Glen Eira Debates

Over the next 20 years, the City will undergo moderate population growth and will see a continued decline in household sizes. As a consequence, there will be a need to plan for the additional 6,000 dwellings which are predicted for Glen Eira by 2021 as well as encouraging a more diverse housing stock (Department of Infrastructure, 1999, Victoria in Future). 

So sayeth Council in its latest spin document. When were these prognostications made? 1999? 2012? Your guess is as good as ours. But it certainly serves the objectives of the public relations department of Glen Eira. Clearly these figures are highly questionable. If the claim is that these projections represent the latest up-to-date data, then residents are being led up the garden path.

The Department of Planning’s latest version of Victoria in Future, 2012 makes the following predictions:

Currently the figures tell us that in 2011, private dwellings totalled 55,150. No figures are given for the numbers in 2013 although Profile.Id tell us that the figure is currently over 58,000. The projected figure needed for 2021 is claimed to be 59,908. Hardly an extra 6000 dwellings! (See: http://www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/home/publications-and-research/urban-and-regional-research/census-2011/victoria-in-future-2012/vif-2012-data-tables)

Profile.id.com in their predictions also come up far short of the cited 6000 dwellings.

What is most important is the need to take into account the development that has been rampant for the past decade. Council appears at VCAT and argues that population has already exceeded projections, so there should be some constraints on development. Yet their planning policies continue to invite massive scale developments without providing the needed strategic planning and investment in basic infrastructure such as drains, open space, etc.

Analysis of the Planning Activity Audit which is submitted by councils to the government on a regular basis reveals the extent of this development. Please note: we believe that these figures (as submitted by Council) are far from accurate given past history and if anything they underplay the scale of development. The duplication of some figures is also unexplained. The table below documents the number of applications submitted and the number of permits granted. The final column lists the number of permits for 2 or more dwellings.

Source: http://www.ppars.dpcd.vic.gov.au/Reports/04

At the very least the figures indicate that a MINIMUM of 7,000 dwellings have already gone into Glen Eira. The real figure  could be tenfold bigger since we’re only adding up the number of granted permits. These figures also do not reveal how successful the policy of creating DIVERSITY actually is. For example: of the thousands and thousands of units erected in the past decade, and looking ahead to the future, HOW MANY ARE 1 BEDROOM APARTMENTS? HOW MANY ARE 2 BEDROOM APARTMENTS? HOW MANY ARE 3 BEDROOM?

Do councillors ever ask for such figures? Do they in fact even know what is really going on in their neighbourhoods? Or do they leave everything to be (secretly) shunted through by an administration hell bent on more and more development at the cost of social, economic and environmental amenity for the majority of residents?

PS: We neglected to include the most vital statistic of all – the 1500+ units that will comprise the C60 development. So much for the need for another 6000 dwellings!