In March 2017, Wynne gazetted Amendment VC110 which is the latest version of the residential zones and the one trumpeted to ‘save our backyards’. Practically every other council has at least put up on its website information about this amendment. Many have included an officer’s report in their agenda papers and some like Banyule and Boroondara (see images below) have voiced strong concerns/objections to the amendment. Glen Eira on the other hand has maintained a stony silence! Not a public peep has come out from any councillor and certainly not from any administrative quarters via a media release, a web page announcement. Nothing but silence! Why? Is this another foray into keeping the public ignorant? Or is it more to do with not wanting to ‘antagonise’ Wynne and the Labor party so that brokered secret deals can go through? How much is politics at play here rather than transparent planning? Why, when after years and years of patting itself on the back for achieving such ‘largesse’ from Matthew Guy (ie mandatory heights, 2 dwellings per nrz) is council now silent when these very ‘achievements’ are about to go down the drain?
And if we are correct, then the rot has already started for the Neighbourhood Residential Zones. An application is in for 76 Bignell Road, Bentleigh East. This is a site in the NRZ of 580 Sqm and was sold in September 2016 for $1m. The application is for 3 attached double storeys! And all is ‘legal’ since March 2017 thanks to Wynne. We therefore urge all residents in both the NRZ and GRZ zones to be on the look out for this new threat to our neighbourhoods – one that council is hoping will slip through unnoticed no doubt! Wynne’s amendment we suggest sits well with council’s long history of a pro-development agenda. Like VCAT it will eventually become the convenient scapegoat for over a decade of appalling strategic planning and gang after gang of complicit councillors.
We will report on the potential impacts of Wynne’s amendment in posts to come. In the meantime, here are some screen dumps from a recent Banyule council meeting and the letter that Boroondara sent out to its residents –
Glen Eira Debates 
May 31, 2017 at 10:52 AM
There will be increased density and more intensive development like the Boroondara letter says. Only difference between them and Glen Eira is that they’ve already got better policies in place to provide some protection via their planning scheme. Glen Eira is still years away.
May 31, 2017 at 12:10 PM
Culture has not changed judging by recent events. All quiet on the western front in regard to Elster creek & working with other councils and now this.
May 31, 2017 at 2:50 PM
Squeezing three townhouses into 580 makes it about 190 square metres for each subdivision. The removal of the two dwellings per lot means that larger lots can go for even more density. There’s nothing to stop apartment blocks of two storeys with 20 or 30 apartments if the land is say 800 square metres. I daresay that council is rubbing its hands in glee over the new rates and open space levies about to come in with this sort of development.
May 31, 2017 at 4:36 PM
Rot continued when the morons got relected.
May 31, 2017 at 5:29 PM
Will be worth following the ptogress of this application . With 25% going as garden area the resulting sizes should be a good guide to the future.
May 31, 2017 at 9:50 PM
Planning anarchy – only in Glen Eira
June 1, 2017 at 7:25 AM
Glen Eira’s Municipal Strategic Statement claims we will have 58000 households by 2021 and that the State Government estimates our “projected population will be 130,064 in 2021”. Hard to see how dramatic changes to planning schemes and consequent loss of amenity are necessary. Not reassuring our planning policies are based on data that are over 20 years old. Who does Council consider to be responsible for that?
June 1, 2017 at 8:11 AM
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-31/homeowners-launch-class-action-against-regulator/8575024
A little off track with the topic.
Surely good design and reasonable high quality finish must be a solid part of this building boom. Housing affordability goes down the drain if people are saddled with the burden of litigation and or costly repairs to their dwellings.
Not to mention the eyes-sore to their neighbourhoods.