We thought it might be extremely informative following our last few posts to investigate what’s been happening in other councils in terms of reviewing and updating their Housing Strategies. What a surprise! Countless other municipalities are at it hammer and tongs and their reviews include lengthy periods of community consultations ranging up to a year! Please note, we are not commenting on the quality, processes, outcomes, nor the various strategies themselves. We are simply highlighting that unlike Glen Eira City Council, these municipalities have not been sitting on their hands doing nothing. Glen Eira has been stagnant since well before 2002 and bases its policies on statistics that are woefully out of date. There are only two possible conclusions here: either this council is entirely incompetent, or the strategy is to do nothing whilst Rome burns because it benefits development and more development.
We remind readers that a bare minimum of the recommendations from the 1998 Open Space Strategy has been implemented. Even less has been implemented from the 2002 Housing Strategy. The sham of the Planning Scheme Review and its recommendations are also in limbo – the only things that have been pushed through facilitate further development! This is Glen Eira in a nutshell. Maintain the status quo and do nothing to safeguard local neighbourhoods, social amenity, and so forth.
Here are the URLs plus the dates that accompany other councils’ reviews of their housing strategies:
http://www.bayside.vic.gov.au/Draft_Housing_Strategy_April_2012.pdf (April 2012)
https://www.banyule.vic.gov.au/Assets/Files/Housing%20Strategy%20%28Adopted%2016%20March%202009%29.pdf (March 2009)
http://www.cardinia.vic.gov.au/files/Strategic_planning/HS_PP1_IssuesPaper_Feb2009.pdf (Feb. 2009)
http://www.yarracity.vic.gov.au/planning–building/studies-strategies-and-guidelines/Housing-Strategy/ (October 2010)
http://www.maribyrnong.vic.gov.au/page/Page.aspx?Page_id=7505 (October 2011)
http://www.darebin.vic.gov.au/Page/Page.aspx?Page_Id=9798 (2012 – current)
www.brimbank.vic.gov.au/…/Adopted_Brimbank_Housing_Strategy… (August 2012)
http://www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au/Residents/Planning/Planning_Strategies_Studies/Housing_Strategy (May 2009)
http://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/default/o24750.pdf (June 2007)
http://www.whitehorse.vic.gov.au/hanc.review.html (current)
http://www.campaspe.vic.gov.au/hardcopy/112123_190784.pdf (March 2011)
http://www.casey.vic.gov.au/policiesstrategies/article.asp?Item=5332 (2005)
http://www.southgippsland.vic.gov.au/Page/Page.asp?Page_Id=1126 (current)
http://www.greaterdandenong.com/documents.asp?ID=23637&Title=Housing+Strategy (July 2012)
http://www.whitehorse.vic.gov.au/hanc.review.html (2012 – current)
Glen Eira Debates 
February 14, 2013 at 11:47 AM
At a guess there’s probably about 20 or so people working in the planning department. It could even be many more. I don’t know. I do know that every penny that is spent on them is money that’s thrown away judging by the incompetence and the output of their work. It’s shameful that residents are being sacrificed on the altar of greed for a handful of developers who do not care one bit about the chaos they bring to neighbourhoods. It’s more shameful that those councillors who have been in for years and years and years go along with all of this. The new ones have got some excuse but the honeymoon period will soon be over and they should have got up to speed with what’s going on. If they go along with the gang then they are part of the conspiracy and the Akehurst and Newton agenda.
February 14, 2013 at 12:56 PM
The new councillors shave noted the need that any thoughts or actions as a deviation would only cause trouble in this autocratic council. Look how our Cr. Penhalluriack was treated for presenting independent thoughts. He was hushed up in 90% of instances when our council rules of debate or whatever were applied and only applied to the other eight naturally in very rare occasions. Where’s Voltaire
February 14, 2013 at 1:03 PM
Thanks ‘gleneira’ for listing councils reviewing their housing strategies. Here is a quote from Bayside: “Council will undertake an annual review of the development trends within Bayside to ensure adequate opportunity exists to accommodate anticipated future population growth. This Strategy will be
reviewed when it is identified that Bayside has an anticipated five year supply of residential capacity available.” Glen Eira Council should do likewise.
February 14, 2013 at 6:16 PM
The objective is as plain as the nose on anyone’s face. If you don’t change things, the laws in place are the ones that everything is assessed against. The planning scheme encourages over development. That’s what Newton wants and that’s why nothing has been looked at for centuries. You wouldn’t get 12 and 14 storey applications in if he was on the job and gave a stuff about the end result of all this development. Together with his little pets there is an open invitation to build in Glen Eira.
February 15, 2013 at 7:08 AM
I know that the GEPS will not allow over development in my street. I don’t live on a tram track or near a main shopping centre or near a rail station. If I did I would expect high density development. It is to be expected that the noise will come from those that are most effected. These things evolve. I knew a bloke that had a typewritter shop………..
February 15, 2013 at 8:25 AM
I also don’t live on a main road, nor within the precincts of a main shopping centre. That doesn’t mean that I am not concerned about what is happening everywhere in Glen Eira. People who bought in what is now euphemistically called “housing diversity” probably didn’t even know what they were buying into. They would never have thought that their neat little suburban street would “evolve” as you say into 4 and even 5 level apartments that can house hundreds of people and bring in double that number of cars. In 2002 the term “high density” probably didn’t even exist and it’s never been defined.
I’m not the “most effected”. I’m “safe”, for the time being, that’s all. If you’d bothered to read these posts carefully you should be very concerned because what’s going to happen in the next year or two is that minimal change will become the new targets under this roller coaster of more and more development. You also ignore the arguments put up about council’s unwillingness to review anything or to fulfill the recommendations of so many of its strategic planning documents. If it’s not deliberate then it’s incompetence at the expense of residents and all in the favour of developers. Maybe you’re a developer and that’s why you’re sitting back and rubbing your hands with glee?
February 15, 2013 at 2:00 PM
The Urban Villages were heavily debated throughout the City from 1999 until the Ammendment was passed and found its way into the GEPS. Anyone that bought a property since that time and was unaware of what might happen can’t complain. Plenty of people sold up and moved when they understood what may happen. I can’t understand what the fuss is about. Those people think they can have a traditional suburban home near a railway station and walking distance to the shops are not living in reality. The development will continue regardless of who sits on the council. The developers are paying good money for the land that is zoned inside the Urban Villages.
February 15, 2013 at 4:50 PM
By a stange quirk of circumstances the railway lines are on main roads, shops grew up around them.
Now fast forward to this Council
. the centres have been deemed high density housing and more and more units are being built with each development being higher than the last.
. overshadowing and overlooking dominate
. the roads are clogged because Council is still packing the developments in despite already exceeeding Melbourne 2030 projections and the State Govt. doing nothing about transport infrastructure.
. Council is also waiving parking requirements but it makes no impact on car ownership, it just clogs nearby residential streets
. “rat run” usage of nearby residential streets is dramatically increasing as motorists try to avoid clogged main roads yet Council fails to implement traffic calming treatments
. large trees on development sites are disappearing as retention of trees would cause the developer to reduce the number of dwellings.
. street trees are disappearing because of increased (width and number) driveway crossovers.
As for development continuing, at the rate that it is in Glen Eira, regardless of who sits on Council bullsh*t. It will continue to develop as it is as long as Newton is CEO and Councillors just buy into his bullshi*t without questioning. Glen Eira’s planning scheme is a piece of crap and a woefully inadequate piece of crap at that (for instance where are the traffic management and parking plans for each activity centre, where is the holistic approach instead of viewing everything in isolation). Development will occur in Glen Eira – but does it have to badly planned
.
February 15, 2013 at 8:25 PM
Over development “is in the eyes of the beholder” famous words by Hyams and Lipshutz. Indeed, if you live in a single storey home in minimal change area you would not expect a 4 storey house appearing. But with creeping developmet you may find yourself next to 2 storey townhouses or flats and then 3 storey once (only one storey more) and eventually through ‘rezoning’ by application into a 4 storey buildings. It has happened in Bentleigh. Do you think your street is immune? It only takes a determined developer with the help of loosely constructed GEPS and VCAT interpreting as it is.