Below we feature two pages of meeting notes that occurred between the Minister, Newton, Hyams, and department reps. We urge all readers to pay particular attention to the last 5 paragraphs of Page 2. These paragraphs reveal plenty about the manner in which this council operates and its hidden agendas!
Glen Eira Debates 
September 1, 2014 at 12:48 PM
What the F**K!!!!!!!.
Council knowingly provided the backdoor mechanism that subverts the maximum of 2 residences per lot in the Neighbourhood Residential Zone (formerly Minimal Change) while at the same time proudly proclaiming what a great job they have done by getting the limitation of 2 only residences approved by the Minister.
September 1, 2014 at 1:15 PM
My oh my, the shit’s hit the fan good and proper with this. Outraged gets it right about subverting minimal change policy. What gets my goat even more is the admission about VirginiaPark,and what’s going to happen there. The boys sit down and have it all worked out to the advantage of the big money bods. 89 years of non stop construction – you’ve got to be joking! There won’t be a single street that remains intact by this greed and lousy planning. I won’t even bother going on about transparency and public input.
September 1, 2014 at 4:36 PM
Quite an eye opener this little tete-a-tete with Guy. Shows exactly what a wank officer reports are and how little faith should be accorded to them. The Neerim road subdivision report tries very very hard to pretend that this is only the first step in the process and that people will have plenty of time for objections and lot sizes have to have a permit and so on. Might be true for other councils where these things carry some weight but not in Glen Eira when the decision has already been made as these meeting notes prove. Good job Hyams in representing the poor old mugs who voted for you.
September 1, 2014 at 5:09 PM
Uneffing believable. Council’s credibility has gone done the gurgler big time on this one.
No wonder they didn’t want to consult the community – they would have found the subdivision subversion.
All Councillor’s are complicit in this. They should all resign. Not one of them has any credibility left – if they didn’t know, they should have.
September 1, 2014 at 7:08 PM
The file note is dated a week or so before the minister made his public announcement. I’m assuming that there would have been many meetings prior to this date. If so, then council’s admission that they don’t have a clue where they are going is the most serious indictment on the administration and its councillors. If Newton and councillors had not been so hell bent on being the first council in the state to introduce the zones, then proper and diligent homework, plus consultation with residents, should have been a given. It wasn’t and ego, pack backs, and probably countless other secret little bargains took precedence over community aspirations and livability.
September 1, 2014 at 10:31 PM
Volume and capacity to build more and more is what this is all about. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with what is good for a community, a neighbourhood, and for the families that live in these areas. Glen Eira embraces this ethos fully.
September 2, 2014 at 7:46 AM
Any resident attending tonight’s Council Meeting should give a resounding bronx cheer to the Councillors when they enter the chamber and when they approve the 487 Neerim Road subdivision and plan. My guess is the 3 ward Councillors will be out voted by the 6 non ward Councillors.
Yeah sure, the developer will head off to VCAT. But, given the fact that Council’s preference for developers vs. residents resulted in them knowingly (and very, very quietly), providing a backdoor solution to the maximum 2 residences per lot in the Neighbourhood Residential Zone I now have more faith in VCAT than Council.
As for the included high level development plans, contrary to the officers report, approval of these plans will seriously curtail objection rights when the detailed plans are published. Approval of the current high level plans will set in concrete the building envelopes (ie. heights, form, setbacks and footprints) and site configuration. Subsequent objections will be restricted to things like building materials.
September 2, 2014 at 11:14 AM
There is nothing unusual about subdividing a large allotment with the intention of putting a dwelling on each new lot. It’s the policies and amenity standards that apply that should have gone through a proper planning amendment process. Does Council encourage or discourage siting two-storey or multi-storey dwellings at the rear of a site in NRZ?
One of the major problems that the note reveals is the confusion over who or what is a Council. Unless there’s a resolution, nobody can know what a Council believes. Council staff are NOT members of Council. Having an informal discussion behind closed doors in an assembly of councillors is NOT sufficient. We DO know that some councillors argued against the approach that Cr Hyams, Jeff Akehurst and Andrew Newton ultimately took. It appears from the Note that the views expressed were only those of the subset of councillors represented at the meeting and of the officers who see themselves as “Council”.
The Note also doesn’t make the claim that the conversion from policy to the new zones was “neutral” and we know that the conversion wasn’t neutral. If the Minister was misled by the councillors and council staff that he interacted with then it should be dealt with under the provisions of Local Government Act. It is simply not good enough to claim that a resolution wasn’t required based on hearsay. Much stronger evidence should have been provided.
Have no idea why Richard Brice as CoS thought it appropriate to lobby for 10.5m height limit in GRZ. Who did he think he represented and from what election did he gain that mandate? Replacing a 9m discretionary height limit in R1Z with a 10.5m or 11.5m height limit in GRZ is NOT a neutral change.
Council still hasn’t had the courage to explain why it encourages RGZ for Carnegie but only GRZ for Glen Huntly. What are their concerns? Both were “major activity centres” [sic] under M2030, but Glen Huntly is on two different modes of fixed route public transport plus has public open space, and has ready access to two state arterial roads which pass through it. As it turns out, DSE/DPCD/DTPLI never did the strategic work that they were supposed to and nor has GECC. Glen Eira Planning Scheme has areas that explicitly need “further strategic work” with no progress made after 10 to 15 years. Many unsubstantiated claims made in the document are laughable.
September 2, 2014 at 12:42 PM
My thinking on Glen Huntly is that it is already built up with countless apartments. It’s also very close to the Carnegie zones which would mean having huge areas under the same growth zone. Very unpalatable for an upcoming election I’d say. Compromising on something that hasn’t got much scope for further development such as keeping Glen Huntly under GRZ rather than RGZ is not too big a concession. You are however correct I would think in questioning council’s reluctance of centuries ago to accept the 2030 claim of Glen Huntly as a major activity centre given its proximity to rail transport and shopping. The botched up job that has occurred with the new zones will very quickly start dawning on people.
September 2, 2014 at 3:48 PM
Esakoff’s house has sold. Bet she ain’t moving into a grz or rgz.
September 2, 2014 at 4:35 PM
Another curious thing is the date of the meeting, 25 July 2013. This is 3 weeks after 2 July 2013, which is when the Department claims Council “resolved to request approval of the amendment…without notification”. On 2 July 2013 Council itself claimed in response to a public question that “Council has not yet decided” whether to consult the public re C110. I don’t see how Council could responsibly ask for anything without knowing the details, and I don’t see how Council could resolve anything without a resolution, and I don’t see how Council could honestly claim it hadn’t decided to exclude the public at the time the question was asked if it requested approval without notification on the same day. Somebody hasn’t been honest with the public.