The items set down for Tuesday night’s council meeting are truly staggering, leaving us to ponder the very serious question of : how many done deals are we looking at? How much more spin will this community tolerate? Here are the lowlights:
CENTENARY PARK PAVILION DEVELOPMENT
- More loss of public open space
- More loss of mature trees
- Another $600,000 for extended car parking
- No traffic report or any statistics to justify these actions
- No consultation with residents – just so called ‘stakeholders’ – ie ONLY SPORTSCLUBS
- A ball park figure of $2.68 million
CENTRE OF RACECOURSE SPORTING FACILITIES
- No mention of the independent consultant who was supposed to draft the report? Where is it?
- From ‘no ball games’ the plan is now to have: 2 baseball diamonds, 5 soccer pitches, 1 footy oval, etc.
- What secret discussions have been going on with the MRC, and Maccabi? Would council really propose something like this unless such discussions had already taken place?
LOCAL LAW & SPORT & RECREATION COMMITTEE MINUTES
- Secret, closed meetings that continue with the useless navel gazing! Lipshutz promised the local law would be ready in February. There still is no Tree Register, nothing on Organised Sport, and a brief one sentence about ‘meeting procedures’. We are not privy to any of the ‘reports’.
- Does the right hand really know what the left hand is doing? Why is the Sport & Rec committee suddenly discussing local laws? Why isn’t this done via full council meetings so that transparency is assured? When will the draft Local Law finally be ready or will it all be crammed into one meeting and thus hopefully rammed through like everything else this council does?
SELL OFF OF RESERVE
- Is council really prepared to forego $40,000 because it might cost them $5000? Land has been valued at over $60,000 but council is willing to sell it for $20,000.
- Is it mere coincidence that an adjacent property was sold last year and that the other neighbour is now about to acquire 130 sq metres for a song. Does he/she perhaps own the adjoining property and that we can expect an application to come in very soon for a huge development? Or are we merely being too cynical?
GESAC
More brilliant planning that has led to:
- Another $120,000 to be spent on outfitting another ‘studio’
- Another $125,000 spent on “better entrance and exit between the foyer and pool hall’
- Still no word on costs for ‘liquidated damages’ and the Hansen & Yuncken legal battle
Glen Eira Debates 
April 5, 2013 at 7:23 PM
Gleneira, you’ve neglected to mention that after nine months the CEO contractual meeting minutes are to be accepted. Funnily enough they aren’t included in the online agenda document. As you’ve said before – another “clerical error” from our wonderful bunch of employees.
April 6, 2013 at 9:32 AM
The review of the open space strategy currently underway was publicised as the blueprint for the future. When the car park fanatics have finished carving up countless parks the blueprint will be released. Says a lot about the deviousness of this council. Say one thing but do the exact opposite.
April 6, 2013 at 10:13 AM
Re Centenary Park
Absolutely astounding. Council claims to be committed to advocating use of sustainable transport (public transport, cycling and walking) rather than private vehicles and regularly justifies waivering carparking requirements for developments as being proof of this commitment. Council also claims a committment to increasing and enhancing Glen Eira’s open space. Yet here they are (yet again) consuming Glen Eira’s meagre parkland to provide more carparking.
Re Centre of the Racecourse
In 2011 Council and the MRC jointly presented the MRC developed plan for landscaping the centre of the racecourse – the landscaping being pay back for Councils Special Committee passing of the C60 travesty and the MRC finally recognising the public’s right to access the Racecourse Reserve for park and recreation purposes. Now, 2 years later, we have Council wasting ratepayers money by commissioning an independent consultant to totally redesign the previously much heralded landscape design that is scheduled to be officially opened in two weeks. Aside from wondering what the Mayor will say in his official address at the opening ceremony, one has difficulty in justifying Council’s expenditure on this redesign when Council has little say in the centres landscaping – the Trustees, not Council, are the managers of the land and Council has no policy on parkland design, ergo for all intents and purposes it is private land and there is no applicable policy.
Both the above beggar belief – I suspect that when details of the Councillors debate on these two issues are published fellow bloggers will have a field day commenting.
April 6, 2013 at 10:59 AM
well done to the council on this. I thought the council would give up after all the political pressure. Can you imagine Southwick saying we dont need sports grounds especially when he is fighting for the rights of Jewish clubs? Should get the big sporting bodies involved AFL would eat MRC for breakfast. Glen Eira would be the envy of every other electorate with facilities like this. Look what the great parks in Murrumbeena have done for property prices there. They are going through the roof. The only negative I can see is for passive users ie dog walkers of the park but the need of the many outweigh the need of the few. They would still have the outside track. With the GE tunnel access I cant even see why the ovals could not be used during race meetings. It is a minority sport anyway. The real concern for the MRC would be losing car parking not people watching the horses for free,
April 6, 2013 at 10:58 PM
Is Southwick only going to fight for Jewish sporting clubs like Maccabi or will he fight for all cultural diverse sports clubs. Atleast the MRC trustees of Lipshutz, Hyams and Esakoff will be impartial when it comes to Maccabi and the centre of the racecourse love in…..won’t they?
April 6, 2013 at 4:07 PM
The dollars poured into Gesac after the fact are going through the roof. Here’s another 200,000 thousand plus that you can bet hasn’t been budgeted for. In the big scheme of things this is probably a drop in the ocean but it says a lot about the planning capabilities of this administration and their supposedly world class consultants. I’m waiting with bated breath for the next announcement that an underground car park is finally going to be built at the cost of 4 or 5 million. All of these extras don’t rate as part of the “construction contract” bulldust. They’re very symbolic though of the incompetence that has been demonstrated repeatedly.
April 6, 2013 at 7:13 PM
Residents should take the time out to read the bullsh*t about the sale of former reserve land abutting McKittrick Road, Bentleigh – the land, which has access to McKittrick Road, is 134sqm valued at $66,7000. Council proposes to sell the land to the owner of the adjacent property (who has illegally fenced off part of the land) for $20,000 – a massive $46,700 price reduction. Councils justification for this “special” deal is that is all the owner will offer and Council doesn’t want the land and doesn’t want to maintain it (estimated maintainance cost of $2,500 p.a.).
I suggest Council does a re-think of this sale. Although a small lot, under the soon to be introduced planning zones, the lot size is suitable for development for offices or a dwelling and there are some creative dwellings being built in disused laneways. (For example – http://www.hockingstuart.com.au/33_MURRAY_LANE_CAULFIELD_VIC_3162). The cost to Council to reclaim the land is a initial refencing cost of $3,000. Council should reclaim the land and sell it on the open market. Not only would Council solve it’s maintenance issues but for a paltry $3000 fencing outlay it stands to gain $46,700. This dollar gain being the community benefit which Council states is currently not being derived from the land.
April 7, 2013 at 8:20 AM
The land value put on this land by the council is fanciful. if no one else would want the land then the bloke that owns the land either side would set the price. Council is lucky he offered 20k. We live in a practical world.
April 7, 2013 at 10:52 AM
Nothing wrong with Council testing the market. The price offered is lower (per sqm) than recent sales of disused land.
April 6, 2013 at 11:07 PM
I think the proposal for the centre of the Caulfield Racecourse is to be commended. It neatly suggests substituting Ormond grounds and Booran Reserve grounds in one spot. Of course the sticking point is the Aquanita stables, whose board member and MRC Chief is none other but Mike Symons. I cannot see this plan being readily accepted by Dennis Naphtine. But, for developers Ormond grounds and Booran Reserve would be a bonanza. Who knows what deals may be done behind the scene at the State level. Sale of Ormond grounds would solve all financial debts of the Council. It won’t take place until the end of this decade anyway. Let’s wait and see.
April 7, 2013 at 8:40 AM
no chance it would be Gunn Reserve. However I like your thinking on the Booran reservoir as the cost/benefit in redeloping it would not be worth it. Also throw in the worthless park that the MRC “gave” us on the Booran Road roundabout. I cannot see how a junior soccer pitch can work with such a small area and providing parking.
That should be sold for apartments. Imagine they could raise $5 million from these 2 it would go a long way to redeveloping the racecourse centre.
April 7, 2013 at 11:08 AM
How far are we going to rush down the unsustainable development road, population going up and up – a lack of open space to cover the amount of clubs wanting to use that space, Park user being brushed aside for the sporting madness fads. Trees being axed everywhere, traffic getting crazier and crazier. Hardly a Councillor using his/her voice to raise any alternatives to this development madness.
What about some real debate about sustainable development
April 7, 2013 at 11:45 AM
The continued delay in delivering on issues that have plagued this council for just on a decade is deplorable. The Local Laws committee has again deferred any decision about tree registers until its next meeting set down for May. That will mean another 3 to 4 months before anything becomes public. Appeal rights are common in other councils. Why some of their procedures can’t be copied, amended and adopted is beyond me. It reminds me of that old joke about how many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb.
The Centre Road alcohol issue is another example of buck passing – much like the CCTV cameras. Everyone wants everyone else to take responsibility. Does anyone know of the legality of signs? Are they binding or just there for their aesthetic value? There wasn’t this trouble with introducing an alcohol ban for the racecourse of course.
April 7, 2013 at 8:13 PM
More lip service to concepts of open space by this council. When bitumen is counted as open space then we’re in trouble. Forget cost and anything to do with environmental sustainability. I would love to hear the argument how all these car parks fit into council policies and how they can justify the expense.