The year is fast drawing to a close, so we thought it worthwhile to consider the ‘achievements’ and ‘failures’ of this council over the past few years.
Below is a list of things that spring to mind. We’ve probably ignored or forgotten some, so please feel free to point out any we might have missed. There is no specific order to the following list.
What we’ve concentrated on are major councillor decisions that arguably fly in the face of majority community views.
Tree Register: still waiting after the issue was first raised in 2003. No guarantee that any control will include private land.
Local Law (Meeting Procedures): No notice of motion; no change to public question format or ensuring that public questions occur much earlier
Structure Plans: version(s) change from 7 storeys to 12 in Carnegie; Elsternwick 12 storeys; and Bentleigh up one storey. Strongly opposed by vast majority of residents.
East Village: 3000 apartments an ‘overdevelopment’; heights of 8 storeys on nearly 60% of the land too high; no public transport to speak of.
Neighbourhood Centres: no height controls and won’t be for at least another 3 years. In the meantime 7, 8, 9 storey applications coming in. Council’s ‘excuse’? Resources and working very hard on major activity centres, yet nothing is adjusted in budget to facilitate this undertaking.
Environmental/Sustainable development: no WSUD in planning scheme as promised in 2016. Position is ‘advocacy’ and state problem
Winter Solstice Overshadowing: again do nothing but ‘advocate’
Aged Care Sell Off: no consultation and huge angst created for all concerned. Back flip we suspect because price not agreed upon. No guarantee that they still won’t be sold down the track.
Open Space: purchase of Aileen Avenue for $2.1m and then leased for approx. 3 years. No public acquisition overlays except for Mimosa Road property in past 5 years. Millions in fund but council content to spend a fortune on ‘redevelopment’ rather than purchase.
Caulfield Village: cave in on ‘affordable housing’ and overdevelopment of site
Heritage: too little too late for Seymour Road, Elsternwick. Plus how important is heritage to these councillors when a 12 storey permit is granted for Derby Road in a heritage precinct.
Planning Scheme Review: change after change in ‘action plan’ so that years are added on to completion of promised actions. Some ‘actions’ simply disappear ie structure plans for all activity centres becomes ‘urban design guidelines’.
What all of the above illustrates is the nonsense of the utilitarian arguments about ‘greater good’. If that was truly the motive behind some of the above decision making then we would already have more open space, a tree register, height controls in all our commercial zones, and a council that fought tooth and nail to protect residential amenity.
PS: The recently published Wynne letter to council spoke about 2 months of working with the department to ensure that the permanent Amendment for Bentleigh & Carnegie is progressed. We now have an extension on the existing interim controls gazetted until MARCH 2021. Another 15 months of dithering and opportunity for developers to go to VCAT and argue their case about ‘interim’ controls that have not been tested at panels, etc.
Glen Eira Debates 
December 19, 2019 at 1:35 PM
The most recent Minutes contain a reference to a secret Draft Ombudsman’s Report which Council considered in a closed portion of the meeting ostensibly to consider legal advice. I do wonder what the subject of the report is such that Council feels the need to discuss legal advice to work out their response.
December 19, 2019 at 2:20 PM
Our guess is the long awaited report on traffic fines and whether or not council has employed ‘consultants’ to review appeals. Kingston and Monash both admitted they had and hence were liable to repay millions to motorists.
Regardless of what the report might be amount, residents would certainly be interested in knowing how much this ‘legal advice’ will cost!
December 19, 2019 at 3:13 PM
Last paragraph in post is perfect summary. The greater good in Glen Eira is for developers and council rates to fritter away on pie in the sky issues.
December 19, 2019 at 4:09 PM
Village developers only building affordable Housing” because the market is flattening off and the MRC probably has spied a source of a “much needed handout.
Derby Rd still an application but developers have hidden the application in dark doorways and beside an rubbish filled industrial bin filled to overflowing on the west side so one cant stand there to read for fear of catching hepatitis.
The new blocks already in C Village have a very transient population and there are always piles of discarded furniture on the footpath for days at a time and nearby there is a student rooming house where the bins live on the footpath both overfilled and empty. The council is allowing a slum to develop very quickly as the well heeled dark suited officers seem unprepared to fling fines to these new student residents who arrived on the plane last week or the developers, boarding house owners who are pocketing fortunes at the expense of clean healthy living.
AND TO OUR UNFORTUNATE SURPRISE CAULFILED VILLAGE AND DERBY ROAD ARE TO SOON HAVE PERMITS FOR MORE RUBBISH PRODUCING YOUNG RESIDENTS WHO WILL PROVIDE PLENTY PF NUTRITION FO RTHE Indian MINAS, RATS, CROWS AND MICE.
December 20, 2019 at 10:55 AM
Sounds like slums of the present. GE Council wake up and make decisions that builds a better Glen Eira.
December 20, 2019 at 5:10 PM
Well, we are heading into another new year and the ruins of democracy are all around us, crude ugly “in your face” reminders of what a failed corporate system looks like.
You’re barely out your front door and the eyesores of decaying piles of dumped rubbish, along with the new haunting pop-up subdivisions of poorly designed and poorly constructed profit driven unsustainable dwelling are surrounding you. The dusty windswept cleared house blocks blowing sandstorms of grime and who knows what else into your face and eyes. Our roads clogged with traffic where only a few years agos they weren’t.
I guess it should be apparent to all we are well and truly into the age of decline, and who’s to blame? Is it the hordes of substandard bureaucrats crowding out our Town Hall offices, CEO’s that spend most of their times protecting their own reputations and have abandoned any hope of being able to achieve anything else other that fiddling the stats and turning out B/S propaganda they think residents what to hear.
Or it it our councillors who have fallen into the pit of ego driven fantasies that keep so many of them coming back term after term when it obvious to everyone else, but themselves, they have failed in their jobs as community representatives using the word leaders here would be a pathetically sick joke.
I personally don’t think there is any road back or forwards, our so called leaders at all levels of power have turned into mercenary cowards with nothing to offer, no visions, no care or compassion. Sadly they seem only to exist to grab what cash or rorts they can, whilst their bloated PR staff write the slogans and fantasies for them to read.
December 23, 2019 at 12:00 AM
Hear, hear! This Council is letting our neighbourhoods be wrecked by greedy over-development – and when I attended the Council meeting on Tuesday to have my say, I was told there wasn’t enough time for all of the residents’ questions to be heard. So much for local democracy! Hope some better candidates will be on offer at the election next year.
December 23, 2019 at 1:29 PM
The Liberal Party Councils who have the majority on council have no interest in democracy or hearing residents voices they have their own narrow agenda and enjoy sidelining anything outside of it.