We ask that residents listen very carefully to the following audio. It features one question on flooding, Water Sensitive Urban Design, and permeability standards from a resident at the last council meeting, in the ‘participation’ phase of the meeting.

Thinks to note:

  • Whilst countless other councils have WSUD policies in their planning schemes, our wonderful council maintains its stance on ‘government responsibility’ and hence will not do anything other than ‘advocate’. See one of our previous posts on what other councils are doing and have achieved https://gleneira.blog/2019/01/19/esd-wsud-water-environmental-planning/
  • The claim that residents can express their views to a planning panel is deliberately misleading given previous events. Once an amendment is advertised then that’s it. Unless resident concerns are specifically listed then all comments will be regarded as outside the realm of the planning panel. They can only focus on what is in front of them. As occurred with Amendment C87 on Neighbourhood character overlays, residents found that if they wanted their views incorporated, then this would require a new amendment!
  • Council has had years upon years to change the schedules for its residential zones introduced in August 2013. Nothing has been done. Permeability remains at 20% for both the GRZ and RGZ and commercial areas don’t even rate a mention. Whilst council keeps patting itself on the back for its 25% permeability requirement and 50% site coverage in the Neighbourhood Residential zone, we wish to point out what some other councils have achieved in regards to permeability and/or site coverage throughout their municipalities: Banyule has a maximum 40% site coverage in its GRZ2 zone: Bayside in its GRZ1 AND GRZ6 & 7 has a 50% site coverage; Darebin also has a 50% site coverage in its GRZ1; Greater Dandenong has a 40% permeability requirement in its NRZ1 whilst MOnash has 30% permeability in NRZ1, 40% in NRZ2 plus 40% site coverage. Whitehorse has the following schedules:  50% site coverage for grz1 and 30%% permeability for grz1; grz2 40% and 40%; grz3 is 50 and 30% for permeability; grz4 50% and 30%; nrz1to 4 40% & 40%; nrz5 is 50 and 30%
  • Finally, council even considers these minimalist site coverage and permeability requirements as too much according to its draft amendment C184. Whether this remains once the amendment is advertised will be very interesting. Council has decided to create another zone RGZ4 (Garden apartments in activity zones) which will have a 90% site coverage allowance and a humungous 5% permeability requirement. Surely the way to go when all that matters is how many new apartment blocks can be crammed into Glen Eira? Here’s a screen dump of the draft proposal

Residents should indeed be following up and asking why this council is so adverse to introducing any decent controls into its planning scheme, such as a Water Sensitive Urban Design policy, or better still, amending its schedules so that site coverage and permeability standards are vastly improved. Other councils have done this, but not Glen Eira! We also note that the resident’s question(s) were directed to councillors. Sadly, not one councillor had the gumption to respond apart from Hyams and his usual waffle.