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By way of comparison, here is a part of a current application that has gone into council for a 4 storey development in Carnegie. Please note:
- no traffic
- angle of photo makes tree appear as tall as the proposed building. Power lines reveal the ‘truth’ however!
- Does this representation warrant the nomenclature of ‘grossly misleading’ too?????
Glen Eira Debates 
January 7, 2017 at 8:50 AM
In the category of grossly misleading these should be added – sky rail government statements, council officer reports, political speeches, development plans, councillors on various things on the agenda. Can residents sue all of these bods?
January 7, 2017 at 11:13 AM
When I first saw this I was furious. Clearly the developer through his lawyers Arnold Bloch Leibler is threatening, successfully, the artist responsible for the image being complained about. I doubt case law is clear about this. Of course anybody can sue for damages, the mere threat is enough to chill most people, even if there was negligible chance of success. Few of us have the resources to defend such a proceeding.
The content creator stated it was his best effort, and frankly I don’t believe “artists impressions” are ever intended to be faithful reproductions of reality. In this particular case the building hasn’t been built, and the developer has admitted he is submitting new plans, so surely the developer’s own impression could be characterized as “grossly misleading”. Heck, developers in Glen Eira don’t even necessarily comply with their Permits. We simply don’t know what will be built yet.
I do wonder what the basis for damages might be. After all, views aren’t a relevant planning consideration. Is the developer alleging Yarra Council or VCAT may make decisions that are influenced by such an image, or is it that they may be influenced by public opinion?
On the technical side, I have never seen artists impressions that claim to represent accurately the reflectance properties of the materials proposed to be used. Perhaps that is “grossly misleading”. Pretty sure if the developer was asked to provide the relevant parameters of the camera matrix and viewpoint used to do the 3D -> 2D projection they’d struggle. There is no reason to assume that either the developer’s artist or Mr McCallum used the same values for Field Of View, or even the same viewpoint. Much of the image are of the Edinburgh Gardens and city skyline. What is grossly misleading about those elements?
The article itself makes the bogus claim that the land is “specifically zoned for high-density housing”. That is not true. It is zoned MUZ, and nowhere in 32.04 Mixed Use Zone does it say it is for high-density housing. The article could be described as “grossly misleading”.
The subject land has abuttal to GRZ and is within 1.5m of NRZ. A purpose of MUZ is “to encourage development that responds to the existing or preferred neighbourhood character of the area”. 16-storey towers are not the existing neighbourhood character. Perhaps VCAT is about to tell us that 16-storey towers are the preferred character, then use that to justify permits for tower proposals because they are considered to respond to that desired “feature”.
It has also been pointed out that the promotional literature for Skyrail is grossly misleading. LXRA conceded that when I challenged them on some of their depictions. Perhaps they too will receive a nastygram from Arnold Bloch Leibler.
January 8, 2017 at 6:07 PM
Bloch Leibler have done some noteworthy work in the past, worthy of high praise, this stuff is far beneath their dignity, they should stay right away from this type of petty nonsense.
January 18, 2017 at 4:23 PM
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