Applications for high density dwellings are going through the roof. Residents are selling up as quickly as they can – often together with their neighbours. Developers are picking the eyes out of all areas now zoned as RGZ and GRZ plus commercial and Mixed Use. And what are our councillors doing about all this? Zilch! Nothing! A big fat zero!
Instead of any firm commitment to review the current planning scheme, (which they legally must) all residents are getting is more of the same hogwash, dissembling and mistruths. Hyams, Magee, Pilling and the rest can repeat ad nauseam that the zones haven’t made any difference. That what is happening now could have happened before. Well, in theory it might have, but the reality is that it didn’t! Apart from a few aberrations in Carnegie and Elsternwick, developers knew that applying for a four storey 20+ apartment block in quiet local streets of normal block size wouldn’t get through. Many got knocked back at VCAT and some even by council. Now with the zones, developers are rubbing their hands with glee knowing that 4 storeys are acceptable, and what’s more, expected. Even more disconcerting is the growing incidence of amended applications going in for additional storeys and units. The latest is today’s publication from VCAT of a five storey amended permit application that increases the number of dwellings by 3. Council had no objection to this increase! This and countless other examples have got nothing to do with the past and everything to do with the current zones which give carte blanche to these increases.
Residents keep being told the same old furphies and to paraphrase Lipshutz citing Goebbels – if you repeat some lies often enough then people might also start believing them. Or at least that is the hope. For example:
“Glen Eira is the only council with mandatory height limits in the Residential Growth Zone.” What utter rubbish! Stonnington also has a 13.5 mandatory height limit in its RGZ2 Schedule; Latrobe goes even better with a 9 metre height limit in its RGZ2; Greater Geelong has 10.5 for its RGZ2 and so does the Yarra Ranges. How this allegedly super efficient council is ‘ignorant’ of what is going on next door (Stonnington) is not only highly improbable, but totally unbelievable. Yet residents are inflicted with these continual furphies and mistruths.
When other councils (as we’ve previously reported) can exact lower height limits for parts of their GRZ areas or, have lesser site coverage mandates, or greater permeability impostes, and Glen Eira has none of these similar standards, then residents have to start scratching their heads and wondering why this council can keep claiming that they have the best ‘protections’ in the state. Height restrictions are only one of a multitude of standards that could have been introduced or improved upon. That Council has not progressed one iota in terms of the conditions from fifteen years ago is testimony to either how little they tried, or how ineffectual their ‘negotiating’ actually was.
There is no other way of looking at the zones except to say that Glen Eira councillors have failed their constituents – not only because they did not bother to undergo consultation, but more importantly, because officers failed to do the necessary homework and come up with zones and schedules that are based on detailed and current analysis. This is shoddy, inept, and woeful planning and reveals a total disregard for thousands and thousands of residents who are now paying the price for this ineptitude and unfounded arrogance. By doing nothing, by accepting the disenfranchisement of residents, by permitting lax and sub-standard processes to continue, councillors must be tarred with the same brush!
PS: Listed below are some of the latest applications. Poor old Bent St!
64 Bent St – part 3 and part 4 storey building; 31 dwellings; reduction of requirement for visitor parking
27 Jasper Road, Bentleigh – 3 storey, 25 dwellings, waiving of 3 visitor car parking
322 Neerim Road, Carnegie – 4 storey, 38 dwellings
1240 Glen Huntly Road, Carnegie – 6 storey, 118 dwellings, waiving car park & loading bay
4-6 James Street, Glen Huntly – 3 storey, 45 dwellings, visitor car parking reduction
Glen Eira Debates 
November 28, 2014 at 11:17 AM
The last thing councillors and in particular Newton would want is a review that leads to an amendment of the zones. That would be like an open admission that they got it wrong in the first place and it took them only a year to realise the error of their ways. Since Glen Eira is so absolutely perfect in everything it does, this wouldn’t look too good on Newton’s cv and all councillors would have gigantic eggs on their faces. Now that’s something I would luv to see.
November 28, 2014 at 12:46 PM
Latest news has it that Bentleigh is the seat that will determine the election. Libs Julie Bishop, Dennis Naphtine, and Labs John Brumby, Bill Shorten, Daniel Andrews have converged on Bentleigh to woo the electors for their cause. If you want to change zoning then Labs are better for you.
And just a reminder that in the Upper House voting you can vote below the line with minimum 5 numbers for candidates of your choice and ignore all others. This way you vote only for candidates that you want and like. If you vote above the line you do not know where preferences will end up.
Anyone that remembers Albert Langer that went to jail for campaigning for optional preferential voting should be pleased to see that Upper House voting has got that system implemented. Keep the bastards honest and let democracy work properly.
November 28, 2014 at 6:24 PM
Actually Albert Langer was jailed for contempt, and subsequently considered to be a political prisoner by Amnesty International. He cleverly exploited a weakness in the governing legislation to avoid having to provide a preference for either Labor or Liberal [who he called “Tweedledum” and “Tweedledee”], but publicised the flaw. This brought the ire of the AEC who found willing dupes in the Supreme Court and High Court to go along with the idea that people could be compelled to vote contrary to their preferences.
Despite subsequent tweaks, at least two flaws remain in the current system. It is based on the idea of rank-order preference, exposing it to the problems inherent in Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, and it forces people to express a preference between any 2 candidates when they might actually be indifferent to them. A cardinal system, in which each candidate is giving a rating, could solve both problems. I personally intensely dislike the idea of a candidate thinking people voted for them, when it is a matter of selecting the least worst of a bad bunch.
“Tweedledum and Tweedledee, 1, 2, 3, 3” is still catchy.
November 28, 2014 at 12:54 PM
When did Pilling join the Liberal Party?
November 28, 2014 at 3:42 PM
When he got a phone call from Newton on the c60 and was then promised the $90k job as mayor I reckon
November 30, 2014 at 5:23 PM
yes the timing about right
December 1, 2014 at 9:45 AM
Pilling will be peeling when it suits him. We had him as a Mayor and now we have Magee in his shoes. Both will go down good in history books for doing good to the residents. Good on them!!
November 28, 2014 at 4:47 PM
Council repeatedly hangs it’s hat on the fact that it now has mandatory height limits for all its residential zones. What council doesn’t admit is that mixed use zones are now also de facto residential zones. When you can erect 2 shops and seventy odd dwellings then that is not commercial in my view. It is residential by default.
Apart from this misnomer, height limits by themselves are not the magic bullet in protecting neighbourhoods. Height limits are merely one facet of good planning. Other things like site coverage, parking, open space, permeability, landscaping, overshadowing, balconies intruding into setbacks – all of these things need to be taken into account in order to be able to claim that there is sufficient protection. The post correctly states that on all these aspects council has done nothing. What’s more they continue to waive loading bays, and visitor car parking. Trees have always been expendable in Glen Eira.
I’ve gone back over some the earlier posts and can’t believe what other councils have achieved. Even in their growth zones or general residential zones they have more than what Glen Eira’s minimal change has been stuck with. The questions the posts keep asking and which I think are very valid is that if these other councils could get so many concessions from the minister then why couldn’t Glen Eira. Now there’s Bayside with new amendments asking for even more like 35% permeability standards in its equivalent of minimal change. Glen Eira is stuck on 25%.
Personally I don’t think Newton, Akehurst, Hyams and whoever else was involved in setting all this up tried that hard to get more for residents. They were too concerned with making sure that they were the first council. This mad rush is now being shown for what it is. When they had a year to get things right they decided to rush in where angels fear to tread, grab the questionable kudos and not bother about the consequences. One year later residents have finally got the message that what has happened will affect them greatly. I’d guess that many are only now finding out that they can have three and four storeys built right on top of them. When things are done secretly then there’s always the question of why. If this was such a brilliant set of zones then I would think that council would want to publicise their introduction as loudly and widely as they could. That didn’t happen because they knew the backlash that would happen.
I hope that finally councillors have got the courage to take action and act on what residents are telling them. If they don’t then they deserve all the criticism they get.
November 29, 2014 at 8:26 AM
Minor correction: MUZ is not just a defacto residential zone, it IS a residential zone. It can be found in the Planning Scheme in 32_04, along with RGZ [32_07], GRZ [32-08], NRZ [32_09]: all classified residential zones [32]. Unlike the other residential zones, MUZ doesn’t have height limits. It could—but Council didn’t specify any content in its schedule, taking the defaults instead, so no height limit is specified. Council didn’t let the truth get in the way of the story it wished to tell in its Media Release either, erroneously stating that all residential zones were now “protected” with height limits in Glen Eira. It’s just one more piece of disinformation that our CEO-for-life is responsible for.
November 28, 2014 at 9:17 PM
Magee was bashed at the GERA forum. Karina took the credit and people respect her. Karina is doing well with residents. Mary has lost her way and Esakof what can we say?
November 29, 2014 at 8:24 AM
I beg to differ – at the Forum Katrina clearly showed she is floundering and is definitely not up to the job. Go to the next Council meeting and assess her performance for yourself – I guarantee you’ll be cringing
Mary hasn’t lost her way – her eye is still firmly on the Delahunty Prize (ie a State Parliament seat in 2018) with residents being the necessary stepping stones.
As for all the others (why single out Esakoff), they are utterly useless as anything other than Administration mouthpieces.
November 28, 2014 at 10:52 PM
1240 Glen Huntly Rd is part of the infamous C80 amendment, where Council explicitly decided they didn’t want height or amenity controls. As the strategic assessment of the amendment admitted, there was to be a negligible commercial component, so Council decided C1Z was appropriate. Weirdly the other side of the road remains GRZ2. Won’t be long before experienced developers will use the loopholes in the new zones to build non-residential buildings that are taller than the 10.5m height limit for residential dwellings in GRZ.
November 28, 2014 at 11:05 PM
Readers might care to remember that this amendment was at the request of the developer. It also included a planning application for a FIVE STOREY development of 62 units. Council at the time decided to drop the application and only go for the amendment. Comments made by councillors included ‘oh we’re not happy with 5 storeys’ ‘ five storeys is too much’. Well now the application is in and it’s jumped from 62 units to 118 – a tripling of numbers. Thank you very much council and councillors!
November 29, 2014 at 8:37 AM
For the CEO’s “perspective” on the planning scheme in Glen Eira, Council has conveniently made available an article featuring Andrew Newton extensively:
Click to access Local_Government_Manager_Magazine_April_2010.pdf
November 29, 2014 at 5:51 PM
The answer to the OP is until we get people of talent to stand for council who are prepared to stick by their principles.
I expect progressive councillors to be agents of change. People who don’t ditch their stated objectives for the easy life of accepting and income and allowance while having little concern about those who elected them.
I’m prepared to give Delahunty and Sounness some wriggle room as they are still on training wheels. If you want community support Mary and Thomas don’t become a mouthpiece for the officials. It tends to annoy those who put you there and is often reflected in a drop in ratepayer support. As Pilling found at the last poll.