A resident wrote to all councillors complaining about the lack of adequate parking in the Carnegie shopping centre. Issues highlighted were:
- Use of car parking spots by tradies and developers thereby reducing those areas available for shoppers
- Increase in restaurants thus bringing in more people and more cars
- Traders’ concerns about lack of sufficient clientele parking which is therefore impacting on their businesses.
Council, via Mayor Magee, provided the following response. Please note carefully:
- The ‘solution’ that shoppers should resort to walking, cycling, and car sharing! Too bad about all the elderly who are unable to walk, cycle, or car share!
- The woeful self promotion instead of responding directly to the resident’s claims
- The failure of councillors to initiate any positive action and their abysmal willingness to sign any crap that is put under their noses!
Some other considerations:
- How many parking fines have been issued to developers in this area?
- When was the last time a ‘traffic survey’ was undertaken and why, oh why, is it ‘traders’ responsibility to work out ‘solutions’?
- When was the last time any decent statistics were published by council on parking in general?
- Why, when the planning scheme states that property will be bought and turned into car parks council has failed to purchase one single property. Rather they have granted council car parking land to developers in exchange for a toilet which is still not there (ie Centre Road, East Bentleigh)!
- Readers should also note how this response typifies the modus operandi of this Council – how to fob off residents with what can only be described as total and insulting nonsense.
Glen Eira Debates 
September 9, 2015 at 2:06 PM
Great job Magee. You are endorsing council washing its hands of its legal responsibilities and putting all this onto traders.It is not their job to police the streets and to work out where their staff and shoppers will park. That’s your job. Start doing what the $90k is paying you for and that is to respect and represent residents. You and the others continue to fail badly on this score.
September 9, 2015 at 6:04 PM
Oh, Magoo, you’ve done it again! & again! & again! & again! & again!
September 9, 2015 at 8:22 PM
While Council and VCAT don’t expect anybody to read the Planning Scheme, it does discuss the issue of parking within commercial centres. For example, it claims Council has a strategy of ensuring “that commercial centres are accessible to the catchments they serve, including effective parking provision and ease of parking”. Preparing parking precinct plans though is only “future strategic work”, and “investigating the likely requirements for shopping centre car parking” is a mere “Other Action”. Then again the Scheme states unambiguously and without qualification that “A review of this planning scheme will be undertaken at least every three years”, so the document can’t really be believed. That problems are emerging is hardly surprising given the lack of strategic planning work our Council has done over the last 15 years.
September 9, 2015 at 8:22 PM
I am at a loss to identify the recent works to improve bicycle access. The only thing I can think of are the bicycle lanes in Koornang Road, but if that is what they are, I am not sure I would say they are “recent” works.