Readers may remember the Kangaroo Road application for the extension of a physiotherapy practice from 2 practitioners to 5 practitioners. It just happens that this practice in Kangaroo Road, Murrumbeena is owned by the husband of one of Glen Eira’s Strategic Planners. The applicant for this application was a former planning officer at Glen Eira.
The officers recommended a permit, but councillors knocked it back. The primary reason is that according to council’s planning scheme (non-residential uses in residential zones) such permits should only be granted for dwellings on major roads. Kangaraoo Road is NOT DESIGNATED as a major road and was the major stumbling block in receiving a permit.
Well, lo and behold, if council isn’t NOW doing a traffic survey of the street. Coincidence? Or is this an attempt to change the status of Kangaroo Road and make it possible for the application to get approval? When other residents wait for years to have their streets monitored, it is truly amazing that this road suddenly comes out of the woodwork. Thus, if Kangaroo Road now joins the ‘big league’ of major roads, all obstacles to the permit disappear. Or even if an amended permit comes in, readers should remember that these applications usually do not go to council but officers make that decision! How convenient!
So questions galore with this one –
- After years and years of neglect, suddenly there is the need for a traffic assessment?
- If the owner of the property was anyone else but a staff member’s husband and the applicant a former employee would this administration run out and do a traffic report for ordinary Joe Citizen?
- Why can’t the applicant simply go to VCAT – or would this bring out all the potential dirty linen as to how a permit for a physio centre was granted in the first place?
Glen Eira Debates 
November 17, 2015 at 9:04 AM
I saw the bagman at the town hall last week, it all make sense
November 17, 2015 at 10:55 AM
Hey, there helping out a mate.
November 17, 2015 at 8:10 PM
if it walks, talks, looks and swims like at duck then it probably is a duck.
November 17, 2015 at 8:42 PM
Oh no not another flaw in Councils hasty, yet supposedly impeccable, zone implementation!!!!!.
Get off your arses Councillors and actually start questioning the crap that this Administration had and continues to put up to you.
November 18, 2015 at 3:37 PM
What proof do you have? It’s all well and good to cast aspersions but what tangible evidence do you have that there is any wrong doing going on. I’m sick to death of people on here just writing whatever they like without the proof to back it up. PUT UP OR SHUT UP!.
November 18, 2015 at 5:20 PM
Questions asked are entirely reasonable. Council should be bending over backwards to avoid even a hint of favourable treatment for one of its own. The ombudsman even said that perception is everything. Why the traffic report is being done now when council didn’t bother to do its own traffic report on something as huge as the Caulfield Village deserves an answer. I also know of 2 friends who wanted assessments done of their streets and the answer was you are 422 or something like that on our list. No, whatever light is shone on potentially shonky practices is good. The more, the better I say. Perfect example would be heritage in Glen Eira. Remember Seaview and the Esakoff involvement and lately Frogmore? Maybe above board, but sure stinks to heaven.
November 19, 2015 at 8:34 AM
Council has an abysmal track record concerning transparency and accountability. Rather than starting from a default position of “everything Council does is appropriate”, I expect Council to be able to demonstrate with transparency how it reached each decision it makes when asked. Council specialises in avoiding answering questions it finds uncomfortable. In the case of planning decisions, it usually fails to show that it has considered all that it is required to consider. So Anonymous, YOU attempt to obtain from Council detailed reasons for choosing Kangaroo Rd over all others and see what success you have. Share the results.