As a follow up to our last post, here is a screen dump from just one council that has done its homework and managed to impose an infrastructure levy on developers. Please note that the amount stated is for each dwelling constructed. Glen Eira dropped its levy in 2011! Thus residents have been subsidising developers 100%.
Glen Eira Debates 
January 3, 2017 at 10:16 AM
So annoying, residents are being cheated by a Council that has been very developer friendly for a long time.
January 3, 2017 at 12:43 PM
You’re dead right. Council won’t do anything that would maybe stop more development or tone it down a touch.
January 3, 2017 at 5:31 PM
Ratepayers also subsidise the Melbourne Racing Club to use our Crown Land for cheap rates on the areas which are used to run its mullti-billion dollar businesses…Training faciilities let to the chairman (Aquinita Lodee), one of the ten most profitable tabarets in the state, restaurants and entainment facilities for several thousand every day and night of the week.
YET THE PUBLIC IS ONLY WELCOME IF ONE HAS LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY TO SPEND rather than being able to enjoy the area as a park.
Tell all to stay away as the MRC is able to offer cheaper prices of course at the detriment of all other local venues. The MRC provides very little parking spaces too and it does not need to pay land tax either. Ansd to make matters worse, recently the big tents were erected in the Guineas car park for about three months and it did not concern the Minister for Disabled, Thje Minister for DELWP, or our Mayor that the disabled tunnel was inaccessable for the disabled. We were told to be patient… yet again.
NO WONDER THE CLUB IS THE PROUD OWNER OF OVER 700 POKIE MACHINES,13 HOTELS A BAKERY AND IS A MULTI UNIT DEVELOPER. ALL WITH OUR SUBSIDIES AND THEN OUR COUNCIL GAVE THEM THE RIGHT TO SNAP UP ABOUT 130 ON STREET CAR PARKING SPACES IN THE STATION VICINITY AND WAIVERED MANY PARKING REQUIREMENTS WITHIN THE DEVELOPMENTS.
January 3, 2017 at 9:51 PM
Dropping the levy had the excuse that it cost council more to collect. Hard to believe. If each unit paid only $500 over 5 years and at a guess around 1000 units per year that would have brought in $2.5 million. That would pay for another few kms or so of new drains.
January 4, 2017 at 8:16 AM
It is State Government policy that ratepayers subsidize developers going back at least as far as the abysmal Melbourne 2030 that Planning Minister Mary Delahunty foisted upon us. The “arguments” used to justify removing DCPO were specious, but the debate was just as pathetic.
The quality of information provided to Council can be seen in the Minutes for 28 June 2011. To recap: GECC didn’t maintain its planning scheme; previous DCPO had expired; Council apportioned substantial costs of “strategic justification” to make it appear not worthwhile; Council failed to explain why its overheads were so much higher than neighbouring councils; Council officer [Jacqui Brasher] made an extraordinary claim without evidence that Minister was unlikely to approve significant fee increases.
Council didn’t want any scrutiny of the state of its drainage system so resolved to ask the Minister to remove the DCPO via the notorious “fast track” S20(4) procedure. Moved/seconded by Crs Hyams and Lipshutz.
The problems that DCPO were to address remain unresolved 6 years later. In the same Minutes there is another Item concerning the 2011 floods, revealing just how bad the drainage situation is in Glen Eira. Council noted its drainage maintenance and capital replacement programs were both inadequate. Despite this, they decided that the best way to approach drainage was to blame Melbourne Water.
Particularly alarming was the admission that at the time most of its 22000 pits received negligible attention and less than 6% of 540km of drains were cleaned proactively annually. Tough luck if your drain is not deemed “critical” by Council.
January 4, 2017 at 11:06 AM
It may have made sense if I’d known what a DCPO was, I don’t so it made no sense at all.
January 4, 2017 at 11:17 AM
A DCPO is the acronym for – Development Contributions Plan Overlay
January 4, 2017 at 12:49 PM
Nice work, if you want to educate people people stay right away from acronyms.
January 4, 2017 at 1:48 PM
Fair enough! Some background material can be found in the 2011 Minutes, although GECC only publishes the Minutes for last 4 years. The relevant clause in Planning Scheme was 45.06, and historical versions of both it and its accompanying Schedule are available at:
http://planning-schemes.delwp.vic.gov.au/planning-scheme-histories/planning-scheme-history-index/amazon-remote-content-pages/Glen-Eira
Choose an older amendment that predates removal eg VC37-revised [19 January 2006] and select the links for 45.06 and 45.06 (schedule). Note the charges per square metre of increased impervious site area generated by development ranged from $0.10 to $1.96 in 1998 dollars, depending on which of 9 drainage areas a development was in.
Melbourne Water has also produced a document outlining the key objectives to be considered in designing our drainage system:
https://www.melbournewater.com.au/Planning-and-building/Standards-and-specifications/Design-general/Pages/Drainage-works-objectives.aspx
Click to access Principles-for-provision-of-waterway-and-drainage-services-for-urban-growth.pdf
One of the key ideas is that development charges serve two purposes: (1) provide price signals regarding the cost of provision of drainage infrastructure; and (2) provide an equitable means of sharing costs of drainage infrastructure required for urban development. GECC’s current policies serve neither purpose.
January 4, 2017 at 3:04 PM
We’ve uploaded the relevant minutes and they are accessible via this link – https://gleneira.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/pages-from-june28-2011-minutes.pdf
January 4, 2017 at 12:06 PM
New councillors take note of all these comments. You have an opportunity to implement change.