Glen Eira is currently experiencing planning mayhem thanks to this council’s failure to enact any meaningful reforms to its planning scheme and the ongoing pro-development ethos. Three recent applications (two still to be decided) exemplify this lack of sound planning.
One application is having a third shot at a multi storey development (8 Egan Street Carnegie). This site has twice attempted a 16 storey tower. Both times it has been knocked back by both council and VCAT. Now there is a new application in for 12 storeys and 108 apartments. Only 4 of the proposed apartments will feature three bedrooms. All the rest are single and double bedroom.
What makes this application so unacceptable is that it sits in the Design & Development Overlay for a 7 storey ‘preferred’ maximum height limit introduced via the Carnegie amendment of April 2017. Of course, council has now proposed via its current structure plans, that the area be zoned as suitable for 12 storeys! How five storeys can be added in the space of one year simply beggars belief and makes a mockery of Wynne’s rubber stamping of the original request!
The second application is for the Selwyn Street Woolworths development which proposes not one, but two towers and 180 apartments. One tower will be 10 storeys and the second one 13 storeys. Again, council is quite happy with a 12 storey height limit here according to its structure planning. (PS: CORRECTION – council’s draft structure plan proposes 8 storeys here. Elsternwick is completely vulnerable however since no interim height amendments exist as with Bentleigh & Carnegie.)
A third application has already been granted a permit in a ‘confidential’ cave in at VCAT. This is for 14-22 Woorayl Street, Carnegie that will be 12 storeys and 109 apartments. The proposed council zoning here reflects the Egan Street situation – ie a 7 storey ‘preferred’ maximum a year ago and now ‘elevated’ to 12 storeys!
Thus in 3 applications alone we will have half of the ‘quota’ required per year to meet the projected housing needs for the future – 397 apartments!
Nothing can excuse council’s failure to undertake sound planning and to pursue amendments that meet the community’s aspirations. If 7 storeys was sufficient a year ago, then where is the strategic justification for 12 storeys now?
Glen Eira Debates 
June 28, 2018 at 2:31 AM
If your on the inside you can buy a lot of influence in a year
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Four of current councillors have been welded into their position throughout all this time reform should have been enacted. They still sit up there proud as punch, gloating over their failure to support residents. They lamely explained for years and years why we didn’t need any planning reform, whilst they aggressively stalled any potential reforms that all other councils did manage to do. These four pro over development councillors have strong links to either the Liberal and Labor parties.
Please remember developers are now, and have been for years the biggest single donor group to the two major political parties. This conduit of corruption starts and the bottom and works all the way to the top,
June 28, 2018 at 6:22 AM
This must be one of the worst examples of (non) planning in Aus.
June 28, 2018 at 10:24 AM
All of these illustrate how useless discretionary height limits are
June 28, 2018 at 3:38 PM
Changing from 7 to 12 storeys is essential to meet the requirements of the developers on the GRQ program. (Get rich quick)
June 28, 2018 at 5:50 PM
Does anyone know if this kind of lunacy has happened anywhere else? You don’t go from 7 to 12 unless plenty of money is changing hands. Plus its all crap about community benefit. Give developers the option of 12 storeys and they will take it every single time. Plenty of stuff has been written about the costs of building and the higher you go the more economical it is for the developer. That means they can make more money and build cheaper probably. Council is all for this so you’ve got to think who stands to make a bucketfull out of all this. It for sure isn’t residents.
June 29, 2018 at 8:48 AM
This is an example of Glen Eira failing to listen to residents and allowing developers full reign to continue to do whatever they want.