Another planning conference tonight on the 9 storey application for Centre Road, Bentleigh. Another round of listening to outraged residents. Another round of hearing complaint after complaint about council’s lack of adequate planning, council’s failure to inform residents, and council’s failure to provide sufficient notice of the meeting.
It is unacceptable that the planner tasked with presenting the application doesn’t even know where the site fits into the submitted draft interim height control guidelines. Initially the attendees were told it is in the requested mandatory 4 height limit. Residents had to correct him and state that ‘no’ – the site is in the ‘discretionary’ 5 storey height limit! Not good enough by a mile.
Nor is it good enough that a resident living 10 houses down from the site wasn’t notified by council. She found out via an anonymous letter placed in her letter box. Another example of residents doing council’s work! Nor is it good enough that several residents complained that they were only notified of the meeting this morning, and luckily they had decided to check their emails – otherwise they wouldn’t even have known the meeting was on.
Informing people should be the basic duty of council. A 9 storey application must surely qualify as a ‘major development’. This should appear on council’s website – preferably on the home page. The plans should be uploaded and dates and times for every planning conference, or delegated planning committee also published on council’s website – as plenty of other councils do.
In regard to ‘advertising’, surely something as significant as a 9 storey application deserves to be highlighted to all surrounding areas and not merely the legal guidelines of ‘adjoining’ properties. Clear and precise policy should be followed – especially since it is NOT COUNCIL who pays for the letters, but the developer.
All this simply boils down to either incompetence, or the desire to keep the public ignorant. Either way it is par for the course when it comes to the Glen Eira version of transparency and community involvement.
Glen Eira Debates 
March 6, 2017 at 9:45 PM
Very, very disappointing news. Its sounds like the CEO should attend some of these bigger planning meetings, and see first hand the level of adjustments that need to take place with pubic consultation/s processes.
Maybe this could be suggested to her.
March 6, 2017 at 10:19 PM
Planner also couldn’t answer the question of how high the proposed building was. Eventually got an answer from the developer’s planner. I agree with the comments. Planners who are going to write the report should know exactly where the development is going, what is the height, and everything about the application.
March 7, 2017 at 8:16 AM
I believe Centrelink is a better place for these people
March 7, 2017 at 9:54 AM
They would likely just rort Centre Link, and we would pay for that as well
March 8, 2017 at 10:22 PM
Retards in the Council. Centre link to sit on their bum’s?
Four to three of Council’s retirement villages and five to the military to assist in cleaning of guns and other weapons. Retirement villages running into loss will shamelessly be sold. Writing on the wall Administration responsible or Councillors?
March 7, 2017 at 10:51 AM
Attended last night and was horrified by the lack of knowledge by the Council officer of the development. Not good enough for a major development in Glen Eira.
March 7, 2017 at 10:59 AM
Big overhead last night on structure planning and “objectives” and “proposals”. Taylor said that the officer would tell people how council was progressing. All we got was a series of dates and no details at all. Plenty of promises about more consultation. Fast approaching a year since the planning scheme review and not a word about anything on progress or on any problems that might have cropped up or who is doing the work. If it’s left to councils bozos then it will be a waste of time.
March 7, 2017 at 12:35 PM
Taylor does not know the difference between the front and the back of a horse. Like Okotell who looked for a sign from Esakoff to vote or not to vote on an issue, we now have Liz Taylor looking for signs from Guess who?
March 7, 2017 at 1:16 PM
Couldn’t get there last night. Did the developer give any indication about reducing height or conceding on any other things in the plans?
March 7, 2017 at 1:21 PM
No concessions offered. Developer stated that they had only recently received the objections and hadn’t had time to go through them all. They also stated that they would refer the traffic issues to their own traffic people. Basically the planner from Urbis reiterated that according to the Glen Eira planning scheme there is state and local support for this application (correct!).
Worth noting that no other councillor, apart from Taylor who chaired the meeting, were in attendance.
March 7, 2017 at 9:51 PM
Interesting that Amendments C147 and C148 are still under active consideration, with their discretionary height limits significantly lower than the developer seeks. Makes them sound like they’re a “seriously entertained” proposal on the basis they’ve been adopted by Council as per PAEA s60(1A)(h).
The fact remains that GECC has residential land abutting commercial zones, and commercial zones provide zero amenity protection for anybody around them currently. Structure plans should describe for each such location a building envelope that will provide some amenity protection for surrounding residential areas. It could also be argued that commercial zones are defacto residential areas these days, just ones that have no amenity standards.
March 7, 2017 at 9:52 PM
The town hall staff make sure that Councillors cop the blame. This is their craft. They start learning this craft the day they walk in the door. Of course they also gain the trust of the gullible councillors. Cr.Taylor is wet behind the ears by any measure. Not her fault. This will be a 9 storey slum by 2025.