Last council meeting the agenda was jam packed with application after application – all of them highly contentious and controversial – ie Belsize Avenue, Penang St., Mavho St., Lorranne St., Tucker Road, etc. We commented at the time that this is the typical council strategy. Cram all important decisions onto the one agenda so that debate and decision making is reduced to a measly 5 or 10 minutes each, as well as getting the resulting ‘pain’ from outraged residents over in the one fell swoop!
The agenda for next Wednesday night’s council meeting confirms this deliberate manipulation. There’s nothing that equals last meeting’s controversy. Item after item is so inconsequential that we have to laugh at the obvious ‘light weight’ nature of this agenda compared to what was dished up three weeks ago. There are no planning applications that occur in residential zones; there are no reports that couldn’t have appeared at last meeting given that councillors had requested them as far back as the 23rd September and the 12th August. For a council that claims to get councillor requests back at the next meeting this makes a mockery of such claims. Manipulation of the agenda is the name of the game!
There are however a couple of interesting applications for increases in both height and number of dwellings. These are all in areas zoned Commercial and hence there are no height limits. We’ve done a comparison of two of these in order to illustrate how inconsistent and nonsensical the officers’ reports are. Readers should remember that basically, these constitute a single development. Council in its benevolence at the time of decision making granted them 13 public car parking spots in return for an exeloo toilet! The buildings will ultimately be seen as basically fronting Centre Road, so why one should be allowed to be 5 storeys and the other only 4 given that both abut residential areas is anyone’s guess.
CONCLUSIONS
- Given that these buildings are literally side by side, then allowing car parking waivers on one and simultaneously arguing that trucks can park on the same street taken up by cars from the other development is quite farcical
- Since both are on Centre Road, why should one report single out the opposite side of Centre Road and argue that 4 storeys will dominate, but that 5 storeys won’t? Further the mention of Tucker Road buildings are at least 850 metres away – see screen dump below.
- Finally we don’t believe that asking for accuracy and some decent officer reports is demanding too much – especially not when ratepayers are footing the bill for such efforts!
PS: THIS MUST SURELY TAKE THE CAKE!
AND THE BLURB STATES:
Vacant Land with Plans and Permits approved
Planning Permit Now Issued.
13.72m X 13.31m = 182.60m2 approx.
Elevated from the street with entrance from rear laneway.
Possible site for a 2-3 bedroom unit.
Use your imagination to create your new home in this great location.
Minutes to transport, shops, parklands and good schools.
Call for more details.
2011522262
October 31, 2014 at 6:20 PM
Not only helpful but very kind giving up council land in exchange for a lousy toilet.
October 31, 2014 at 9:07 PM
As to the inconsistencies between the two – well in comes down to a totally dysfunctional planning department and the assignment of applications to different officers and no co-ordination. It’s merely a repeat of the Glen Huntly Road from 2009 fiasco – Council initiated a planning scheme amendment rezoning the land to residential while at the same time the owners of the land requested a change use to their industrial zoning to include expanded recycling. Only found out as both went to advertising to the community.
Who says this Council can’t learn and improve!!!!!
October 31, 2014 at 9:29 PM
Perhaps the most interesting thing in the Agenda is this snippet from an Assembly of Councillors: “Cr Hyams – 236 Jasper Rd, planning application now at VCAT. Do not
support a 5 storey building on this site.” Cr Hyams supported 6 storeys in Hughesdale Neighbourhood Centre [Rosstown Ward], and doesn’t support 5 storeys in McKinnon Neighbourhood Centre [Tucker Ward]. But then he is a Tucker Ward councillor.
The officer report urging councillors to grant a permit for 669-673 Centre Rd is seriously flawed. The proposal doesn’t comply with the amenity standards in S55 for example. Its side setbacks are pathetic, and it badly overshadows its neighbours. Ron Torres is dismissive of the loss of amenity but doesn’t cite where in the Planning Scheme it says that you’re not entitled to amenity because you live in or near a commercial zone. On the contrary, if it is a 4-storey development then the Scheme explicitly says the RA *must* consider “the objectives, standards and decision guidelines of Clause 54 and Clause 55”.
Even a 5-storey development should consider them, according to the Guidelines for Higher Density Residential Development. And there is supposed to be an equitable distribution of development potential, which can’t happen if one greedy developer is allowed to build to the edges of their property as proposed here. The accessway looks stuffed too, what with a bike rack obscuring what is supposed to be a pedestrian sightline. Fail.
October 31, 2014 at 9:57 PM
Residential zones have made everyone in Glen Eira extremely angry. Elizabeth Miller did not support her constituents and the residents are waiting eagerly for the election next month. Will labor overturn this cruel decision?
October 31, 2014 at 10:08 PM
When oh when will residents be the recipients of completely honest reporting by this council?
The latest example of ‘selective editing’ comes with the VCAT report on the Murray Road hearing. VCAT overturned council’s decision and granted the permit. However, all is NOT as it seems. In the officer’s report we are told –
“The site is within the Neighbourhood Residential Zone. The surrounding
properties consist of large single detached dwellings, with some low density unit developments.”
Well the member has different ideas of ‘context’. His analysis of the surrounds went like this –
“Turning to the character assessment, I note that it is quite commonplace for large dwellings to be located in the rear yards of nearby properties. The land immediately to the west of the rear of the review site contains a second dwelling, at a single storey in height. This second dwelling extends to within a metre or so of the review site, and thus is positioned much closer to its rear boundary than is encouraged under the Minimal Change Area policy. Further to the east of the site, there exists six dwellings at 19-21 Murray Road , three dwellings at 23 Murray Road , and four dwellings at 25 Murray Road . One of the dwellings in the middle of each of 23 and 25 Murray Road are double storey in height. Further, the single dwellings to the north at 8, 10 & 12 Bevan Street are located on smaller allotments and extend very close to their rear boundaries.”
Why all of the above even got permits is another question of course. But this comment certainly doesn’t gell with the impression that the officer intends to create for the unsuspecting public.
There’s also this entirely irrelevant comment provided at the end of the council report – again misleading and blatantly untrue.
“The subject site comprises of two lots and the application proposed to contain
two (2) dwellings within each of the lots. Therefore, the application was
consistent with the mandatory requirements of a maximum of two (2) dwellings
per lot as required by the Neighbourhood Residential Zone.”
Untrue because ‘consolidated lots’ have no limits on how many units can be built. It’s irrelevant as to whether they are in Minimal Change or in GRZ/RGZ zones. Council of course has not introduced a minimum lot size for subdivision anyway. Even with the ‘transitional arrangements’ in place for applications that came in prior to the August 23rd gazetting of the new zones, there was the recent case of St. Aubins Avenue – a huge lot in minimal change but which has from memory a permit for 22 units.
But our favourite VCAT quote of the year (which we’ve already commented upon, but worth repeating) is this from the member –
“The request from Council for a pedestrian path separate from the common driveway for the rear two dwellings is not only an unreasonable request based on the likely extent of pedestrian traffic, but also appears to be directly contradictory to Council’s concerns about the extent of hard paved areas at the front of the site. I see no reason why a separate pedestrian path is a reasonable expectation within this development, and nor is one called for by Clause 55 of the Glen Eira Planning Scheme. For these reasons I do not share the Council’s concerns.”
Consistency, and plain old logic, is definitely not a council strong point!
October 31, 2014 at 10:39 PM
Pretty good, but my favourite is the okay for waiving parking because on the first attempt they got 16 waived and this time only 11 spots are waived. That’s what you call “progress” and the soundest of reasons to grant a permit.
November 1, 2014 at 9:18 AM
Another double lot sale I saw driving past in Kennedy street east Bentleigh.
November 1, 2014 at 10:34 PM
There is no change from what it was before, minimal change area and housing diversity. Put up or shut up it is a law.