A huge gulf exists between resident responses to the ‘surveys’ on ‘transforming’ our activity centres, and what is portrayed as the ‘results’ of this ‘consultation’. The McKinnon report is another example of a work of fiction that fails to accurately represent what residents said – especially in the category of ‘private development’. Here is the pie chart claiming to depict the results –
- To claim that ‘there was no clear agreement on suitable building heights’ is rather rich given that residents have never been asked – what do you think is an appropriate development height in any of the activity centres!
- The claim that only 27.8% of comments were opposed to development is utter nonsense. On this topic of ‘private development’ there were 64 valid responses. We’ve ignored blanks and those marked as n/a. Of these 64 responses, a clear 39 were opposed to development (highlighted in orange below). That makes it 60.93% of responses were opposed to development
- The report also states that ‘Many felt it was the popularity of the suburb services, particularly the high school’ that resulted in ‘increased population’. A more honest response could have been that increased population is a result of the zoning. Further, of the 64 comments only 3 mention schools at all – that is 4.68% – yet it rates a prominent mention in the report!
Please read the following comments and judge for yourselves as to the validity, honesty, and accuracy of this ‘consultation’ report.
April 19, 2017 at 5:59 AM
Thanks for the summary of the data and the conclusion. Your blog continues to highlight the ongoing integrity and transparency issues with Council. The community meetings on the concept plans will be interesting to attend to see how they are explained.
April 19, 2017 at 10:21 AM
Ditto. Could you please also assess the Ormond stuff?
April 19, 2017 at 8:46 AM
I’ve read most of the published results and the thing that worries me most is the suggested “to explore” issues. They bear little resemblance to many of the comments and heights, zoning and their borders are ignored. The obvious things are mentiioned like more open space and that’s about it. McKinnon even has something about car share. There were plenty of comments on lack of parking but I don’t remember seeing anything about car sharing. I’m not against car sharing. I’m against council putting forward ideas and pretending that these come from the survey. I also think that in these suggestions there is the clue as to what council is willing to do and what they won’t touch like doing proper parking overlays and traffic studies and insisting that developers provide enough on site parking.
April 19, 2017 at 9:08 AM
What the hell is design and materials? No way this got 25.9% of comments. A couple sentences only were on concrete.
April 19, 2017 at 10:39 AM
There’s a strange emphasis on building materials in many of the different area snapshots. Building materials were very rarely mentioned by any respondents. Was there a multiple-choice type survey (with unpublished results) as well as the opportunity to provide additional comments (published) and, if so, does anyone have a record of the questions?
April 19, 2017 at 2:25 PM
These are the survey questions asked –
What do you use McKinnon shopping strip for? …………………………………………………………. 2
Please list ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 4
How do you travel to McKinnon shopping strip? ………………………………………………………… 5
What do you call McKinnon shopping strip? ……………………………………………………………… 7
What do you love about McKinnon shopping strip? ………………………………………………….. 10
What don’t you like/do you want to see changed? ……………………………………………………. 13
What makes McKinnon shopping strip unique and special? ………………………………………. 19
Open space ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 22
Type of shops/retail outlets …………………………………………………………………………………… 24
Community services…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 28
Transport …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 29
Private development ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 31
Other …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 34
What are three things that would make McKinnon shopping strip fantastic? ………………… 35
Name another shopping strip or centre in Melbourne you’d like it to become like and why? …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 39
What would you like McKinnon shopping strip to be like for future generations in 30 years time? …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 41
Any other comments? …………………………………………………………………………………………..
April 19, 2017 at 4:09 PM
I don’t see the point or the value of half of the questions. Fair enough that structure planning should consider walkability so okay, ask about how people get to the centres.
The question on the type of shops is irrelevant and useless since council has no say in what goes into an empty shop except for brothels and their ilk. I also can’t see any use for questions like what people call the strips. Does it really matter in the end what something is called? I would have preferred real questions that get to the heart of the matter like what’s already been suggested in the post – what height is appropriate here? what open space provisions should be demanded for every development? what should be done to fix parking problems? what is the maximum density for a 500 size lot? Once you get answers to questions like this then you can plan properly. That hasn’t happened and I don’t think the intent is that it will judging by the sort of reports that are being fed back to the community.
April 19, 2017 at 8:38 PM
If they were fair dinkum about consulting you’d have different questions and results that fitted what was said. But hey, this is Glen Eira after all and they never want the ordinary joe blow ratepayer to get his way.
April 20, 2017 at 2:01 PM
The new Councillors have no ba*lls to keep up their promises during the last elections in public meetings,knocks and leaflets in our mail boxes. The old batch of 4 are seen sweet talking the
(MODERATORS: rest of sentence deleted)
April 20, 2017 at 9:49 AM
Off topic – http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/inner-south/108m-new-booran-reserve-attracting-drinking-antisocial-behaviour-after-dark/news-story/68e3a7497534ded194a5b4a41f7e96fa