In June 2018 and then again in March 2019 a resident asked Council whether Glen Eira would support the Melbourne City Council’s amendment that proposed to ensure no additional overshadowing of public open space at the winter solstice. Melbourne also wanted the extension to 5 hours on June 22 rather than the current 3 hours. In the 2018 response council didn’t even have the guts to state they would support the Melbourne City Council initiative. Instead we got weasel words and utter bull dust from Torres (See: https://gleneira.blog/2018/06/13/the-art-of-half-truths-weasel-words/). Then again in March this year the issue of overshadowing in winter came up again. Once more residents were told this is a State Government responsibility and that we, as residents, should ‘advocate’ to our MPs. (See: https://gleneira.blog/2019/03/25/questions-but-no-answers/). Buck passing as always!
Well today (August 1st) the Melbourne city Council draft amendment HAS received the Minister’s approval for exhibition. Except for the Docklands area and a few other parks right in the city, Melbourne is wanting ‘no additional shadow’ for 5 hours at the Winter Solstice for all its parks. That is, from 10am to 3pm. (We have uploaded their Design & Development Schedule HERE).
The point that should be made is that councils can achieve plenty if they have the will and the persistence and if they care about their municipalities. That does not seem to be the case in Glen Eira.
On another issue of significance, there is also released for exhibition today, the Moonee Valley intended Developer Contributions Levy and Infrastructure Levy. Glen Eira DOES NOT HAVE any such levy. In 2010 it was removed from the Glen Eira planning scheme with the claim that it cost too much to administer in return for the revenue collected! That means that for the past 8 years residents have been subsidising developers with millions upon millions of dollars! Thankfully, other councils do not believe that this should occur (aka Moonee Valley and countless others). Moonee Valley has different rates for commercial, industrial and residential. We’ve taken a screen dump of their residential charges noting that they have analysed their municipality and broken the costings down according to various precincts.
CONCLUSION
- Council excuses for doing bugger all can no longer be tolerated.
- Residents should not be subsidising developers at every single turn
- Concentrate on the essentials (ie neighbourhood centres structure plans, levies, open space purchases, etc) and not on creating documents full of spin and pretty pictures!
- Challenge governments like other councils instead of cowtowing time and time again!
- Work for residents not developers!
Glen Eira Debates 
August 1, 2019 at 1:07 PM
Moonee valley gets roughly $40,000 for every twenty apartment development and we get nothing. Bet they also get more from their open space levy.
August 1, 2019 at 2:30 PM
I’m assuming that the areas that are charging $3,000 per dwelling would be in the major activity centres. Commercial would be even higher. We have had quite a few developments of over 100 dwellings with a smallish couple of shops down at ground level. My calculations make a 170 apartment block at $3,000 per dwellings a potential windfall for council of well over half a million once the commercial charges are included. Not bad at all for developers when they can get away without paying a cent and pocketing half a million bucks if not more. Must remember that council keeps crying poor. They don’t have the resources to do anything about Ormond, Caulfield South, McKinnon, Bentleigh East, Murrumbeena and so on until the next century.
You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours is going real well.
August 1, 2019 at 4:29 PM
Off topic but worth a read
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/step-in-to-save-historic-elsternwick-home-opposition-tells-minister-20190801-p52cud.html
This is simply another example of council sitting back and not doing what it should have been doing over the past decade. Wynne is correct in some ways. It is up to councils to impose heritage overlays. Glen Eira for the vast majority of the municipality still relies on their survey of 1996. Even worse is that the promised ‘major heritage review’ has now been put back another 3 years at least. How many more beautiful dwellings will go the way of the wrecker before this council gets off its backside and starts doing what we pay them to do?
August 1, 2019 at 6:29 PM
Gomme a break. Delahunty doesnt know how unprotected heritage is until this got knocked down. What has she been doing since 2012? Seven years a councillor and its taken till today. Gosh we have lousy heritage coverage she learns. Pathetic and same goes for the rest of these iseless morons who dont give a stuff about anything except collecting their wages. I’m so pissed off eith this council
August 1, 2019 at 7:07 PM
When Council removed DCPO from the Planning Scheme it wasn’t because it cost too much. The officer report didn’t state how much it cost or how much was raised, then offered the unsubstantiated opinion that the Minister wouldn’t support introducing a new DCPO to replace the expired one. They threw in one more gratuitous argument, which is that it would cost money to do the strategic work to introduce a new DCPO.
Apparently Council didn’t need facts and figures to make a decision, preferring the general public/ratepayers subsidize the development industry. Around the same time Glen Eira experienced severe flooding, reinforcing just what the Planning Scheme has been saying, that we have aging drainage not designed to cope with the runoff generated by all the multi-unit developments with ~100% site coverage.
Sad reality is that Council claims it can’t afford the infrastructure necessary to support the increase in population that the State Government insists we accommodate. As a result, service standards and levels keep deteriorating.
August 1, 2019 at 9:44 PM
Councillors fiddle whilst Glen Eira burns.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say we have elected a bunch of pyromaniacs.
Or maybe they all rushed and purchased shares in landfill companies.
What do think it would cost to dump a building like this home to landfill?
10 – 20 thousand.
August 2, 2019 at 9:30 AM
Maybe this is a welcome light on the horizon, consumers getting savvy and not buying this rubbish the cartel of politicians and developers are fostering on them.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-01/construction-industry-cracks-showing-as-major-developer-falls/11374464