! The second part of the question remains unanswered, and as with the Camping and Caravan show, council has done nothing but a little tap on the wrist!

At this point Penhalluriack rose and said that he notified Hyams about the situation on Saturday morning – and wanted to ask Burke if any officer had gone out to ‘look at the barriers’. Also said that ‘this seems to be a consistent complaint’ from residents living in the area.

Hyams then said that this wasn’t the time to ask officers questions because that should have been done at Item 11.3 of the agenda!

Penhalluriack then said that he hadn’t ‘had the time to formalise my own response’ to the public question and that he was commenting on the answer that had been given. Since he told Hyams about this on Saturday morning he’d ‘like to think that council went out and did something about it’ because the barriers ‘were in the wrong place’ and the ‘wrong times’

Question 5 – asked about the now out of date Road Safety Strategy and why even the old one isn’t on the website and when the latest one will be prepared. The response was that the 2007-2012 strategy ‘was at an end’ and that a new one was ‘being developed’ and that when the new one is adopted it will be up on the website. Terrific! We didn’t know that ‘strategies’ disappear into the ether!

Question 6 asked about ‘advocacy’ for rail separation and whether council would table the documents related to its ‘advocacy’. The response was merely a listing of ‘submissions’ to various departments, and meetings attended by officers and councillors. Residents are obviously not going to get a look at these ‘submissions’, nor reports back from most of these meetings!

BURKE THEN STATED THAT ‘A NUMBER OF QUESTIONS ‘HAVE BEEN RULED OUT OF ORDER BY THE CHAIR AS THEY ARE NOT IN COMPLIANCE WITH COUNCIL’S CARETAKER POLICY’ REGARDING ‘ELECTORAL MATTERS’!!!!! CENSORSHIP REIGNS SUPREME ONCE AGAIN! 

PS: we’ve just broken another record – 1,335 hits for the day!

Sporting groups support Caulfield park frisbee teens

16 Oct 12 @ 05:00am by Jessica Bennett

Glen Eira Council told teens they could no longer play Frisbee in Caulfield Park without a permit.

SPORTING groups have pledged support for a group of frisbee-loving teens forced to halt their weekly game in Caulfield Park unless they pay the council $120 for a permit.

They gathered casually most Fridays to play frisbee in the park, until a council officer told them to stop until they had a permit for their “organised” sport.

Simon Talbot, president of Ultimate Victoria – the state’s ultimate frisbee-governing body – said it had unsuccessfully tried in the past to set up a formal arrangement with the council for frisbee players at Caulfield Park.

“We heard about this group (being kicked off) and are more than happy to help them deal with the council,” Mr Talbot said.

Heads of State Frisbee League president Matthew Hill offered the group a free place in their men’s league at Alma Park.

Tal Silverstein, the mother of one of the players, said they communicated who would play via Facebook, but that was the only organisation. “They don’t all go every week, they have no coach, no uniform and no league – how is that organised?”

Glen Eira Council did not return Leader’s requests for comment.

++++++++++++++++++

Letters to the Editor: Land is for public use

Crown land is public land, to be provided for the enjoyment and benefit of Victorians.

There are several types of management arrangements for Crown land, including trusts, local government control, Parks Victoria and so on.

But with each management type, it must be maintained for a range of community uses. Is this the case with the current board of trustees at the Caulfield Racecourse?

What is the harm in opening their meetings to the public? Surely, this is in the spirit of the trust’s responsibilities?

Kate Dempsey, Independent candidate, Camden Ward, Glen Eira

 +++++++++++++++++++

Caulfield project monstrous

Regarding “Caulfield Racecourse Reserve chairman told to resign” (Leader, October 8), I hope they also ask whoever voted for the Caufield Racecourse development.

This highly controversial 20-storey monster will change the face of once-wonderful Caulfield forever.

Congestion and pollution will be the new norm. I certainly won’t be voting for the councillors who imposed this on an angry community.

Christian Stewart

PS: LATE NEWS ITEM

Footy group demands answers on use of Glen Eira parks

16 Oct 12 @  01:21pm by Donna Carton

Source: http://www.facebook.com/VoteNewtonGatoff – ‘Meet the New Candidates, McKinnon Hotel, 14th October, 2012’.

Glen Eira Debates has over the past few weeks smashed all previous records for daily, weekly, and monthly hits. Comments have gone through the roof and subscriptions doubled. We thank readers for their support and are encouraged by the ongoing interest in our posts and the general discussion. As always our objectives are to provide a forum for debate, analysis, and to counter the mis-information that far too often issues from the building at the corner of Hawthorn and Glen Eira Roads!

Last week’s highlights included:

• 6,583 hits for the 7 days
• 3 consecutive days of over a 1000 hits per day (highest – 1,278)
• Average hits per day totalled 940

This is a long post, but we believe an important one. Further, it’s important that residents fully understand the folly contained in the current Glen Eira Planning Scheme and how this has, and will continue to impact on them. As we’ve previously noted, VCAT has become the convenient scape goat. It is repeatedly blamed for ignoring council’s wishes, local amenity, etc. Councillors continue to bemoan unpopular VCAT decisions and wipe their hands of all responsibility as a consequence. Not once however has the real problem been addressed – ie. the planning scheme itself!

The Agenda Items for Tuesday night feature an important VCAT decision. There are some VCAT quotes included in the report, but the important bits – like the rationale for the decision and the loopholes and inconsistencies of the Urban Villages/Major Activity Centres policy – are of course omitted. We publish these in an extended version from the actual decision itself and ask readers to consider the following:

• How much blame can be levelled at VCAT as opposed to Council in this decision?
• Why has Glen Eira for the past 12 years refused to entertain the idea of permanent or interim height controls?

Here are the lowlights of the decision –

Upside Dental Pty Ltd and Tanfield Pty Ltd sought a planning permit from Glen Eira City Council for a five storey building on the land at 276 and 278 Neerim Road in Carnegie. The building would contain a basement car park, ground floor retail and residential apartments and consequently require permission for the use and the development. Council’s planning officers supported the application subject to conditions….. The Council decided to grant a permit, adopted the recommended conditions of its officers but added more conditions to reduce the development to four storeys and include a loading bay in the development.

1. The Council thus relies on policy, the zoning and the character of the site’s setting to reject a five storey response. It has expressly deleted the second storey from the design because it accepts that the recessive form of the fifth storey will, after the amendment, provide a recessive fourth storey level and so look like a three storey development.
2. Carnegie is identified in Melbourne 2030 as a Major Activity Centre. The role of a Major Activity Centre is amongst other outcomes, to ‘support intensive housing developments without conflicting with surrounding land-uses’. There are a range of other outcomes less relevant to the issues in this application, but which in summary can be said to support intensification of land use. In translation this means increased density in land use, be it commercial, retail, entertainment or residential. The increased intensity of land use co-located with public transport access and other services are to provide a range of community, social and environmental benefits.
3. 18.           These policy outcomes are not in dispute. The Council’s case recognises the role of the Carnegie Urban Village in supporting intensification in land use, as expressed in the Urban Village Policy. However, in my view the Council’s case is based on an interpretation of this policy that is not supported when a full view of this and other relevant planning policy is considered.  
4. Together these policy statements and objectives, along with the MSS are said by the Council to:

• ‘clearly promote the highest residential densities be located within the Urban Villages’; and
• ‘clearly states’ that the highest densities be located within the commercial centres with residential density declining with distance from the core of the centre.
• I agree that there is a clear policy direction for the highest levels of residential density to be located into the Urban Villages. I respectfully disagree that there is a ‘clear’ intention within this policy for a graduated residential density within an Urban Village, particularly in the case I have examined for Carnegie.

Nothing in the policy direction for Precinct 4 conveys any sense or need for a transition. The only reference to its relationship to other precincts or surrounding land is an expressed preference is for development in this precinct should not take the retail focus away from Koornang Road (i.e. the Retail Hub). If anything this policy direction seeks modest amounts of retail and so correspondingly greater use of the land for commercial, office or residential use.

The Council draws a contrast between policy for the Retail Hub and the Mixed Use precincts, specifically to the reference that it is in only the former where there is a direction for ‘increased building heights’ to be determined on the basis of site context and other urban design elements.

It is true that there is no specific reference to building height in policy guidance for the Mixed Use Precinct. It is also true that there is similarly no such reference to height in the surrounding residential precincts either. In the latter case, there is encouragement for increased density of residential development, a mix of density and housing type and encouragement for ‘managed change of the neighbourhood character’.

However it is also true that the design parameters said to guide development responses in the Retail Hub are as a matter of course commonly applied urban design considerations and do not highlight any particularly special characteristics for this precinct. Thus the same design guidance would be expected to also apply to other precincts within the Urban Village.

30.           Having thus considered this policy matrix, I am not persuaded that this policy or the Urban Village policy as a whole seeks any particularly special gradation in building height from the Retail Hub outward through the surrounding precincts. Indeed when one reflects on the design parameters specified for a consideration of height along the Retail Hub and applies them to these surrounding precents, it is likely that the large lots surrounding the Retail Hub will be able to accommodate higher built form rather than the other way.  

As I have set earlier, in the absence of specific direction about height in the Mixed Use precincts, the overall policy direction for increased density and intensity of land use in the Urban Villages applies and so there should be a reasonable expectation of increased height. References to height in Retail Hub are in the context of the words used in the policy:

• To accommodate office and residential use – a direction to promote these uses over others; and
• Establish guidance on determining an acceptable height, much of which adopts, as I have noted earlier, commonly applied non-controversial urban design principles.

34.           To suggest that the reference to height in this context and that an absence in other policy guidance imparts a higher order outcome for the Retail Hub reads far more into this guidance than would appear intended.

Scaling back development intensity within the urban village using ‘selective interpretation’ of policy would prevent the highest and best use of the land and be contrary to state and local policy seeking such outcomes for a major activity centre.

• Graduated scale within the Urban Village is a factor to be considered where the site is located in proximity to non-urban village residential zoned land.
• Existing residential land within the Urban Village will be subject to substantive change to accommodate the intensification of land use. Consequently existing conditions are a poor indicator of scale on which to base development responses within the central areas, including the core and mixed use areas. It is more appropriate to anticipate a scaling up of building form in proximity to these precincts, while sites with an interface to the residential hinterland play a role in transitioning built form to the scale of these latter areas.

39.           That said, the existing conditions of the hinterland will also not be static notwithstanding their designation as minimal change areas. Policy dictates that even within these areas some change, be it dual occupancies or new single dwellings of two storey form will see gradual changes in character.

40.           I therefore concur with the applicants and Mr McGurn that there is no policy reason why a five storey development cannot be considered for this site. In my view, if a five storey building can be accommodated on the basis of its design response, then it should be allowed to do so as it will achieve the applicable objectives set out for this site under the State and local planning policy frameworks. Specifically it will achieve an important policy objective established for the Urban Villages, to accommodate the greatest change in land use intensity and density.

44.           Consequently refusing higher scale buildings of more than four storeys then citing that are no higher scale buildings in the area becomes somewhat of a circular and fallacious argument.

Given my findings about policy direction and the surrounding site context I consider there is future capacity for higher order scale in this urban village/major activity centre. It is therefore appropriate to envisage that this well resolved proposal for five storeys will ultimately be seen in a setting of similar if not higher order scale within this and the adjoining Retail Hub and Mixed Use East precincts. 

The Council officers acknowledged that an increase in traffic levels would occur and perhaps be noticeable. However, the Council’s engineering staff conclude that the increase in traffic levels would not adversely affect the operation of Neerim or Kokaribb Roads or other local streets.

We’ve received the following information from an alert resident. It highlights what can only be regarded as either sheer incompetence on the part of either, or both, the MRC and Council, or the continued utter disregard for local residents. Traffic management plans to handle “major events” at the Racecourse are nothing short of a disgrace. Over to you Councillors! What ‘punishment’ will be meted out to the MRC? Did our wonderful Glen Eira Traffic Management Department actually clap eyes on any plan and did they in fact okay it? Are they now supervising and overseeing this traffic mayhem?

Here’s part of the email and other info:

The road closures around the Caulfield Racecourse associated with the last two “major” events held at the Racecourse (Spring Racing Carnival – October, 2011 and the Caravan and Camping Show – March, 2012) were severaly criticised because there was less than 24 hour notice given to residents.

Today, the start of the 2012 Spring Racing Carnival, residents should be even more angry at the inability of the MRC and Council to properly inform them of the road closures – this time the advice might have been sent out early enough, but it’s totally useless IF IT’S WRONG – WHICH IT WAS!

Here’s the notice

What’s important here is the following:

The Caravan and Camping show notice stated “The following streets will be closed to all traffic from Kambrook Road:

• Eskdale Road, Newington Grove and Hudson Street at Kambrook Road; and
• Entry for residents will be via Bambra Road Only”

The closures took place at around 12 noon.

The above Spring Racing Carnival notification states “Residents of Hudson St., Payne St., Eskdale Rd., Newington Gve. and Redan Rd. should avoid using Glen Eira Road to return to their homes after 2.30 p.m.”   

No mention of blocking the road but blocking commenced at 8.30 a.m. ( what happened to 2.30 p.m?)

No mention of Wyuna Road to Redan Road exit being blocked.

Redan Road is not blocked.

What impact does Glen Eira Road have on accessing these streets – should it be Bambra Road?

After the Caravan and Camping Show notification, Council stated “The recent notification provided by Melbourne Racing Club (MRC) to residents for the Caravan and Camping Show was disappointing and unacceptable and the MRC has been so advised.”  This is the third consecutive time the MRC has stuffed it up – time for the three strikes you are out rule to be applied. It’s just not good enough that the information sent out to residents is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Oh and by the way, they need to change the configuration of the road blocks or have a Police presence at the Smith Street Roundabout –  cars are mounting the nature strip and footpath to gain access to Bambra Road from Eskdale Road.

Here is the photographic ‘evidence’.

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