Less than 3% of Glen Eira is currently zoned as Commercial (C1Z). Not a huge area compared to say Stonnington’s 6.22% over a much smaller land area. One would expect that with proper, competent planning Council should have done everything in its power to ensure that properties in the immediate surrounds were protected from the possibility of innumerable high rise buildings sitting right on top of a single storey dwelling.
But that’s not the way this Council works. Other councils for example have 3 Neighborhood Residential Zones – Glen Eira has lumped everyone into the same basket with just one single zone. As for General Residential Zones others have up to 10 or 12 areas carefully selected. Glen Eira has a pathetic two zones – we discount the Alma Club fiasco as a ‘zone’. What this basically means is that other councils did their homework. They dissected their municipalities and consequences and then decided on appropriate zoning. They even had the temerity to revisit their housing strategies!
None of this occurred in Glen Eira. In their sloth, haste, and plain old incompetence Glen Eira has tried to sell the furphy that their new zones are a simple ‘translation’ of what existed before August 23rd, 2013. Apart from the fact that these old zones were based on a Housing Strategy dating back to 2002 (and which hasn’t been touched since) the ‘rules’ have changed – especially in regard to commercial zones. But did council take any of this into account? Did they do the necessary research? Did they, to put it bluntly, have the skill, will, and plain old competence to at least try and achieve the best results? Or is it, that they couldn’t give a stuff and were reluctant to put in place any restrictions on development?
Below we feature a mere small selection of the appalling potential results of such indifference and incompetence. There were many more examples we could have selected – but these should suffice. The point we make is that in all of these maps the commercial zones are sitting smack in the middle of areas zoned ‘residential’ – yet there is no appropriate zoning around these areas to provide relief to residents. With no height limits, no real setbacks, no parking plan overlays, and no open space, residents can look skywards and see only concrete and overhanging balconies. Our sincere commiserations to all residents living within cooee of these commercial zones!
PS: we forgot to mention that in Commercial Zones and Mixed Use Zones there are NO HEIGHT LIMITS! We also note that there is a wonderful letter from residents put up on the GERA (Glen Eira Residents’ Association) website.
Glen Eira Debates 
August 18, 2014 at 12:08 PM
I’ve read the Mavho letter and think these residents make some first class points. Ratepayers do deserve a lot better. The system has got to change and I’m referring to the way that this administration has organised and manipulated the system. I want to make the following points and see what other people think.
1. I read the minutes carefully after each council meeting. I don’t remember any of these developments coming up for a full councillor decision. That is my first point. Why isn’t something that is so contentious not presented at a council meeting?
2. Even if it does get to a council meeting what is very likely to happen is that councillors feeling the heat from residents will either reject the application or put in some innocuous conditions. They know beforehand that the applicant will go to vcat and probably get what he wants.
3. The applicant will get what he wants because it’s in the planning scheme that these councilors accepted. They get off scot free. They can then turn around to residents and say “hey we knocked it back” and blame vcat as they always do. That doesn’t solve a thing and I hate this sort of conduct that puts politics above people’s lives.
4. The maps in the post convince me even more that Akehurst and Newton have to go.
August 18, 2014 at 12:47 PM
Fair comment. Elections are two years away. Sure to be plenty of disgruntled and fed up people by then. If I were these councillors and many in the admin I’d start looking for a new job today.
August 18, 2014 at 2:04 PM
All current councillors that stand at the next election will be re-elected.
August 18, 2014 at 3:14 PM
Two more years of unrestrained development will change people’s minds pretty quickly. Plus, two more years of lousy traffic management and continued waiving of car parking requirements will make plenty of folks hot under the collar. Topping it all off will be the 442 cubby holes being built in North Caulfield plus the works going on at Monash. I’d be very worried if I happened to be a current councillor.
August 18, 2014 at 6:48 PM
Basically all the variations of standards contained in Schedules to the new residential zones are still discretionary. Having 12 of them instead of 1 or 3 doesn’t change that VCAT is free to ignore them, which it does. If VCAT decides 8sqm private open space is excessive then it can unilaterally grant a permit with conditions specifying only 6sqm…or 4sqm…or none. The only two certainties in planning are that the outcome is a lottery and that there are no minimum standards below which a decision-maker will not slither.
Council is just as guilty as VCAT, as it doesn’t believe in or fight for the integrity of its own planning scheme. Indeed, when Cr Lipshutz stands up to speak on behalf of a developer and refers to VCAT, he is implicitly acknowledging that Council doesn’t assess applications against the “criteria” contained in the planning scheme. Just as VCAT doesn’t.
The whole process is hopelessly corrupt. Remember the redefinition of building envelope that was made unilaterally by the Planning Minister and was enthusiastically endorsed by Council especially for C60? At the last election most councillors stood on a platform of “opposing inappropriate development”, but not a single councillor has had the courage to articulate what that actually means to them.
Instead we are treated repeatedly to a spectacle of ad-hoc decisions that lack cohesion, that ignore key policies, that are wilfully blind to the consequences, that stretch infrastructure beyond capacity without funding or a plan to keep pace with the population.
As the blog post points out, MUZ in Glen Eira doesn’t have a height limit, although it is permitted to specify one in a Schedule. MUZ is a residential zone. Ergo, not all residential zones in Glen Eira have mandatory height limits, regardless of the blatant propaganda that Council publishes. Council has been dishonest with the public. And I don’t want to be “represented” by dishonest people.
August 18, 2014 at 7:09 PM
You are entirely correct in your assertions that much in the Schedules is ‘discretionary’. However, the point that needs to be made as strongly as possible is that other councils have at least attempted via their schedules to limit the damage that may be wrought on their populations. Whereas Glen Eira at one point contemplated increasing the permeability allowance to 30% it reneged on this and stuck to its 25% in minimal change.When seen in the light of what other councils have both attempted and achieved, Glen Eira belongs at the bottom of the list. Other councils went for 40%, 35% and 30%. In Glen Eira near enough is good enough especially when it doesn’t impact on development opportunities. We believe that the number of zones is also important. There was plenty of scope within the schedules for council to do a lot more than they have. They did not. There is no size limit on subdivision (again as many other councils introduced) meaning that a smart developer can subdivide and then subdivide again thereby thwarting the 2 dwellings per single block of land.
Instead of pretending that they are leaders in planning, council should own up to the fact that what it has achieved palls into insignificance with what was possible and leaves it dragging behind a number of other councils who have at least had the foresight to consult with residents and to do their darndest to ensure the best possible outcomes. On these points alone Glen Eira and its mandarins are abject failures.