Finally a positive move on Virginia Estate. Sad however that it had to come from our neighbouring councils and not from Glen Eira Council or the VPA itself!!!
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April 14, 2018
Virginia Estate
Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance[8] Comments
Glen Eira Debates 
April 14, 2018 at 2:41 PM
Interesting. Council has been promising for 20 years “to undertaking further analysis of existing infrastructure and carrying out improvements in order to ensure that it caters for increasing levels of urbanization”. Our municipal neighbours may be wary after GECC’s Amendment C84 sailed through, removing Schedule 1 to the Development Contribution Plan Overlay and associated incorporated document, Development Contribution Plan. C84 was introduced after the substantial and widespread flooding of February 2011 despite it exposing many issues with drainage infrastructure.
April 15, 2018 at 12:10 PM
Getting rid of the levy was the worst move ever by council. Years and years later residents will be paying the cost because it will take multi millions to sort out the mess that council refused to address. The Cardno report and the role of the vpa needs to be looked at carefully. How on earth they can recommend the “no worse” scenario when it should be all out reform is a good indication of council’s and the vpa priorities and that is to allow as many apartments as they can cram in without a worry about flooding.
April 14, 2018 at 6:16 PM
Other councils have finally had enough of Glen Eira causing much of the flooding downstream and refusing to put in enough cash to improve things. Most of the catchment starts from Glen Eira and I read somewhere that 20% of Virginia Park is part of the catchment. If they don’t fix flooding from this point then what happens in Elwood and parts of Bayside will only get worse once you have 3000 plus new apartments. Congratulations to Port Phillip and the others for finally saying enough.
April 16, 2018 at 9:38 AM
This is a strongly worded letter and it looks like a bit of a showdown is looming between the VPA and Bayside and Port Phillip Councils who are the recipients of our increasingly unsustainable planning and our over development. It will be interesting to see what role Melbourne Water plays in this process as they likely will foot the some of the bill for the necessary retarding works.
Apart from the serious flooding issues in downstream Elwood and we shouldn’t forgetting that significant areas in Glen Eira are also flood prone due to the inadequate size of the underground Elster Creek. Increasing the size of Glen Eira’s drains will only get more water to Elwood quicker and that is not the solution either Bayside or Port Phillip will except.
Melbourne Water will be keen on cleaning up the water quality entering The Bay via Elster Creek (Elwood Canal or the Head Street Diversion Drain) Water quality is a growing issue especially in Glen Eira catchment our ground permeability levels for rain water is dropping as we concrete more and more of Glen Eira. We really should be looking at alternatives to concrete.
Thousands of Melbournians use the sounding beaches for recreation and the prevailing currents in at this end of the bay drag the Elster Creek plume south to the Bayside Council controlled beaches, so Bayside has a keen interest is seeing Glen Eira pull it weight and deliver the cleanest possible stormwater downstream into the bay.
So the solution is simple slow the water entering Elster Creek in Glen Eira via retention areas, let the water settle for a while, filter it before it drains away downstream to the bay.
Glen Eira’s problem is it has never had to grapple with flooding issues; especially flooding in Elwood. This has all changed when Glen Eira signed the MOU (Memorandum Of Understanding) to work constructively with with the 3 other Councils and with Melbourne Water.
The good news is; there is no place for Glen Eira to hide anymore, Port Phillip Council is looking for solutions to flooding in Elwood, Bayside is looking for cleaner beaches and they will expose any weasel tactics or as put more politely in the letter to the VPA “business as usual will not achieve the best outcomes” ie no more weasel words and weasel tactics will be acceptable from Glen Eira or from the VPA on behalf of Glen Eira.
All this work is all going to be very expensive, but since Glen Eira has been spending money like drunk monkeys on pavilions, aquatic centers, state of the art playground like Booran Reserve, we really cannot cry poor, crying poor just won’t cut it.
The good news is, cleaning up our act will also help flood prone Glen Eira residents, not that has ever worried Council or our past and present Councillors one little bit, ever.
April 17, 2018 at 3:57 PM
I personally sent the beautiful booklet to Councillor Grosse after attending the meeting at Duncan McKinnon Reserve and being so disgusted with the answer to my question by a beautifully attired VPA official that this develop would have no effect on local drainage and flooding or “downstream”. I have noticed creeks in Victorian are dry for ninety per cent of the time but when it rains heavily they become 500 metre wide deep dangerous raging torrents… so this does pose a problem for residents lower down than flippant Glen Eira Council catchment area. This creek drains about 20 suburbs in an arc from Highett to parts of Carnegie which is quite a catchment.
Apart from this the Elwood area can be in flood trouble if water cannot flow from the canal and this can come about when the wind blows in a certain direction. There is a 3cm margin and if this is not available there could even be an inflow rather than an emptying out. So this windy,and flood situation can also be affected adversely by high and low tide.
About time someone looked into planning more thoroughly!
April 17, 2018 at 6:02 PM
All the necessary flood modelling in the lower catchment has been done, and the GHD Report has modelled the solutions for the upper catchment areas as far up as Marlborough reserve right next to East Village.
All it needs now is the actions identified in the report to be taken.
The recent underground rail crossings at North and McKinnon Roads and the drain upgrades in in this area seemed to have been designed to use some the local streets to take the flooding overflow of the Elster Creek, this backfired when the flood waters went inside some homes. This needs investigating on who instigated this strange if not criminal act.
April 18, 2018 at 6:03 PM
Yes in a report of the work which was carried out at McKinnon Station and underground railway work large volumes of water were encountered and a pump installed to drain that area so as the trains could run. This is all very well but this could have brought about additional inflow to the over taxed Elster Creek as well as a greater concrete and roof surfaced area (all of which is non-permeable) concerning the McKinnon Station itself.
April 23, 2018 at 8:56 AM
A bad stormy and rainy 3 days this winter will fill the tracks and stop the trains on Frankston line.