Last night’s council meeting was another marathon of posturing, self congratulations, and inconsistency from one item to the next. Developers of course had a field day!
Below is our report on one of these items – a six storey building, 12 units and one shop of 37 square metres at Kokarrib Road, Carnegie. We are highlighting this decision since it features all of the negatives outlined above. Surely after 6 months as councillors we should expect a far better ‘performance’ than what is currently being dished up?
Hyams moved motion to grant permit with added conditions regarding screening and visitor and shop car parking. Seconded by Athanasopoulos.
HYAMS: said that the recently approved interim height guidelines ‘allows’ for a 6 storey building. Claimed that ‘it does fit in’ with recent developments in Rosstown Road and issues of ‘overshadowing’ are within ResCode provisions because the overshadowing basically occurs across a ‘driveway’. Didn’t want a waiving of visitor car parking because he was there on Sunday and it was ‘certainly all parked out’ in the area. Said that the additional car space could be accommodated within the plans so ‘it wouldn’t be like we’re knocking back’ an apartment. There’s a ‘small shop’ so that ‘fits with the commercial area’ but doesn’t divert shopping from Koornang Road. Overlooking is an ‘issue’ because the building next door is ‘actually screened’ and the applicant himself asked for screening to prevent overlooking so ‘that’s what we’ve done’. Admitted that traffic is ‘onerous’ but 12 apartments is ‘unlikely to be significant’ impact on the roads. Thought it was a ‘reasonable application’.
ATHANASOPOULOS: asked Torres whether there will be ‘consideration’ given to road changes with the structure plan work they are currently doing?
TORRES: said that the ‘accessibility of our centres’ would be looked at as well as ‘pedestrianisation’ and ‘safety’.
ATHANASOPOULOS: thought it ‘was great’ that there is enough area to ‘squeeze’ the visitor car parking into the plans. Said that they need to understand ‘how these places actually work’ and how they might work in the future. He asked Torres the question because residents need to ‘understand’ that there might be some changes. If you can’t house people 100 or 200 metres ‘away from a train station I don’t know where you’re going to house them’. ‘Is 6 storeys too tall? – I don’t know’. Currently ‘I can’t say it is too tall’ based on ‘policies in place at the moment’. ‘It fits all the other aspects reasonably well’. Said that on the issue of the commercial area, people have ‘complained’ to him about the amount of housing they’ve also said that there ‘isn’t enough work, whether it be service or retail’ but you ‘can’t have growth’ by increasing population and not increasing commercial zone. Chapel Street ‘died’ over time because ‘there was no increase in amenities’ despite huge increase in population and ‘rentals went through the roof’. All of these things ‘have to be taken into consideration’. So the plan fits into the zone but will ‘hopefully’ help the ‘amenity as well’.
ESAKOFF: started by saying she is ‘struggling with this one’. To the north there’s another apartment block and the residents there said they would be ‘impacted severely’. They will be ‘virtually walled in’. ‘It’s a 6 storey building. It’s a large edifice’. Said she ‘understands’ that setbacks ‘have been applied’ and that the open space isn’t ‘considered as private open space’ and ‘I just can’t fathom that’. ‘They are not going to get any light’ into ‘their properties’. Even that block of flats will probably also be redeveloped. because it’s in the same zone. ‘I am struggling with the amenity issues around this’ and the ‘transition’ of more residential further down Rosstown Road. This ‘sits close to the edge of the zone’. Finished by saying she will listen to the ‘debate’ and decide.
SZTRAJT: agreed with Esakoff and said ‘I too am torn’. Said there’s an issue with zoning in ‘allowing a 6 storey building’ to occur in ‘places like this’. Said that looking at all the items on the agenda tonight that as a council ‘we are providing guidance to developers’ by ‘changing some subtle things in the plan’ by allowing a ‘visitor spot that they asked an exemption for’ yet ‘we couldn’t do it for another development’. Therefore ‘what we are teaching developers’ is that if they want to build in Glen Eira and don’t want to ‘fork out the extra’ for a car parking spot then all they have to do is ‘make sure they’ve got a stacker system’. Said he would have been against the application if council went with the waiver but they’ve now got the ‘additional parking spot. We managed to fit it in’. ‘This applicant was unlucky that we managed to fit that in’ by putting the shop car parking spot into the stacker thereby ‘creating this spot’. Said he is leaning towards approval because the ‘overall amenity’ isn’t going to be ‘too bad’. ‘I shudder to think how developers will learn from out actions’. They will realise that there is a simple way to ‘lead council by the nose’ by telling them that in every application they put in ‘there is no additional space’ for car parking so ‘I need a waiver for additional car parking’. ‘And we’re now so frightened about what VCAT will say that we are approving’ such applications.
DELAHUNTY: said she was conscious that ‘we have been veering off in our discussions tonight’. Council makes decisions and ‘tries to be consistent’ but applications are decided on the individual merits of the ‘application in front of us’ and ‘sometimes those decisions can seem to be in constrast to one another’. They look at the transport ‘around’ and ‘it’s always taken in context’. She takes the point that maybe they are giving developers a message but there are also other instances where council says ‘it’s not good enough’ and they ‘redesign’. Also going to VCAT has an ‘imposte’ on residents in terms of money spent and officer’s time so ‘there’s an element of that that needs to be taken into consideration’. Said she was in favour of the motion.
HYAMS: said he wouldn’t have done what Sztrajt did by ‘pointing out’ to developers what they might do. Disagreed with this anyway because ‘the site is the size that it is’ and developers ‘aren’t going to buy a site’ thinking ‘oh I can’t fit’ car spots in. Esakoff’s concerns were with amenity impacts but at the planning conference it was clear that these residents weren’t ‘going to be overshadowed’ because they were over on the ‘other side of the driveway’. They ‘will be looking at a unit in front of them’ but there will be other development ‘anyway’. Admitted that this is a concern he didn’t think it was a ‘reasonable’ concern to refuse.
MOTION PUT AND CARRIED. Esakoff voted against.
COMMENTS
- When 5 of the current councillors decided WITHOUT CONSULTATION that 6 (preferred height) storeys in this spot was okay, surely it is a bit late to start wondering whether or not 6 storeys is too big?
- 95% of discussion avoids planning issues per se and certainly any intelligent commentary on the application itself. Credit to Esakoff here as the only councillor to even attempt to enunciate what ‘amenity’ impacts are likely to be.
- An officer’s report that is devoid of all detail, including how many 1, 2, or 3 bedroom apartments nor detail as to how this accords or doesn’t accord with ResCode and the planning scheme.
This is what should happen if a council is determined to be transparent and accountable in its planning decisions – a simple table outlining all the issues and whether or not the application is compliant. Maybe then we could also get councillors to speak to the application rather than regurgitate the nonsensical officer’s report or simply enjoy the sound of their own voices!
Glen Eira Debates 
May 24, 2017 at 12:57 PM
The table is great. You can see immediately what is acceptable by the planning scheme and what is not. I can’t believe all the stuff that is in this table compared to all the stuff that is missing from Glen Eira’s. Simple but important things like clotheslines and common property.
May 24, 2017 at 1:01 PM
East Village forum tonight. Come along and have your say. We need to councillors know residents are fed up with their lack of transperancy and incompetence.
May 24, 2017 at 2:40 PM
Athanopoulos and the others need to consider a lot more than proximity to railway stations or other forms of transport as the key to granting permits. My reading of the legislation states that development should be making a positive contribution to the social context and the environment. He needs to explain how this application achieves any of this.
May 24, 2017 at 3:37 PM
Unfortunately Cr. Athanasopoulos is quickly losing any cred I gave him in his grace period as a rookie councilor.
I’m getting the feeling he much likes the sound of his own voice, and he is pretty much making it up as he goes.
He started the meeting telling everyone with lots of gusto and enthusiasm about his big day out at a traffic forum. Where his take home message from the experts was, “there is and there’s going to no road building solution to our traffic congestion problems in Melbourne, and congestion will only continue to get worse. (just how worse wasn’t mentioned, although add another 3 million people was quoted)
Later in the meeting when he was hot to waive the rescode requirement for the visitor car parking space in a proposed development on North Rd Ormond, and any lame excuse would do . He bang on about “beating his chest” and ranted he wanted solutions to the traffic problems.
He may well learn to keep his words brief and to the point, as he’s doing no favour to himself, and to the bewildered residents in the gallery having to listen to his flip-flopping positions. Let hope he smarten ups his act, and doesn’t end up being a eternal rookie of a councillor.
Thank God we’re are a multicultural city because praying to one God won’t be enough
May 24, 2017 at 3:51 PM
Council can’t say a word on “social” “environment” or even “economic” because there aren’t any policies to back this up. No WSUD, no tree protection, a lamentable environment policy that says nothing, and the dropping of the commercial centres policy years and years ago. Add on the little tit bit that Hyams, Esakoff, Magee, Delahunty have been in council since 2003, 2008 and 2012 and are now bitching about no structure planning that should have been done, maybe they should say why they didn’t make sure it was done? 4 old councillors are just about a majority in my books. It could have happened way back when and even with the interim heights we still get screwed and that was last year.
May 24, 2017 at 5:19 PM
Yes, good points, number one is they only want to be reelected, they do not necessarily want to make G. Eira a better place to live, if this means doing some hard thinking and decision making. It’s far easier just to turn the whole lot over to the incompetent town hall slackers and just go with the flow.
May 24, 2017 at 3:31 PM
The Meeting was a shocker. It shouldn’t have been hard. Assess the application against the objectives, purposes, and decision guidelines that the Act and Planning Scheme say must or should be considered then make an informed decision. Didn’t happen. Cr Esakoff did raise the poor amenity of a neighbour, but Cr Hyams argued that poor amenity wasn’t a ground for refusal. Several councillors including Cr Athanapoulos made the specious claim the application complied with ResCode, which it didn’t. Cr Hyams insisted it was a commercial area not a residential area despite MUZ explicitly being a residential zone, and having different purposes, uses, and decision criteria. [Council’s C143 submission to a Panel confirms this.] Still no councillor has been able to articulate what the preferred character is for the area or how they’re going to provide reasonable amenity in future if they tolerate 100% overshadowing of communal open space and refuse to ensure equitable development potential. It is clear the interim height limits will go because they have no strategic purpose.
May 24, 2017 at 5:03 PM
Good example of the template format from Bayside, seems very logical and transparent, two things that are lacking in Glen Eira.
May 24, 2017 at 5:19 PM
The Bayside section on dwelling diversity says a lot. The application was for 3 one bedroom and 23 two bedroom and they didn’t get a tick as being compliant with this section of the legislation. I would bet my life that if this came up in Glen Eira then there wouldn’t be any questions asked about diversity and that part would get a great big “yes” as compliant.
May 24, 2017 at 5:25 PM
I’m curious…did any councillor speak to any resident of the affected units to the south and explain their reasons for deciding to vote the way they did?
May 24, 2017 at 5:31 PM
All comments made by councillors and referring to residents stemmed from their interaction at the scheduled planning conference. Councillors would not have told residents their voting preference prior to the council meeting itself. The ‘tragedy’ here is that no viable or even logical reasons were provided by councillors to justify their vote in favour. Put simply, any resident who showed up at council meeting, or anyone who read the officer’s report, would be very hard pressed to understand why this application got a permit.
May 24, 2017 at 5:45 PM
Hyams at it again. Full of crap. Six storeys is preferred mandatory height. That doesn’t mean that everything has to be 6 storeys and chances are if it goes to vcat it will be higher since it isn’t mandatory. Next he should be congratulated in having developers at heart. Fancy insisting on car parking that would reduce the number of apartments. Next he has become the traffic expert because he happened to visit one day. Maybe council should start doing its own traffic and parking analysis that might just challenge the drivel handed in by developers. like the report that is full of “general” he thinks this is “reasonable”. Why? and what does the word mean in this context when people won’t get light and will feel “walled in” but other developments.