The central question for residents is: how much more development should a suburb like Glen Huntly have when it is already the most overdeveloped area in the municipality? Council uses profile.id. Here is what they conclude about Glen Huntly based on census figures. With Council’s proposed structure plan it can only get worse!
It is time that this council was called to account for its continued facilitation of more and more development. The latest example of what this means for residents is the draft Glen Huntly structure plan. This is far from a typical ‘structure plan’ in that:
- Borders are yet to be identified
- Rezoning of residential areas is yet to be itemised (ie from 2 to 3 or 4 storeys)
- Potential heritage impacts unidentified
What we do know is that council’s much vaunted Quality Design Guidelines is not worth the paper it is written on and the latest City Plan isn’t much better. Whilst the Guidelines stated that the preferred heights for the commercial areas be 5 storeys, we now have council officers advocating for 6 storeys. What was 8 storeys now becomes 10 storeys. The following screen dumps reveal what is proposed (most are discretionary height limits too):
The final insult comes with the discretionary setbacks. Whilst the Bentleigh & Carnegie upper floor setbacks were reduced from 6 to 5 metres, we now have council recommendations for a majority of only 4 metre setbacks and in one precinct a front wall of up to 15 metres.
This is not ‘urban design’ – it is urban destruction in a suburb that is currently the most densely populated in the municipality. With this ‘structure plan’ it will only get worse.
Several things are very clear.
- The entire Caulfield North/East and Glen Huntly/Murrumbeena/Carnegie will meld into one hodge podge of high rise.
- Glen Huntly currently does not have any sites zoned Residential Growth Zone (ie 4 storeys). This is the first step in changing this!
- Developers, once COVID is over and the economy recuperates, will have a field day with practically everything being ‘discretionary’.
The tragedy of all this is that our councillors are failing spectacularly in fulfilling their roles – that is primarily to be COMMUNITY REPRESENTATIVES. Listening to the community is one thing. Acting on community wishes is another thing completely.
Glen Eira Debates 
June 5, 2020 at 7:51 PM
Had a look at the agenda. Maps are impossible to read. Would have thought that council could at least make sure that what they publish is legible so people can understand. They like it this way if we can’t make sense of the stuff. Maybe they should spend a few more million and get their it systems working properly.
June 5, 2020 at 9:12 PM
The developers democracy continues with Fed Govt providing grants to build and renovate (taxpayers $$$). Meanwhile, building sites across the suburbs have tradies working 6 and even 7 days a week on penalty rates, yet we are told how tough it all is for the building industry. A big opportunity to change this industry and the damage to the suburbs missed….
June 5, 2020 at 11:40 PM
We who live in Glen Huntly understand how the council and our councillors has abandoned this area. Our streets are littered with discarded debris from the quick turn-over of the rental properties that now make up a large component of the housing in this area . When students and guest-workers go they sell what they can, and abandon the rest.
Lately due to COVID-19, we are seeing the phenomenon of dwellings being abandoned and left completely furnished. The real estate agents or likely their hired labour just dump the whole contents of the home onto the footpath, fridges washing machine, beds, bedding, food and kitchenware, kids toys, clothes, books it’s all just dumped out-front in huge piles, of course no one phones it in for collection and rental managers are far too smart to do that.
So the rubbish just sits until someone gets sick and tired of seeing the mess and makes the call to clean it up. I personally wait until I have 4 or 5 piles in my street before ringing them in” getting this amount can take as little as 2,3,4 days. Footpath conversation with our street friends usually starts with “have you seen that pile of rubbish outside number 6 again” followed by “will you call it in or shall I” followed by “I’ve done 3 this week, you do this one”
We also deal with abandoned cars, regularly, and that can be a real hassle if the vehicle is still registered. With whole blocks of units being rental now, the original body corporates set-up to manage common areas like mowing nature strips repairing fencing and doing basic common space maintenance have fallen into being dysfunctional, so nothing gets done without complaint to council.The real estate agents and the owners rake in the profits and Glen Eira residents pay the cost of this small dysfunctional suburb called Glen Huntly.
Council wants the development but seemingly show no interest, or have no idea how to solve the problems higher density living brings with it.
The best news is Rosstown councillors couldn’t give a flying f**king second thought about any of it, and that’s exactly what we have come to expect from them, “nothing”.
June 6, 2020 at 10:02 AM
A friend bought their first unit a couple of years ago in this area. The whole street is full of flats. They started looking to sell before the covid hit because they reckon more than half have become airbnb so they don’t feel safe with strangers in the building all the time and the noise and the rubbish. Their dream first home has turned into a nightmare.
June 6, 2020 at 10:58 AM
Sobering news there Colin, let’s hope this unsustainable population growth and over-development model crashes through the floor. Some media sources have reported 2.5 million guestworkers now live in Australia.
It would be good to see this pumped-up profit driven model crash through the floor bringing this era of unsustainable growth to a screaming halt.
Then we could work-on trying to make Glen Eira a sustainable city, and stop it becoming a pile of dumped rubbish and social alienation the planning scheme is delivering residents, whether they are homeowners, renters or guestworker, our planning scheme should reflect care for all residents, as lives matter, above obsence profit.
June 6, 2020 at 3:13 PM
The situation is sadly familiar. Council will claim disingenuously that its draft structure plan is only for consultation and that no decisions have been made. That’s not true. Decisions have already been made, in secret, about the level of development the Andrews Government is demanding for Glen Huntly, just as it has done for other “Major Activity Centres”. Council officers are now dutifully “recommending” what they themselves and their fellow members of the development industry want.
Just about every argument used has been trotted out elsewhere. “Minimal overshadowing” then admitting proposed controls are mostly discretionary and hence open to abuse. It talks about sustainability without having a clue what the word means. It refers to “3D modelling” that the public has never seen.
One particularly egregious sentence is “To maintain a balance, we must seek small degrees of uplift throughout”. It didn’t say what two things it was balancing, and it didn’t provide any criteria that could be used to justify “uplift” (an ominous term).
We also know what has happened in Carnegie–that should be a salutory lesson. Council had a strategic plan that failed to implement the objectives of planning in Victoria. The Minister, through his department, rejected it, and demanded more development potential on behalf of the development industry (major donors to our political parties) through weakening amenity standards. All of this has been done with the public blessing and endorsement of councillors. They have actively worked against a fundamental principle of representative democracy, which is that we have access to the same information they do, so that we can decide if we would make the same decisions, and reject them in elections if and when they fail to represent us.
June 7, 2020 at 9:14 AM
A darn good summary. When you translate “uplift” it boils down to higher buildings on the pretext of “community benefit”.
June 7, 2020 at 1:48 PM
It should read “In Glen Huntly ONLY 74.8 % of dwellings are medium or high density … there is alway room for improvement in the GE planning dept.
Reminds me a song “too much, is never enough”