Parking is without doubt a central concern for Glen Eira residents. Council’s ‘solution’ has been to either waive parking requirements (especially for commercial uses) or refuse residential parking permits forcing car owners to park their vehicles in surrounding local streets.
Despite the Planning Scheme stating that Parking Precinct Plans will be devised, and that Public Acquisition Overlays will be introduced to provide public parking Council has done absolutely nothing on these matters. They have not purchased land and converted this into public car parks – rather they have ceded space in Centre Road in exchange for a yet to be built public toilet! Nor has council done anything in terms of introducing Parking Overlays that really address the issues.
Glen Eira has basically two Parking Overlays within its planning scheme:
- One for the Caulfield Village Development, and
- One for student housing in several areas throughout the municipality
We note that the Caulfield Village overlay has no visitor carparking in its mandate and the student housing overlays stick to the minimum allowable.
WHAT CAN BE DONE
At last council meeting Hyams claimed that Council is powerless to change ResCode parking standards. Not so! Council has the power to introduce schedules to any Parking Overlay that outstrips ResCode. (Clause 56.02-5). This would operate in the same manner as schedules to the residential zones. Basically, councils have been given the right to determine what parking provisions go where in their municipalities. Glen Eira has chosen to do bugger all in stark contrast to what countless other councils have achieved.
What is even more galling is that under the legislation councils can also exact a monetary payment from developers for any car parking space that council decides to waive. Glen Eira does not have such a clause in its existing overlays. Here is what some other councils collect if they decide to waive one spot –
Campaspe – $2000 per space
Cardinia – $16,935 (excl. GST) per space
Casey – $16,935 (excl. GST) per space
Colac – $13,000 (excluding GST)) per space
Greater Bendigo – $10,000 per space (no GST) per space
Greater Dandenong – $19,000 (excl. GST) per space
Monash – $11,000 (plus GST) per space
The minutes for the last Bayside City Council included the following –
Council has commenced the preparation of Car Parking Plans for the four Major Activity Centres of Bay Street, Brighton; Church Street, Brighton; Hampton Street, Hampton; and Sandringham Village, Sandringham to better manage car parking in these centres. The Car Parking Plans will provide the basis for Parking Overlays, to form part of the Bayside Planning Scheme. A Parking Overlay can be applied to a geographic area and can regulate financial contributions (such as cash in lieu scheme) amongst a range of other car parking management improvements.
We have been told that under the old Caulfield City Council regime developers paid $10,000 per car park waiver. This is now gone. How much money could Council have collected in the last 14 years? How much public car parking space could have been purchased to assist in alleviating what is now a nightmare for residents?
But it gets even worse once comparisons are made with the finer points of the various schedules that other councils have introduced. Councils can determine the number of spaces for various commercial uses. Glen Eira in its 2 parking overlays has basically stuck to the minimalist ResCode guidelines. They even argue in their planning officer reports that since a shop is ‘small’ that no parking is required, or that loading bays can be waived. Not so other councils. Here are some examples that show what can be done when there is the will to protect local amenity –
Office
Boroondara – Office 3.5 spots to each 100 sq m of net floor area)
PLEASE NOTE THAT for the Caulfield Village Council has 2 per 100square metres for office.
Manningham – 2.5 per 100 square metres
Casey – 3.5 per 100 square metres
Restaurant
Manningham – 0.36 for every seat available
Monash – 0.45 spaces to each seat available .
Shop
Monash – 4 To each per 100 sq m of leasable floor area
Banyule – 4.6 for shop
Casey – 4 for any shop under 2000 square metres
There are plenty more categories (ie offices, supermarkets) where other councils have far exceeded what ResCode states. Not only has Glen Eira done literally nothing to address the parking concerns of residents but they have literally squandered the opportunity to garner hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars over the years which could have been used to purchase property (as the planning scheme states) and alleviate the congestion in activity centres and the flow on effects to local streets.
The failure to act is in keeping with so much that is amiss within Glen Eira. Of course, introducing Parking Overlays that actually address the problem would mean:
- Current and effective analysis and possibly decent structure planning
- It would also go against the grain of a council that is so developer friendly!
December 21, 2014 at 11:20 AM
We pay a fortune in staff wages and consultants. They produce very little for the money that is invested in them. Not that they are necessarily to blame. It stems from the top and the orders that they get. They are the ones that have to go.
December 21, 2014 at 11:46 AM
once again, this blog site points out how inadequate GE admin is at running the show, and our ignorant Mr Hyams just makes it up as he goes, without this blog, he would get away with sprouting his ill-informed nonsense, I say keep it up you have the residents on your side
December 21, 2014 at 12:13 PM
Congratulation to GE Debates for raising this public realm issue and an excellent analysis. I do not recall an instance that GE Council has planned for or provided a strategic direction for this. It is all up to the private enterprise to plan and provide such areas. And they are going to do it to suit themselves and not the wider community interests e.g. Spotlight in Carnegie. This Council has abrogated its planning responsibilities to the State Government to resolve via Victorian Planning Policy or private developers. It’s not just residents that complain about that constantly. Talk to any traders or its associations and you’ll find that this is their biggest bugbear. I hope, the new Planning Director has got the experience of planning a city and its public realm in particular. Somehow I would not hold my breath on that.
December 21, 2014 at 6:08 PM
No adequate traffic management and no developer contributions. How this is allowed to go on is incomprehensible. Developers must see Newton as their own little Santa.
December 22, 2014 at 11:44 AM
I am not sure about this but I think that councils can receive up to $900 per dwelling from their development contributions levy and more for commercial. Correct me if I am wrong. Council’s stats are 1700 apartments in the last year. My reckoning is that this would have brought in about $1.5 million. Their argument was that it costs too much to administer. That I cannot believe when you are looking at an income of about $1.5m. Even if administration costs came to half it would still be a nice little income earner and would have helped pay for quite a few drainage programs instead of ratepayers subsidising development entirely.
December 21, 2014 at 12:24 PM
see the MRC has managed to build more white fences for the edge of the track on the corner of Neerim Road and Queens Ave. Maybe they could have pulled down the green fence at the same time
December 21, 2014 at 12:51 PM
Arguably the council departments that need the most attention with regard to a root and branch review are traffic engineering and road maintenance.
The amount of money that is wasted on road works at intersections to supposedly improve access and visibility is outrageous. Mega bucks are wasted when all that is required is to reduce the number of parking spots close to most dangerous intersections instead of mindlessly applying the 10 metre guideline. It’s the cars parking so close to these intersections obscuring visibility that is the main problem in most instances.
We also have situations around shopping centres where ratepayers are unable to park at or near their homes because of shop owners staff occupy those spots. All because the nitwits who make these calls don’t ensure shops owners don’t provide adequate off-street parking and, where necessary, introduce parking restrictions with residential permits so home owners have reasonable access to their properties.
But that would require common sense and councillors that actually gave a stuff.
December 22, 2014 at 9:09 AM
Everytime I hear that offensive twerp Hyams utter “direct and neutral translation” of the previous zonings I have an urge to go for his jugular and after reading this posting that I add compelling as the description to that urge.
Just take a step back, the previous zonings (i.e the Housing Diversity/Minimal Change Policy), which was implemented in 2002, directed high density development to those areas of described as Activity Centres (in Bentleigh, Elsternwick, Carnegie – major areas for development) and many other areas described as Neighbourhood Centres (eg. Murrumbeena, Glen Huntly), Urban or Local Villages. So since 2002 Council has focussed high density development towards these areas (which became known as growth zones after the 2013 implementation) and has been fully aware that this high density push would result in serious issues re traffic congestion and inadequate parking both within the growth zones and the surrounding areas not designated for high density development.
So why do I get the urge to go for the Hyams’s jugular – even a non-Einstein can see that since 2002, Council should have had a strategy of successively introducing traffic management treatments and acquiring additional land for public carparks within the impacted areas. Despite repeated outcrys from residents, Council’s performance has been abysmal – sure they mouth the words, but at the ground level, very few traffic management treatments have been implemented and no land has been acquired to increase Council carparks. At the last Council Meeting (16/12) when 7 high density developments were discussed – the cumulative impact of this focussed development was ignored as once again each application was viewed in isolation. In all 7 of the applications the traffic impact was either ignored (ie not mentioned) or assessed to have no impact and parking requirements were waived with on-street parking availability being able to cope. When Council and the construction industry resume in 2015 another swathe of planning applications will probably be given the same rubber stamp treatment.
So why do I add compelling to the urge’s description – Council has never mentioned parking overlays yet these overlays enable the setting of parking rates that are higher than the minimal Rescode standards. In addition, these overlays can impose a cash levy a development that fails to meet the overlay’s parking standards. The end result being that the development either complies with the parking requirements or Council gets cash which it can accumulate to acquire additional land for the increased car parking demand. With these overlays both local business operators and residents gain (adequate and appropriate parking, streets are freed up and pedestrian safety is improved), without these overlays the streets and residential amenity subsidise the developer who, once the development is completed, has little interest in the area.
December 22, 2014 at 11:47 PM
Council efforts for Carnegie with Mr Akehurst’s and Mayor Pilling’s help in particular for Koornang Road?Morton Ave… The planning chief approved the 36th restaurant application with 100 seats and 8 staff members as suitable to start business with a total parking waiver and the mayor supposed that the units in Morton Ave which are about five storeys could have parking waivers too as he thught it was ok for the visitors to use railway carparks!
December 23, 2014 at 4:31 PM
Added to all this is the restaurant which is supposed to be in Koornang Road but has 52 seats and 13 tables on our open space… footpaths and the closed Jersey Parade, the robbed nature strip at the northern ends of Shepparson Avenue and the unlimited car-parking on this stolen area for “new Morton Ave resident overload or to replace the loading bay) the 5 storey building didn’t need to have! Clutter clutter!!!!!!!