Presented below are two pages from the approved Amendment C230 which extends (again) the expiry date for the interim controls for Bentleigh, Carnegie and Elsternwick until the end of December 2021. From memory, this extension is at least the third and will certainly not be the last before the final structure plans and accompanying DDOs become ‘permanent’.
The blurb that is supposed to ‘justify’ the extension is inaccurate, and full of nothing more than spin and more spin and so far removed from reality that it is laughable. We have highlighted those sentences that readers should pay careful attention to and ask themselves – how true is this?
We are told that the interim amendments:
…….protect the low scale shopping strip and contributes to the garden setting of the three centres. Thus, we now have the ridiculous statement that a ‘low scale shopping strip’ is commensurate with 5 storeys in Bentleigh, and parts of Carnegie, whilst Elsternwick has no mandatory height limits in these areas. Topping it all off, we have designated heritage shopping areas in 2 of these centres surrounded by buildings between 8 and 12 storeys. As for the ‘garden setting’ in each centre, all we know is that council is still thinking about the potential sell offs for private development and now for social/affordable housing. Plus, if the ‘garden setting’ was, and is, so important, then why did Wynne and Council agree to remove the mandatory garden requirement for its newly suggested GRZ5 zone when Amendment C184 was made public?
We are also told that council has embarked on a two year program that is supported by substantial operational resources. Really? Which resources? How much extra funding has been directed to planning? How many extra strategic planners has council hired in the last 18 months? How much money has council expended in the rental of the property in Dandenong Road and couldn’t this money have been used far better?
Nor do we accept for one moment that the planning framework…..is consistent with the council’s and community’s expectations…. All one needs to do is check out all the consultation documents to find that the vast majority of residents were NOT in agreement with 12 storeys, or even 6 storeys for so much of the municipality. Council simply did not listen, nor protest loudly and clearly when Wynne imposed more conditions. The only ‘certainty’ that is guaranteed goes to developers who continue to receive an open arms welcome into Glen Eira.
There is repeated mention of ‘neighbourhood character’ in these pages. What is not mentioned is that council still has no:
- Housing strategy
- Preferred character statements for ‘housing diversity’
- An updated and current MSS (Municipal Strategic Statement). As it stands we are still using data form 1996!
- The absence of a complete and current ‘neighbourhood character’ review
- No review of the schedules to the various zones
We also find mention of public projects and how the extension will assist in delivering these projects. Is that why we have a ten year wait before anything starts on the proposed Elsternwick Community Centre according to the latest budget, and why other projects have either been put on the back burner, or relegated to years and years down the track? Readers will undoubtedly find plenty more in these two pages that are unfounded.
There is so much that is still to be done PRIOR to the introduction of any permanent controls. Surely it is time that council ‘reviewed’ its time frames and provided residents with this knowledge as well as explanations why after 6 years we are basically still at square one?
Glen Eira Debates 
October 1, 2021 at 12:03 PM
So much waffle to be unpicked. Activity Centre boundaries for Bentleigh, Carnegie, Elsternwick have NOT been defined. The state government in various incarnations of M2030 define them as the entire suburbs. What is defined in the Planning Scheme are Urban Villages using different criteria to Activity Centres based on a pre-2000 failed policy, whose documents aren’t even publicly available.
We could have the Council vision, or we could have the community vision, but we can’t have both–they are mutually exclusive. Council’s vision is based around unfairness, especially poor amenity for some. It involves weakening standards, or having no standards. Commercial zones are now defacto residential zones as the Minister well knows, just ones with few amenity standards. The attitude of Council and the Minister has been that if you’re impacted by development in C1Z then bad luck–developer profits matter more.
The interim controls haven’t prevented Council granting a permit for demolition of a place subject to a Heritage Overlay to be replaced by a tower of at least 9 storeys. The introduction of interim controls and their subsequent modification have all been done without following the normal planning process, just simply imposed. An applicant for 4 storeys had to change their application retrospectively to 3 storeys as a result. Meanwhile Council desperately wants to rezone me and other edwardian properties to 4 stories when our amenity has already been unfairly compromised.
We know the planning scheme is hopelessly out-of-date. Yup there are multiple references to 1996 data. There are also all the sections labelled “Future Strategic Work” that haven’t been done 20 years later.
Lest anybody think the State Government and GECC are competent, here’s what the Scheme currently says: “The State Government has predicted that Glen Eira will have 58,000 households by 2021. The State Government also estimates that the projected population will be 130,064 in 2021”.
October 1, 2021 at 1:41 PM
Could not agree more. My sympathies go to those residents who happened to buy their homes twenty or thirty years ago before the idea of activity centres existed and now find themselves without any protection whatsoever. More infuriating is this council’s refusal to undertake what countless councils have done in the past twenty years. How we can remain bereft of structure plans, housing strategies, decent tree policies, and many other planning components is incomprehensible – unless of course we accept that this and the previous administration were all for massive development and were ably supported by councillors who either didn’t care, or had their own vested interests in allowing these developments. We are all now paying the price for actions not taken years ago.
October 1, 2021 at 5:49 PM
Well said, the destruction of homes and moon-scaping of their blocks continues uninhibited.
October 2, 2021 at 8:44 PM
Could not agree more strongly also. Myself and others, all residents of 30 years and more have been presented with a commercial development…..
a child care centre that is well outside the Carnegie Activity Centre and involves the destruction of, without doubt, THE finest property on all of Koornang Rd….a magnificent Victorian home on a double block with landscaping to die for, and with a HO property next door and two late Victorian homes on the other side. The proposal also abuts onto our dead end street.
I am trying to wade through and trying to make sense of what Council policy actually is, let alone find documents relative to where residents in a NRZ1 even stand currently.
I am honestly in despair and feel like Council may as well just come and bulldoze our whole street as I feel like I am drowning in confusion.
Three years ago we had to see off a three story mega development that would have walled in half of the northern side of our small dead end street, (eventually reduced to two story). -yet here we are again.
Council is just killing of neighbourhoods without any regard to what rate payers think.
As if lockdown wasn’t bad enough, we also have to put up with this type of bureaucratic torture…….all just to try and preserve any semblance of community amenity.
Yes….I am a bit depressed! lol.
October 3, 2021 at 10:07 AM
Already said in previous comments that heritage equals zero in GE. Means that residents are forced to time and again front vcat, spend heaps, and in most cases don’t win cos the planning scheme is shit.