Over time we have observed countless officer reports on planning applications that simply to not stack up in terms of:

  • Transparency and accountability
  • Providing sound justification for the recommendations
  • General professionalism

Glen Eira is currently advertising two positions for its planning department. One pays over $60,000 – the other over $70,000. With these kinds of salaries paid for by residents, then the least we should expect is the production of officer reports that are fair, unbiased, detailed, and informative. We do not believe that this is what residents are getting.

We’ve gone back over the last council meeting and looked at one major application that was before council. We’ve chosen several paragraphs from this report to highlight our concerns. Comments are interspersed with the quotations.

Gardenvale Rd – Madeleine Snell

Recommendation: “allowing the construction of a four (4) storey building comprising two (2) retail premises and twelve (12) dwellings and a reduction of the standard car parking requirements on land within a Special Building Overlay”

 Here are the officer’s comments:

“On the one hand, Council’s Transport Planning Department has requested the provision of two at-grade visitor car spaces. On the other hand, the applicant’s traffic engineering advice suggests that no visitor car parking is required given the ability to accommodate this parking demand in the surrounding streets.”

COMMENT: Quite extraordinary that council’s own traffic department is over-ruled in favour of the DEVELOPER’S traffic advice! Why bother having a transport/traffic department in this case? Why not simply leave everything to the developer? Secondly how much consideration has council given to the “surrounding streets” in this instance? What surveys, data, analysis has actually been carried out – or has this also been left entirely to the developer? But, how typical of traffic management as a whole in this municipality – just shift the problem to surrounding areas and then worry about it. With no parking precinct plans, and no overall vision, just ad hoc developments again and again, this is the inevitable outcome.

“Parking in this development is provided in stacker arrangement which is unsuitable for visitor/short term users unfamiliar with stacker parking”

COMMENT: Again, the logic is incredible. Don’t worry about visitor parking because the only provisions insisted upon are stackers – as if that is a plausible excuse to ignore the requirement for visitor carparking!

“A loading bay is not considered necessary for the proposed development according to the advice of Council’s Transport Planning Department. There is no loading bay on site for the existing retail uses.”

COMMENT; More pearls of wisdom! Because something isn’t already there, it should never be there, or isn’t deemed as necessary now or years down the track?

No plausible, reasonable, nor justifiable ‘excuse’ has been provided in this officer’s report as to why the laws, regulations, and requirements of the planning scheme have not been enforced. We can only conclude that reports are not written to inform, elucidate, or alert councillors and the public to the reality of the situation. Rather, their purpose is to ensure that whatever the recommendation is (especially if it is pro-development) that this is passed. Compared to the work that goes into other council’s reports, Glen Eira remains at the bottom of the list.

Finally we wish to state that we do feel sorry for council’s planners. They are lumbered with a scheme that is deficient and as employees they are beholden to their managers and to a culture that is clearly on the side of applicants at the expense of residents.

PS: In order to provide clear ‘evidence’ of our claims above, we’ve included some extracts from the Stonnington Officer’s report on one application. In this agenda (December 3rd) there were 3 applications. These reports were: 19 pages, 21 pages and 15 pages respectively. Admittedly length is no guarantee of quality. However, readers should note that each report contains commentary on such aspects as: ‘permeability’; ‘design’; drainage/infrastructure and much more. To the best of our knowledge most of these standards have never rated a mention in any Glen Eira reports! Here are some extracts from the first application. Please note the tone, the detail, and the justification for various recommendations.

“The development proposes 2 x 1 bedroom dwellings, 14 x 2 bedroom dwellings and 1 x 3 bedroom dwelling.  Therefore the parking requirement for the development is 18 residents’ spaces and 3 visitor spaces.

Clause 55 – Two or more dwellings on a lot and Residential Buildings

A development must meet all the objectives of this clause and should meet all of the standards of this clause.

The provision of no visitor parking spaces on site cannot be supported. A development of this size should have on-site visitor parking.

Strategic Justification 

State Policy

  • The State Planning Policy Framework encourages higher densities and a range of dwelling types where they can take advantage of well established physical and social infrastructure. The proposal is consistent with these policies in that the proposal represents a net increase of 15 dwellings on a site that is located close to local shops and services and takes advantage of public transport links and a number of community services and facilities in close proximity to the subject site.
  • When considered against State housing policy objectives there is policy support for the proposed development and residential intensification of this existing site.
  • Notwithstanding the strategic housing provision objectives outlined in the State Planning Policy Framework, these must also be balanced against other sustainable design based objectives that promote new housing development to respect neighbourhood character, amenity and the efficient use of resources. With specific reference to housing, Clause 16.01-4 seeks to encourage the development of well-designed medium-density housing which respects the neighbourhood character, improves housing choice makes better use of existing infrastructure and improves energy efficiency of housing.
  • Having regard to these objectives the proposal fails to address these matters.  Further discussion of these issues are addressed later in this report.

Local Policy

  • At the local policy level, Clause 21.03 (Housing) of the Municipal Strategic Statement encourages a range of dwelling types to meet the community’s needs, including development in Activity Centre’s, providing for residential ‘infill’ development consistent with maintaining a balance of dwelling types in the area, and development that displays good design which reflects the surrounding scale, height, density, bulk, setbacks, style, form and character of buildings, fences, gardens and the streetscape.
  • It is Council policy, pursuant to Clause 22.02 (Urban Design), that new buildings not be significantly higher or lower than the surrounding buildings, parts of the building over 2-storeys be set back behind the facade to minimise impacts on the streetscape, and that developments be of a height and scale that is consistent with its particular setting and location and generally respect the one to two-storey built form character of the City’s residential areas.  At 3-storeys high, with extensive site coverage and built form and minimal setbacks, the proposed development is considered to be inconsistent with this policy direction

Permeability

  • Permeability is 7.6% and does not meet the Standard.  The applicant states that the existing site permeable area of the combined sites is 10.7% and also does not meet the standard.  The absence of existing plans prevents this figure from being verified.  Notwithstanding this, the proposal should be seeking to improve existing poor design outcomes not exacerbate them.  Given the combined site area of 806m² it is considered that this is ample opportunity to ensure the development comes close to achieving the 20% permeable area required by Standard B9.  For this reason, the proposal does not meet the objective of Clause 55.03-4
  • The shadow diagrams submitted in support of the application demonstrate that the neighbouring SPOS area at 22 Athol Street will not receive a minimum of five hours of sunlight between 9 am and 3 pm on 22 September as required by the standard.  Therefore the proposal does not meet standard B21.
  • Having regard to the decision guidelines and the objective of Clause 55.04-5 the proposal would significantly overshadow the SPOS area of 22 Athol Street and would have an unreasonable impact on the amenity of the occupants of this property, contrary to Clause 55.04-5 of the Stonnington Planning Scheme.
  • The site is not within easy walking distance of  nearby public open space to justify a variation of the standard.  It is considered that the insufficient SPOS provision is reflective of a development that is attempting to squeeze too much development onto this site.