The future is writ large in the following article from The Leader! Not that we object to residents using their noggins and making a profit. What we most strongly object to is the failure of this administration and its councillors to do the necessary homework in order to ensure that residential streets are given the maximum protection possible. Unlike other councils’ approach to the introduction of the ‘reformed’ residential zones, we remind readers that our glorious council introduced the zones in total secrecy, with zero consultation, and with such indecent haste that there are countless stuff ups that will now take years to remedy. For example:
- No minimum size lot for subdivision – meaning that developers can subdivide and then subdivide again
- No dwellings cap on any lot of above average size
- No attempt to equal permeability requirements that other councils stipulate – ie. 25% compared to up to 40% by others
- No ‘buffer zones’
- Dividing streets and neighbours for no logical and accountable reason. For example Mavho St. (pictured below) where there is now a new application in for a 3 storey, 27 unit development and a reduction in visitor car parking. If this property was on the other side of the street and 8 or so houses down from Centre Road, it would be counted as ‘minimal change’. Why the eighth house is designated as minimal change and the 9th house as ‘housing diversity’ boggles the mind. But that’s the planning in Glen Eira!
Melbourne homeowners team up to take advantage of law changes and net $5.76m windfall
- Moorabbin Glen Eira Leader
- June 18, 2014
THREE savvy homeowners joined forces to sell their properties collectively, making upwards of $1 million profit.
They took advantage of recently changed zoning laws and the growing Asian investor interest in Melbourne.
The Bentleigh trio sold their houses in an off-market deal through Savills Australia.
Neighbours at 14, 16, and 18 Bent St sold their adjoining homes to a Chinese developer for $5.76 million, up to $1.8 million more than could have been expected from separate individual sales.
The undisclosed purchaser intends to apply for permission to develop a multi-level apartment building on the combined 1985sq m site.
Savills Australia’s Julian Heatherich, who negotiated the sale, said the neighbours could reasonably have expected to fetch $1.3-$1.5 million in separate sales, but the combined property provided a much more valuable development opportunity.
“This was an exceptional result where three astute neighbours realised the opportunity they could create by combining their properties to form an attractive development opportunity and it could not have been a better result,” Mr Heatherich said.
“As far as we know this is the first sale of this type based on an opportunity created by recent residential zoning changes and the current Asian penchant for Australian and particularly Melbourne property.”
Recent zone changes allow for multi-unit development within activity centres.
City of Glen Eira implemented the changes in August with the new ‘Urban Village Policy’ allowing for multi-storey development of up to four levels.
“Glen Eira was the first municipality to implement the zoning changes and with Bentleigh one of the main high density areas in Glen Eira, it was subsequently reclassified as Bentleigh Urban Village,” Mr Heatherich said.
Bent St runs off the busy Centre Rd shopping strip and is near the train station.
PS: here’s the link for the Channel 7 News of today. Please note the mockup of what a four storey building, containing 60 units might look like next to a single storey dwelling – https://au.news.yahoo.com/vic/video/watch/24268737/teamwork-pays-in-savvy-land-sale/
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And here’s the view of countless local streets carved up by whim or officers sitting at a computer and drawing lines on a map.
Glen Eira Debates 
June 18, 2014 at 12:27 PM
The map is telling because as far as I can see it means that people living just behind Centre Road (to the left side of the map) and behind the commercial zones have no protection whatsoever. Commercial zones don’t have height limits so it is possible for a six or eight storey building to dominate their back yards. I wouldn’t want to have that overlooking my house.
For those streets like Mavho, Loranne, Burgandy, Daley and Mitchell, they will also have three storeys hovering alongside them or overshadowing their back yards. This makes it very easy for developers to continue to build their concrete jungles. People will move out, sell their land like those in Bent street and Glen Eira will become traffic bound even more and have nothing better than the start of slums most of which will be one bedroom chicken coops without light and parking facilities.
June 19, 2014 at 9:57 AM
Whether you like it or not does not matter. What matters is that the State Government’s orders need to be followed. You have a choice in November this year.
June 19, 2014 at 12:02 PM
Do you seriously think a Labor gov. Would change any policies. In fact they voted for for the changes in the Parliament.
June 18, 2014 at 1:09 PM
Where’s the transition zone?
June 18, 2014 at 2:42 PM
Bentleigh house sale shows planning strategy may be working
Date
June 18, 2014 – 1:00PM
8 reading now
Clay Lucas and Nicole Lindsay
The sale of three Bentleigh houses has provided early evidence the Napthine government’s planning changes have helped unlock the worth of prime land in Melbourne neighbourhoods deemed suitable for growth.
Three properties in a row in a Bentleigh street sold by Savills Australia are metres from a railway station, in an area deemed a ‘‘residential growth zone’’by Planning Minister Matthew Guy last August.
This gives a developer a right to build up to four storeys.
Before the changes to the zones, the council had no mandatory height limits in this area of Bentleigh.
This means a developer who bought the Bentleigh land could have applied to go higher than four storeys, but without certainty of the outcome if the plan was refused by the council or the state planning tribunal.
The three Bent Street homes together sold for $5.76 million, more than $1 million above what they could have fetched individually, the selling agent said.
The homes were sold to a Chinese development company making its first purchase in Australia. It plans to build at least 50 apartments on the site which, as a result of combining the blocks, is almost 2000 square metres.
Savills Australia’s Julian Heatherich handled the sale and said all of the blocks were virtually the same size and stood side by side, so there was no real difference in location or worth between the three.
‘‘This is the first one we’ve done based as a direct result of these new zoning law changes,’’ Mr Heatherich said.
‘‘That a developer can put 50 or 60 apartments on the site is why they can get that price, and if it was three levels, they wouldn’t have got that money.’’
Mr Heatherich said that, individually, the land the homes sat on would have sold for up to $1.5 million apiece. Combined, he said, the land was worth much more – especially with the certainty delivered by the zone changes.
The median house price in Bentleigh’s upper range was $1.2 million in March.
A spokeswoman for Mr Guy said that, across all of Glen Eira City Council’s area, there had been an increase in development activity as a result of the planning changes.
‘‘Relative to 2012-13, activity in the [most restrictive] neighbourhood zone has in fact increased,’’ the spokeswoman, Rochelle Jackson, said. ‘‘The net increase in dwellings equated to 210 over the year to May 2014 compared to less than 200 in the full year of 2012-13.’’
She said that, across all three zones established in Glen Eira since August, ‘‘activity has accelerated sharply with a net increase of 1351 dwellings for the year to May 2014’’.
‘‘This confirms that the strategy of directing growth to defined precincts works as the development sector responds to clearer planning,’’ Ms Jackson said.
One of the Bent Street sellers, Mark Watson, said that part of the reason he had been so keen to sell was the “looming possibility of four-storey developments and the extra traffic” in his neighbourhood.
“It was time to move on. And rather than let someone else get the benefit of buying up the houses singly and selling them on to a developer, we thought we could do better approaching them and hiring an agent to represent us,” he said.
At one stage the Bent Street group numbered six home owners but the others dropped out, leaving the three who had lived in the street the longest ready to sell.
Mr Watson, who moved into the street in 1979, was the most recent arrival.
Mr Guy told radio station RRR’s The Architects show on Tuesday night that some 70 per cent of Glen Eira had the new Neighbourhood Residential Zone put in last August.
“And what we have seen over the last few months is an increase in permit activity, not just across Glen Eira but even in its Neighbourhood Residential Zone from the Residential One [zone] that it replaced,” he said.
“What I find interesting is that there is this Henny Penny attitude that the sky is about to fall in, but when you look at the facts that have come out after that, what you find is that people are seeing a growth in those areas,’’ he said.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/bentleigh-house-sale-shows-planning-strategy-may-be-working-20140618-zsd39.html
A couple of things are worth pointing out about this article:
One paragraph states – “This means a developer who bought the Bentleigh land could have applied to go higher than four storeys, but without certainty of the outcome if the plan was refused by the council or the state planning tribunal.” True, but this totally ignores the point that the reverse is also true. If one checks VCAT decisions, then there are plenty of applications which were previously only for 3 storey and smaller developments that were REJECTED by VCAT. With the introduction of these new zones developers now know that they will get their bigger plans rubber stamped since this has become LAW. For example, all of the following, which were for smaller developments were knocked back by VCAT. If they were to go to VCAT today, they would be passed.
10-12 Cromwell Street, Caulfield North featured an application for 3 storeys, 11 units and a reduction in car parking requirements. The judgement to reject the application was made on the 24th July 2013. This property is now zoned GRZ1 and hence if the applicant reapplies VCAT is bound to accept a 3 storey proposal.
The same applies to the following hearings and decisions and they are just a sample. There are plenty more.
33 Browns Road, Bentleigh East (now also rezoned GRZ1)
167 Neerim Road, Carnegie (now GRZ1)
12 Wheeler St., Ormond (now GRZ1)
495 South Road Bentleigh (now GRZ1)
3/18 North Ave, Bentleigh (now NRZ1 but with no minimum lot sizes)
482 Hawthorn Road, Caulfield South (now GRZ2).
Readers should also take note of the increase in new dwellings. When the C25 policy was introduced the growth in new dwellings per year necessary to meet population growth was given as 600. Glen Eira’s population forecast by id.consulting is miniscule in comparison to other municipalities – approx 0.67% each year. Yet dwellings have doubled in number according to this report – up to 1300 new dwellings per year – and this does not include the upcoming 2046 units (at least) with the Caulfield Village development!
There is much INFILL activity too. So maybe there won’t be 4 storeys everywhere, but many, many local streets that are currently single houses are set to become attached double storey town houses with no open space levies on 2 lot subdivisions and no development contribution levies issuing from these.
June 18, 2014 at 6:29 PM
Good luck to them and to hell with the neighbours and the neighbourhood. People will be selling their homes, moving out of Glen Eira and leaving it for student slum accommodation or flats that are no bigger than a chicken coop. Council had better start changing its colours and logo from “green” to ugly brown and black. That will fit better with what is going on all around these areas.
June 19, 2014 at 9:49 AM
What a joke.
That Bent street thing means going from three households to fifty. The council and the State Government will be collecting plenty more in stamps, rates and so forth. However, I bet that they don’t spend an extra penny on local amenities.
June 19, 2014 at 10:22 AM
Comparisons are always illuminating. The Minister has today gazetted the Boroondara and Bayside amendments introducing the new residential zones. Unlike Glen Eira, which has an absolute minimal number of zones, and therefore less differentiation between streets, areas, and suburbs, Boroondara has 4 GRZ zones and Bayside 8. That leaves plenty of room for manoeuvring and providing added protection. Glen Eira has basically 2 such zones – the third applies to the old Alma club site which ‘miraculously’ became a GRZ3 zone after the application for 79 units went in – from its original designation as minimal change (NRZ). What this means is that broad brush strokes covering huge areas was thought sufficient by this council, rather than a careful analysis of sector by sector and street by street.
Bayside of course has activity centre structure plans that have been ratified and kept in the new zones – another non-existent feature of Glen Eira. Finally, both of these councils have based their zones on housing strategy reviews that do not literally date back to the last century and have undergone genuine ‘community consultation’ in the past few years. Glen Eira’s ‘translation’ into these new zones relies on a housing study done in 2002. In busting its gut to be first cab off the rank, this council we maintain has, apart from being secretive, not done the necessary work to ensure that development is appropriate to different sites and nor have they included schedules that go anywhere near protecting local amenity – again in contrast to countless other councils.
June 19, 2014 at 11:10 AM
We forgot to mention that Stonnington has 13 GRZ zones (all of differing mandatory heights) and 3 NRZ zones.
June 19, 2014 at 12:23 PM
Q how much extra in rates would it be? Assuming each house is 2000 that is 6000. How much would 50 apartments be? I know it isn’t calculated in a fair way for the services that need to be provided
June 21, 2014 at 3:07 PM
Increase in Councillor income. The more they approve developments, the more rates they get and the more Councillor allowance.