Glen Eira has finally published (without a formal council resolution and after the fact) its submission to the ‘review’ of the residential zones. This post is the first in a series where we will analyse this submission and highlight its incompetency, hypocrisy and once again council’s determination to insist that it got it right in August 2013.
Council’s incompetency and attempt to mislead is clearly shown in the following statement which comes from page 12 of its submission. (please note that the actual submission is really only a page or two since most of the 19 pages consist of regurgitating previous submissions and then tables from the committee’s recommendations).
Council writes –
Glen Eira will need to provide 800 dwellings (red line in Figure 1) each year to cater for the increase of 12000 households over the next 15 years.
Wrong on all counts!!! In the first place the figure of 12,000 households does not originate from 2016, as this sentence implies, but from 2011 as calculated by data from both Victoria in Future 2015, and profile.id. Thus what council has done is divide 12,000 by 15 years, instead of the 20 years specified by the government. That brings the average required addition of dwellings to 600 per year and NOT the claimed 800 per year.
Yet Glen Eira has over 2000 net new dwellings going up per year ever since the zones came in thus tripling its required net new dwellings in order to meet population growth. Nowhere in this submission will residents find any statement to this effect – unlike other councils’ submissions. In Glen Eira it is a case of the more the better, but without any thought given to ensuring that residential amenity, open space, infrastructure is capable of meeting this 300% over supply.
We urge all residents to read this council submission (uploaded here) and to ask themselves:
- How can such poor quality be produced time and time again?
- Why are residents deceived time and time again with faulty and incomplete data?
- Why is there no formal resolution by COUNCIL?
- Why can other councils produce pages and pages of well argued submissions, table their documents in council, and seek a formal resolution and this council can’t?
Glen Eira Debates 
March 24, 2016 at 1:38 PM
“It also means virtually all apartments are within walking distance of a railway station (or tram)…..”
Ha! Bentleigh East anyone?
March 24, 2016 at 2:14 PM
Tranmere avenue in Carnegie is about 450 metres from the train station as the crow flies. To walk there is nearly a km. Another pathetic example of Akehurst, Newton and Hyams deciding the fate of hundreds of streets that should not be zoned rgz according to their own ridiculous and outdated planning scheme. The submission is more than incompetent as claimed. It is negligent, inaccurate, and should tell everyone what this council stands for – more and more development and to hell with residents. I am furious.
March 24, 2016 at 4:40 PM
Replace Akehurst with Paul Burke, the most influential person in administration since he was appointed a Director by Andrew Newton. He is still there and influencing tactics and strategy on all documentation that goes out from the Council.
March 24, 2016 at 3:03 PM
If anyone bothering to read the submission wants a good laugh, then they need to concentrate on council’s position on things like urban design overlays, development levies and so on. Hilarious stuff. For 15 years Newton and his lieutenants did not do a single thing. All of a sudden there is support for these recommendations. But, and a gigantic but, is that “supporting” something and actually “doing something” are miles apart. Council has had 15 years to come up with some decent propositions and the ledger is blank. Of course, they cannot now be seen to be opposing what is good sense. That would make their incompetence even more obvious to the entire world.
March 24, 2016 at 5:01 PM
3 strikes and ya out. Burkeys notching them up at a great rate.
March 24, 2016 at 5:46 PM
Council doesn’t seem to have addressed most of the purposes of the Committee. It ignored the process by which the new residential zones were introduced; hasn’t demonstrated that the growth is sustainable or improving affordability; ignored the aspect concerning level of evidence and justification needed when preparing planning amendments; hasn’t recommended improvements other than to agree or disagree with somebody else’s ideas.
There’s no explanation why it is concerned about where it is going, no strategic justification for past decisions, no plan for managing growth. Nor can their data be trusted. Less than 70% of the municipality is in a Minimal Change area, not the 78% Council claims. If this is truly Council’s submission then I expect a councillor to represent it at any hearing, not a member of staff, and hope the Committee asks awkward questions.
March 25, 2016 at 10:48 AM
http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/a-new-way-forward-for-caulfield-racecourse-reserve/
March 29, 2016 at 10:17 AM
In 2008 the report of Select Committee on Public Land Development went nowhere, and with bipartisan support, no changes were made to the governance regime. In 2012 another attempt was made, also shot down with bipartisan support. In 2014 the Auditor-General again criticised the governance regime, but also criticised the responsible Department. No changes were made and there wasn’t even an official government response. Now in 2016 we have an announcement that 3 more individuals will have a chat amongst themselves about what they think might be an appropriate governance arrangement. There should be many models used elsewhere from which they can choose. A starting point should be to establish clearly what they’re wanting to achieve.