Two further applications for Neerim Road are up for decision at the next council meeting. If approved, this will mean (potentially) another seventy eight dwellings for this already overdeveloped road.
The latest trend in officer reports is to recommend setbacks which exceed ResCode ‘guidelines’ and anything in Council’s Residential Growth Zone Schedules. The language now used is to refer to ResCode as ‘prescriptive’. Given Council’s and VCAT’s record, ResCode is anything but ‘prescriptive’!
However, having been chastised by VCAT members in some recent decisions, the final recommendation is now couched in far more circumspect language. For example – ‘up to thirty (30) dwellings’ and ‘up to forty eight (48) dwellings’ in both applications.
Council’s recent arguments have been that if greater setbacks are imposed, this will likely cause a reduction in the number of proposed dwellings. The recent Belsize/Neerim Road application was for 52 dwellings. Council granted a permit for 47 on this basis. The member however, was far from convinced –
The reduction in dwelling numbers by Council appears to only be founded on its assumption that there may be a need to reduce the number of dwellings with the additional setbacks it imposed. With the setbacks I have determined it may be possible that close to 52 dwellings may be achieved. Until amended plans are submitted to Council it is unclear exactly how many dwellings will be achieved. I will therefore amend what the permit allows to remove reference to the number of dwellings. (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VCAT/2015/464.html)
Council has also been knocked back several times in its attempt to have, as part of the conditions, that the developer display a sign informing prospective buyers that residential parking permits will not be granted. The member’s view was:
The conditions do not directly relate to implementing the development in accordance with the planning scheme. Rather they are to provide advice to residents about a local law that is separate to the implementation of the planning permit. The planning application has met its obligations for resident car parking on site. Any local law Council has about how it manages on street parking permits is a matter for it to address, separate to this permit. I will delete the two conditions
When all of the above is combined with now common VCAT statements that Glen Eira’s planning scheme is bereft of preferred neighbourhood character statements for its housing diversity areas, and devoid of any ‘specific built form outcome’ statements, then developers will always have the upper hand. VCAT, for all its faults, can only interpret State regulations and Council’s Planning Scheme. If the Planning Scheme is totally inadequate then the blame must be sheeted home to council’s planners and its councillors.
Glen Eira Debates 
April 27, 2015 at 2:31 PM
Neerim road is fast approaching canyon status adding to the nightmare that is Carnegie. My congratulations to councillors for allowing this to happen without lifting a finger to ensure that ratepayers are not forced out of their homes and that basic amenities are safeguarded.
April 27, 2015 at 4:30 PM
Vcat’s ruling on the Belsize application casts real doubt on our whitehouse planners and how good they are. The most glaring error and there were several is the demand for excessive street setbacks when other developments aren’t within cooee of these setbacks. Either they didn’t check the surroundings, or don’t have a clue as to what needs doing. Sitting at the desk and cut and pasting from previous applications isn’t my idea of how the planning department needs to go about its work.
There’s also doubt about the hiring of outside consultants when these consultants have not got a clue about why certain conditions were imposed like the demand for visual and audio at the ramp to the underground car park. Perhaps council should reveal how much this performance cost ratepayers?
April 27, 2015 at 11:52 PM
CEO Newton lost control years ago, he is a dead man walking us through a nightmare of unsustainable development, it’s developers profit before town planning practicality’s. He is accountable to no one.
April 28, 2015 at 4:01 PM
One of the proposals sure looks like it fails to comply with Rescode, despite the officer’s claims. Unusually and perhaps curiously, the plans don’t show what the developer believes to be the building envelope prescribed by Rescode. [As a matter of detail, the Development Plan for C60 got the Rescode line wrong, which persuaded our slack Council to ignore its noncompliance.]
The officer report concerning planning activity under the “new” zones reads more like a political pamphlet than a factual document. It gets several things wrong, as usual. More concerning is the reference to extensive consultation with the community 11+ years ago.
The housing diversity policy was introduced despite the misgivings of the community. You’d have to wonder what happened to the policy that “makes it clear that a radical change in character is not envisaged in the residential areas of the housing diversity areas”. Rocky fails to acknowledge that Council has replace a 9m discretionary height limit in R1Z with up to 14.5m in RGZ, and has significantly weakened the building envelope standards by ignoring balconies and their impact.
A minor point, but further evidence Council isn’t as competent as they’d like us to believe, is that the comparisons in the report aren’t done year-on-year, as is normal for cyclical activities. If you compare corresponding months from separate years, the stimulus given by the new zones is obvious. That’s what happens when all constraints bar building height are removed from development, especially with no structure plans worthy of the name to fill the void.
The Agenda “reveals”, as we all already knew, that ratepayers subsidize developers, and that the size of the subsidy has increased year on year courtesy of State Government. Little wonder no review is scheduled to take place. Under the circumstances, it makes sense to refuse all applications point-blank, and let the developers slug it out at VCAT. Council is permitted to refuse an application on any grounds it thinks fit.
Keeping its costs down makes sense, but then so does ensuring development proceeds only at the pace that Council can afford to fund the infrastructure for. That’s why the system needs to be reformed so that VCAT pays when it overturns a Council decision despite explicit Council policy supporting Council’s decision. And Council should be proactively looking to strengthen its Scheme. At present it just waves its hands in faux outrage when VCAT overturns yet another decision.