PS: As a footnote to the entire issue of planning and the failure of this council to not only implement but have any strategic vision for the city, we thought that residents would be interested in the following comments from one VCAT member in a recent decision. This concerns a Dudley St application which has been making the rounds for nigh on 6 years. The area is listed as MINIMAL CHANGE, yet application after application has been rubber stamped for 5 storey student accommodation and other developments. Here’s what the member stated in his decision –
It is perhaps unfortunate that the future of this area is being considered on an ad hoc basis through multiple permits and amendments to permits when the locality has offered a real opportunity for a strategic planning exercise to acknowledge the land’s relationship to the Phoenix Precinct and other attributes. Sadly, the street interface along Gibson Street with garages, a substation and an extensive area of encased fire services, is an example, in my view, of a lost opportunity to achieve a quality and integrated solution for an area that could have had a much higher level of street amenity. Having said that, there is a strategic context provided by the Scheme within which decisions about individual applications can be made and the lack of a specific position in policy about the area’s future direction does not provide a reason to refuse the current amendment request.
Source: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VCAT/2013/512.html
Glen Eira Debates 
May 6, 2013 at 4:03 PM
Bloody fantastic. Another minimal change area goes to the dogs. Rotten council bends over backwards so that residents get screwed every single time. My congratulations to Newton and his arse lickers.
May 6, 2013 at 5:10 PM
Glen Eira’s loss of open space is the developer’s gain. This will end up at Vcat and will probably be 3 storeys and maybe 60 units. That’s still a pretty good profit especially if they’re rabbit warrens. Council could have bought this land for a mere $3 million. It would have saved not only the land but the club itself. Plea after plea went into council but all were ignored. It’s obvious that no councillor lives anywhere in the vicinity otherwise they might have shown some real interest. Then again, who knows what relationships exist or whether they were also volunteers in handing out HTV cards?
May 6, 2013 at 7:51 PM
Does something stink in Glen Eira ?
May 6, 2013 at 9:51 PM
Time to report the Council to Ombudsman. Was this offer to buy Alma Club land not during the time of Esakoff who was a Mayor for 3 years or Hyams who was a Mayor for two years? jh, it surely stinks. Macca is spot on it may be a return for the favour of HTV or something else that only the three knows about.
May 6, 2013 at 10:33 PM
Hopefully people understand the process by now—inspect the documents and plans lodged in support of the application, assess it against the criteria contained in or referenced by the Planning Scheme, lodge objections stating how they would be affected if a permit was granted in terms that the Planning System [sic] recognizes, lobby councillors. Ask the councillors whether they believe in their Planning Scheme and the policies contained in it. The application clearly violates multiple policies, but officers are likely to dismiss most of those—”considered acceptable” is a common phrase. Then there’s the delightfully self-referential “emerging character” argument, the principle being that if you approve a 4-storey development then that’s the emerging character, so the application would be consistent with the emerging character. Ultimately it will come down to what the applicant can persuade VCAT to grant them. VCAT may even moan that the development isn’t big enough and is a waste of land. I notice that there is no open space nearby—not that that carries any weight these days.
May 7, 2013 at 7:42 AM
Wilks Street, located in a minimal change area, is predominantly single fronted one storey cottages and in a minimal change area. While the property has pedestrian only access via a narrow walk way to Norwood Road and hence Dandenong Road (trams), the only vehicle access to the property is via tiny dead end Wilks Street (less than 200 metres) off Alma Road. 4 storeys, 75 dwellings and reduced parking and visitor parking requirements.
There is no way Council’s traffic department can claim “no adverse traffic or parking impact” but they will.
May 7, 2013 at 10:35 AM
The member’s statement is completely valid and would apply across all of Glen Eira, not only the Dudley Street area. Ad hoc and piece meal planning is enshrined in Glen Eira and supported by the alleged statement of Hyams a few council meetings ago as reported on this website.
The best example of this laissez faire/pro-development approach is the Phoenix Precinct. It was created in order to oversee the integration of Monash, the racetrack, station, and surrounds. Instead this council allowed the MRC to dictate terms and for part to become a Priority Development zone. Piecemeal and appalling planning outcomes are the result. The same could be said for Housing Diversity areas with the complete abandonment of any pretence that open space, traffic management, environmental impacts matter at all. As long as a developer gets hold of some land, puts in an application he can be assured that this council will bend over backwards to approve the permit. They are even willing to sell strategic land such as part of McKittrick Street advertised in today’s Leader to faciilitate further development and huge profits no doubt to the owner of both blocks.
As far as I know, nobody on this council has satisfactorily answered the question why Glen Eira refuses to implement structure plans that would go some way to having in place a modicum level of strategic planning. Structure plans of course would be anathema to those who view development and more development as manna from heaven.
May 7, 2013 at 2:59 PM
do you plan to cover the leader this week. one article covers danby argument and another one about the new caulfield racecourse chairman.
Funny 2 letters as well. one claims that council is redeveloping land into apartments. Name and address withheld. how pathetic that they would withhold such an outlandish statement
May 7, 2013 at 3:32 PM
For the Trustee/Sword article see: https://gleneira.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/sword.jpg
May 7, 2013 at 5:06 PM
What an ironic comment, “All parties..need to build on that”. As it happens the MRC have been building on the centre of the racecourse and their squattocrasy continues. Nor is there much evidence that the Trust is working hard to be true to its original purpose, and there is absolutely no evidence that the Trust wishes to improve governance arrangements. It could publish its Minutes including financial statements if it wishes, along with a map showing all the Crown land that is leased and the non-financial conditions attached to each lease. There’s been no public statement why it has rejected the Committee of Management Guidelines that DPCD expects them to comply with.
May 7, 2013 at 4:32 PM
The trust chairman is a former ALP national president. He should call Michael and help him. Mr. Danby has written to the wrong Minister. The Minister for Planning has zilch to do with the race track or the trustees. The trust is overseen by the Minister for the Environment. Mr. Guy may have plenty to do with C60. but that is privaye land. You would think that a person that is a Federal member of Parliament would have sufficient grey matter to know where his letter should end up.
May 7, 2013 at 4:40 PM
Danby did send it to Minister for Crown Land & Envionment
May 7, 2013 at 5:03 PM
The Leader article clearly talks about a letter to Mr. Guy. He is the Minister For Planning, Are you the person that sent the letter to the wrong Minister and forgot to brief Michael.
Anyway, not to late. Photocopy the letter and post it to the Minister for the Environment. ASfter that read the Leader story again, carefully Also keep Mary up to speed aswell.
May 7, 2013 at 5:18 PM
We have to confirm what Anonymous put up as a recent comment. If you care to check our post where we published the Danby letter in full, you will note that there is a CC to Minister Smith as well.
May 7, 2013 at 9:03 PM
If Mr. Danby did sent the letter to Minister Smith he really should have included that in his press release or told the reporter. Matthew Guy has nothing to do with the trustees or the race track. I got my information from the Leader article.
May 7, 2013 at 5:25 PM
Gee VCAT has a cheek complaining about ad hoc planning outcomes when its been the one doing the ad hoc “planning”. The area is covered by the Minimal Change Area policy, and the so-called strategic planning performed historically reflects its status in GEPS. A series of incompetent decisions has led to the current mess. I’m curious whether the canopy trees that the developer and Margaret Baird refer to will survive the upheaval to the area, or whether they will need to be bulldozed to provide additional parking. Trees are a valued amenity, but they’re discouraged in other activity centres. I notice VCAT’s legendary carelessness with accuracy has emerged again with the subject property described as abutting the Frankston railway line.