We’ve received the following email from residents objecting to the application for the Bethlehem hospital site –
COMMUNITY TOWN PLANNING CONFERENCE
Letters have been received in the mail today inviting objectors to attend the town hall on Thursday 2nd February 2017 at 6:30pm. ITS VITAL THAT YOU ATTEND THIS MEETING TO SHOW YOUR CONCERN.
COUNCIL EMAIL SYSTEM STILL HAS A GLITCH
It had come to our attention that a number of your objection emails still have not been registered with Glen Eira council due to an inexplainable glitch in their email system. All objectors should have received a letter from Council registering their objection.
If you have not received your confirmation letter you are not in the system and will not be notified of the Community Town Planning Conference.
If you have not received a confirmation letter in the mail of your objection email please resend it and make sure you receive acknowledgement and notification of the meeting . Send your emails direct to the planning officer AStark@gleneira.vic.gov.au and copy bhcagroup@gmail.com
If you are not recieving acknowledgement then contact the planning officer Adam Stark directly on his email or call direct on 9524 3831.
Glen Eira Debates 
January 24, 2017 at 1:38 PM
Computer glitches. Great news. Spend a bloody fortune on computers and don’t have proper backup systems and take weeks to sort this out.
January 25, 2017 at 3:31 PM
As a reminder to those interested in seeing what the proposed 19-storey tower in an area zoned Neighbourhood Residential Zone [NRZ] looks like, the plans are available via a link from Council’s online Planning Application Register. Follow the tabs/links “Planning and business” -> “Planning” -> “Advertised planning applications” -> “Planning applications currently being advertised”. Enter in the “formatted number” field GE/PP-29481/2016 and, assuming the search is successful, click the GE/PP-29481/2016 link. Underneath “Supporting documentation” is a link to the advertised plan documents in PDF format.
People wishing to object should pay particular attention to the proponent’s arguments in the Advertised Documents PDF and compare that with the applicable “Decision guidelines” and policies. An obvious difficulty with the application is the height and visibility of the tower and that it fails most of the purposes of NRZ. The developer is of the view that “Independent Living Units” means it is exempt from the height limit that applies to residential buildings but in any case considers the tower to be invisible.
I’d also argue the choice of 3-storey apartments around the perimeter is controversial, exploiting the slope to squeeze in what is essentially multi-unit development that Council believes should be in Housing Diversity areas, not Minimal Change.