Elsternwick is quickly emerging as Glen Eira’s high rise capital with another 14 storey application for the former Daily Planet site. Adding salt to the wounds of residents, this application:
- Abuts the 4 storey mandatory height limit of Ross Street – where many dwellings are single storey
- The discretionary height limit is 12 storeys but developers regard this as nothing more than a ‘minimum’.
Possibly the biggest joke in this application is the developer’s claims to ‘community benefit’. Readers should remember that council decided that development could go from 8 to 12 storeys if there was ‘community benefit’. Of course there is very little definition of what this term actually means and certainly nothing worth a cracker in the eventual interim amendment. For those applications wishing to exceed the preferred height, all they have to show is (quote) – that the development includes the provision of significant community benefit. Not a single of word of definition exists; no decision criteria exist. Council should congratulate itself on producing the perfect example of waffle par excellence!
How does the developer respond to this clause then? Here’s what is claimed as ‘community benefit’ –
We get a paragraph on office space and ’employment’, then more of the same. Please note the reference to the former brothel!
And the result will look like this:
There’s another aspect to this application worth considering. As recently as the last council meeting a resolution was passed to grant this site a permit for a drug rehabilitation unit. It had apparently been operating for some time without a permit. The current application allegedly arrived at council on the 2nd November. Discussions prior to this date would undoubtedly have taken place with council planners. Thus, given that developers operated without a permit, did council issue any fines, or merely turn a blind eye knowing this was in the works?
Many other aspects of the application are contentious – ie overshadowing; traffic, open space. What is becoming clearer and clearer is that Elsternwick has always been seen as Glen Eira’s high rise capital and every effort has been made to further this agenda by a council that steadfastly refuses to listen to its residents!
Glen Eira Debates 
December 10, 2018 at 9:17 AM
Just straight out appalling. This will most likely get a permit via an all to familiar process. Council will reject, VCAT will approve at appeal because the controls allow it. Council will criticise VCAT, mayor will continue with the anti-VCAT rant. Council will waste residents time and money on the process. Precedent will be established for the further destruction of Elsternwick. At the end of the day, residents treated like s***.
December 10, 2018 at 9:30 AM
Summed it up nicely. Only point I could disagree with you on this is councillors might say 10 stories is ok knowing full well it will end up at vcat. Or if plenty of objections then they would refuse and portray themselves as the peoples advocate. Same result though. All a sham.
December 10, 2018 at 10:57 AM
Yep. One things for sure, they won’t give a permit to 14 storeys as that’s not part of the charade. Ask them why not and the Mayor will rant on about some local policy but it wont be mandatory so it have any weight at VCAT.
December 10, 2018 at 9:19 AM
Cant believe this. It is beyond a joke what council wants. 14 storeys in a “village”. We will have wind tunnels everywhere and traffic out of Horne into Rusden or Glen Huntly road will be impossible. It’s impossible now.
December 10, 2018 at 11:40 AM
The continued over development of Elsternwick is hard to believe much less accept. Recent posts here have shown that there are several other applications for high rise on Glen Huntly road and the Woolworth’s site. All are over the preferred height limit by miles. The ABC is another unknown at this point in time but I’d be amazed if we don’t get more high rise and hundreds of apartments. I don’t for one second believe that council did all it could to stop this. They have fostered it if not actively encouraged it.
December 10, 2018 at 5:13 PM
My votes for the well run brothel instead of fourteen stories.
December 10, 2018 at 6:36 PM
People have good reason to be suspicious about this application, and past performances by Council and VCAT doesn’t bode well. It is zoned C1Z, so that means it can ignore amenity impact. Sure, decisions guidelines and other criteria all discuss amenity, but if they’re not mandatory they can be ignored. The shadow diagrams are horrific but I suspect the applicant has been advised by Council staff to proceed regardless.
Since the application is separated from residentially zoned land by a laneway, that removes the “immediately abutting” concern. I noticed that Council has chosen to zone the laneway C1Z rather than put the boundary between zones down the middle. Very suspicious.
I don’t see in the application the provision of significant community benefit. A wider existing lane doesn’t cut it, nor does the reduction in diversity of services. Worst aspect is the way planning actually works. If a 14-storey development is acceptable, then the entire finger of commercial land will demand similar development potential, and the shadow cast to the south, dreadful as it is under the current proposal, will be horrible.
I’d also like to see much of the current discretion granted to the development industry removed from them, since planning is such a pseudo-science. “Significant community benefit”? “Architectural quality”? “”Positive contribution”? “Unreasonable impacts”? “Respect the preferred scale”? “Respond to the rhythm and pattern”? What does Council think this jargon really means?
December 10, 2018 at 11:06 PM
Well said, loophole after loophole disguised in jargon. I suspect now that Labor has just had a thumping election win it will be a feeding frenzy down at VCAT for the developers.
December 11, 2018 at 6:57 AM
Exactly what it is intended to mean and achieve, ambiguity. Just another method by Council to assist development.
December 11, 2018 at 9:32 AM
dead right