Council is clinging desperately to its myth that the new zones are a ‘neutral translation’ of the past. According to their version of history, nothing is different. Well, much is different we say. The number of permits granted since the zones came in have skyrocketed and it’s not due to developers trying to get their ambit applications in before the gazetting of the amendment so that the ‘old’ rules would apply. Nothing is the same under the new zones. The staggering increase of four storey applications for quiet residential streets is a new phenomenon – thanks to the zones. The number of amended permits seeking higher and greater numbers of dwellings is also ‘new’. The current trend of selling multiple blocks of land in order to build bigger and denser apartment blocks is also new. The number of residents getting out of Glen Eira because their streets are becoming the slums of the future is also new. Everything has changed and in our view, to the detriment of thousands upon thousands of residents.
It’s therefore interesting to see in today’s Leader this little ‘clarification’ –
We have to ask:
- What pressure was put on The Leader to insert this token ‘correction’?
- Isn’t it news that the old system ‘permitted buildings of up to five storeys’ when we are repeatedly told that there were no height limits in the past?
- Will Council’s reach ever extend to silence real estate agents when they disclose the truth?
October 28, 2014 at 9:47 AM
The proof will be in the pudding. Let’s wait to taste the pudding in November ’14 . The residents will be tested if they are serious about the effect of the new residential zones unless many of us are silly billies.
October 28, 2014 at 9:58 AM
Bit of a misnomer to call this Matthew Guy’s zones. Councils had the leeway to arrange the zones to meet their individual needs so it should rightly be called the Glen Eira Version of the zones. There was plenty of tinkering that could have been done via the schedules. All of this was up to the individual councils. Glen Eira did bugger all on this.
October 28, 2014 at 10:38 AM
This is a clarification???? It’s not even factually correct. It is not possible to split a single zone, R1Z, into 3 or more different zones with different rules and plausibly say that there is a direct translation from the one to the three.
The Planning Scheme has always been pathetic and wide open to abuse by decision-makers. There used to be a discretionary height limit of 9m for properties in R1Z and no mandatory height limit. Even that limited “guideline” was qualified, first by saying that it didn’t apply to developments 4 storeys or higher, but then by saying in the Guidelines for Higher Density Residential Development that the amenity standards in S55 of the Scheme [which specified the 9m height limit] should be considered.
One of the problems we have in Glen Eira is that Council has never done the strategic work that it should have done. There are long lists of things labelled “Further Stategic Work” that haven’t been done in the decades since they were included in the Scheme. Council defines its preferred character for “minimal change” areas but not for “housing diversity”. There simply aren’t Structure Plans worthy of the name to provide guidance. As a result, 4 storeys in RGZ has become the defacto “preferred character” even though it is actually the absolute maximimum and is supposed to be subject to additional constraints.
In legal terms there is a HUGE difference between specifying what a decision-maker MUST do and what they SHOULD do. “Should” is discretionary and is unenforceable. Here’s what the Scheme says about Standards. “A standard contains the requirements to meet the objective. A standard should normally be met. However, if the responsible authority is satisfied that an application for an alternative design solution meets the objective, the alternative design solution may be considered.”
In practice the standards are never met for the 3-storey and higher multi-unit developments proliferating in Glen Eira. They should be met, but they’re not. The “alternative design solution” is simply not to comply so as to maximise development yield ie profit.
Council is on record as identifying 2 storeys plus hip roof as its preferred character for an area it has now zoned RGZ [13.5m to 14.5m height]. There is nothing neutral or direct about this dramatic change in policy, a change that has been made unilaterally without community input.
October 28, 2014 at 11:21 AM
My understanding is that council has always put forward its “hierarchy” of activity centres, urban villages, neighbourhood centres and so on. With neighbourhood centres, these were supposed to have less development than in the heart of the activity and commercial centres. But, and this is a huge but, when the zones came in, there were many locations that found themselves marked in blue which meant that they were now in the three storey zones and others became brown or four storeys. They might have been in housing diversity before but council had them earmarked at the lower scale of development. Pushing these places into the blue and brown zones is something new and I will never be convinced that this is not a departure from what was before. It has given a clear signal to developers that they can go for the maximum now and in 95% of cases council will let them have what they want because that is the new zoning.
October 28, 2014 at 11:40 AM
There’s a moral here. When doing things in secret becomes the way of life then what happens is that one lie follows another when the truth starts oozing out to discredit the previous lie. This lot have had plenty of practice and will have occasion for plenty more.
October 28, 2014 at 1:07 PM
I saw 5 concrete trucks parked in the bicycle lane on Neerim Road unloading concrete into the multi development during peak hour this morning. Anyone aware of the council ever enforcing some rules?
October 28, 2014 at 2:17 PM
good on the leader cos they didn’t buckle under completely with the crap they musta copped from council. A spark of editorial independence survives – just by a whisker.
October 28, 2014 at 4:01 PM
No 5 storey applications or permits have been given to these “Glen Eira streets”. There’s nothing like 5 storeys in Penang, Mavho, Loranne, Bent, Glen Orme, or hundreds of other streets. What’s going in now is a direct result of the zones.
October 28, 2014 at 10:51 PM
Actually a 5-storey development is currently under construction in a minimal change area zoned NRZ [8m mandatory height limit]. The Minister ensured they were exempt.
October 28, 2014 at 4:48 PM
I’m sick of hearing this stuff about certainty. If there is certainty then it’s certainty for the developer and not for residents. It says in neon lights that you can put a 3 and 4 storey building in this place and that you don’t have to worry about parking or anything else. It also says go ahead and make as much money as you can by creating one bedroom places that in two years time will be falling apart.