With the advent of Trump a new industry has evolved – ‘fact check’. We believe that a similar process should apply to the regular diatribes of Hyams in particular.

Below we quote some of the comments he has put up on social media in response to one of our earlier posts on C184.

Our objective is simple:

  • We want residents to judge for themselves how much of what he writes is ‘tripe’; how much is ‘dishonest’ and how much is guilt by omission – ie only revealing partial ‘truths’.

 POINT NO.1 – As Glen Eira “Debates” also knows, when we put our proposed planning scheme amendment, based on the structure plan, to the Minister in January 2019, it sat in his office until nearly the end of the year, and then he came back to us and said there would need to be major changes for him to give us permission to exhibit.

COMMENT: The implication of the above is that council was left sitting in the wings awaiting Wynne’s permission to exhibit for over a year. Nothing could be further from the truth. Council knew as early as the 22nd January 2019 that there were problems with the submitted amendment. Furthermore, the proposed amendment DOES NOT go straight off to the Minister but to the Department.

Following this extensive ‘review’ by the Department (DEWLP), council received the following letter from DEWLP which showed up the glaring errors in the proposed amendment. It makes us wonder once again at the competence of the planning department. Did they understand Plan Melbourne? Did they know what the VPP actually stated? What was their ‘strategic justification’ for ‘special circumstances’ relating to mandatory heights? How hard did our planners try on this point? Until today, no ‘evidence’ has been produced that council fought tooth and nail.

POINT NO.2 – It is also tripe that that the NRZ areas will now revert to what was there in 2004, because in 2004, there were no mandatory height limits in those areas, as there is now – a height limit of two storeys. It is also tripe that the zones that came in in 2013 are “notorious”. The zones gave us mandatory height limits in all but the commercial zones where previously there had been none. They also restricted development in the NRZ to two dwellings on any block, until the current government removed that restriction and put in the minimum garden requirement instead, and allowed us to require greater permeabilty and less site coverage, and increased setbacks.

COMMENT : Whilst it is true that prior to 2013 there were no mandatory height limits anywhere in Glen Eira, it is quite disingenuous to claim that the secret introduction of the zones was not the spark that caused the destruction of many residential areas in the municipality. We remind readers that many residents awoke one morning to find that their streets could suddenly go from a 9 metre discretionary height limit to a 13.5m height limit.

Hyams’ claim that these mandatory heights were ‘in all but the commercial zones’ is another furphy. Any site zoned Mixed Use and these are classified in all planning schemes as ‘residential’, remained without any height limits. Another example of ‘dishonesty’ is the statement that in 2013 sites in NRZ were restricted to ‘two dwellings on any block’ and this only changed when the MInisier removed this last year.

The zones were introduced under Amendment C110 which clearly stated:


Hence any site that was larger than your ‘conventional’ size lot became a target for multi dwellings.

Hyams’ third misrepresentation of the truth in the above comment relates to his assertion that the zones introduced greater site coverage, setbacks and permeability in the areas zoned NRZ. Not so! In 2004 with amendment C25 council achieved variations to the ResCode requirements of 50% site coverage and a 4 metre rear setback. Permeability did increase to 25% in 2013. Thus council’s proposed new zone of NRZ2 reverts back to what we had PRIOR to 2004 in terms of site coverage.

POINT NO.3 – . Also worth noting is that the new NRZ2 areas are GRZ and RGZ under the current planning scheme, and so will be getting increased protection, another reason why labelling this as negative and retrograde is tripe.

COMMENT: As per usual Hyams fails to reveal the full picture. Reducing the heights for various streets does not erase what has already been developed in these streets. When these ‘reductions’ are compared to the number of sites that are suddenly allowed to have increased heights, we can see exactly how much ‘protection’ has been introduced via this amendment. All the areas in Green below or dark blue were zoned NRZ (ie 2 storeys). Green is now zoned for 3 storeys and the dark blue for 4 storeys!

CONCLUSION

We regard it as really tragic for the residents of Glen Eira that conducting a fact check on what comes out of the mouths of our elected representatives, or council officers is even necessary. Living in a democracy one should expect that organisations answer criticisms honestly,fully and are completely transparent with their constituents. Spin, obfuscation, and deflection onto individuals rather than the issue, is the enemy of good government. It belongs in the world of Trump and his tactics. Not in a municipality that likes to portray itself as listening and acting in accordance with its residents’ aspirations.