Glen Eira Debates

With another year almost gone, it is perhaps a good time to reflect on what has happened throughout this period. What, if anything, has improved? What has gone backwards? What has remained static? Have the new councillors performed well? Have the old councillors ‘improved’?

There have been some positive steps, although we must admit they are tiny baby steps compared to what is required. We finally, after 18 years of talk, got a significant tree register. However, the roll out of this program is well and truly behind schedule and ultimately will take another few years to reach even the miniscule figure of 250 trees given the current rate. More disheartening is the fact that the tree register remains part of council’s Local Law, rather than being enshrined in the planning scheme itself. A recent VCAT hearing had the member make this comment which reveals how important it is that controls are included in our planning scheme. We quote:

The site contains five (5) trees that are proposed to be removed as part of the car park development. All are of exotic species and the planning scheme does not have any tree removal controls. Hence, their removal is acceptable.

(SOURCE: – https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VCAT//2021/1549.html)

Whether or not one finds the conclusion valid, is a moot point. If council did have a planning scheme which sought protection of ALL trees meeting certain criteria, then perhaps such judgements would be far less frequent.

We have been told again and again that councillors are determined to address the municipality’s lack of public open space, sustainability, increase our canopy cover, and take real action on climate change. All well and good and to be applauded. However, when such aspirations are not backed up by sufficient funding, then we have to query whether anything will really improve over the next few years. The Open Space Strategy states that at least 150 hectares of additional open space is required to meet the community’s needs. The long term financial plan allocates roughly $7M per annum for each of the next four years. This is just enough to purchase roughly 1500 – 1800 square metres of property per annum. Even with the current proposal for an 8.3%  open space levy (when other councils are looking at 10%) this will still not be sufficient to come even close to the ‘required’ 150 hectares.

The above comments can also be applied to council’s action plan on increasing the canopy cover, and acting on reducing carbon emissions. Unless such policies are backed up by sufficient funding, then we can only anticipate a further loss of important canopy trees, and little improvement in climate management strategies. This of course goes to the heart of priority setting by this administration and its elected representatives. When council is committed to massive spending on infrastructure projects such as the Carnegie Pool, to the tune of now $52M (up from the budget forecast of $51M), and when no business case has been made public, we have to doubt the efficacy of such decisions – especially when countless comments from residents wanted the ambience and the foot print of the current pool retained. Very few desired another (mini) GESAC. 

Planning in Glen Eira remains as it has for decades – pro development, and lacking in enforceable strategies and policies. It is quite unbelievable that after the mandated Planning Scheme Review of 2016 we still do not have:

• Permanent structure plans for Bentleigh, Elsternwick, and Carnegie
• After being promised structure plans for our neighbourhood centres, we only have ‘guidelines’ (ie Built Form Frameworks) for three neighbourhood centres which are not as yet even in the planning scheme. No indication has been given as to what to expect for the remaining centres.
• No developer contributions on parking as promised in 2016
• No Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) policy
• No review of the residential zones and their respective schedules since 2013
• And the most damning fact – no housing strategy since 2002 and council steam rolling ahead with amendment after amendment all PRIOR to the completion of an essential housing strategy.

Politics has continued to play an important role in many councillors’ decision making as evidenced by the car park issue and the acceptance (or not) of the $18M funding from the Federal Government. Politics is also evident in the alacrity with which some Labor aligned councillors so heartily support draft structure plans and applications that include heights so out of keeping with resident wishes.

Council signed an ‘agreement’ with several other councils this year to demand greater community and council input into the State Government’s planning agenda. Thus far, we have heard nothing back.  Have discussions been ongoing between councils and the department? If so, why not some updates?

We must also comment on the volume of useless community consultations. We maintain that they are indeed ‘useless’ when the questions on surveys are simply designed to elicit certain responses, and when councillors and the community consultation committee has no input into the final product. Residents are often faced with planning jargon that most will not be familiar with, or with hundreds upon hundreds of pages to plough through in order to come up with some decent submissions. The absence of Discussion Papers that are truly objective and informative is a major failing of this council. Surely a brief document that accurately summarises the issues would not go astray.

Several councillors have bemoaned the fact that the response rate on various issues is poor. Perhaps council needs to start asking why this might be the case. Is it simply because residents are apathetic? Or perhaps it might have more to do with the fact that so many people believe that their views will not be acted upon? Or maybe, the manner in which consultations are carried out, and the ‘useless’ questions are seen as a complete waste of time by residents?  Then again, people are simply tired no doubt, and flooding them with mock consultation after mock consultation is simply demoralising and counter productive. Perhaps more people would respond if more information was included that meant something. For example: pretty pictures of draft designs is not enough. Why not include some basics like -size, cost, footprint? Surely this would elicit some very relevant and greater feedback. The greatest fallacy however would be for this council to assume that because the response rates might not be up to par, that means that the majority of residents are in FAVOUR of the various projects. In our view, nothing could be further from the truth. Disquiet is growing and until this council addresses the fundamental issues of housing, open space, and sustainability, we will continue to head backwards. It is the role of councillors to ensure that this trend is reversed.

Our best wishes to all for a much healthier and far more fulfilling 2022.

The Planning Panel Report on the ‘Hidden Gems’ amendment is now available. Council’s amendment is ‘appropriate’ and the panel has supported most of the recommendations contained therein. More importantly, the panel repeats previous criticisms of the Department and the Minister, where their refusal to include all the precincts identified by the external heritage advisor as suitable for heritage listing were omitted. The rationale was that listing these precincts in the Elsternwick Urban Renewal South, would likely be the ‘primary driver for development outcomes’. In other words – let’s not put any impediments in the way of the mooted high rise that is to go into Elsternwick.

To the Panel’s credit, this was not only commented upon, but the criticism is fully warranted. What is most disappointing however, is that there was not a single peep out of council (at least made public) when they were informed of these exclusions. Would it have killed council to announce their opposition to this decision? Would it have killed council to publish any letters it may have written in response – in fact, was there any correspondence, or did council merely and meekly accept a decision that goes against current legislation, planning practice notes, and its own VPPs? If this was the case, then once again, this council has chosen the route of compliance, rather than support for what the community values – ie heritage!

The following pages, taken directly from the Planning Panel report, show what the Panel thought of Wynne’s and the Department’s decision making and its justification –

Last night’s council meeting included another first – the refusal to allow a councillor his requested time extension. This occurred on the ‘debate’ for progressing the multi-storey car parks in Bentleigh and Elsternwick to the next stage – ie design, background reports, feasibility studies etc.

Zyngier rose to speak against the motion to proceed. He spoke for his 3 allotted minutes and then requested a time extension of 6 minutes. Magee replied that he would consider another 3 minutes first and then see how far Zyngier had got with his statements. The motion to allow the three minute extension was put and voted down. Those opposing the time extension were: Esakoff, Cade, Parasol, and Zmood. Given that Pilling and Athanasopolous were absent, these councillors constituted the majority.

Only Zhang later in the ‘debate’ commented how disappointing it was that this occurred.

It is indeed another sad day for Glen Eira when a councillor is denied his right to speak for more than 3 minutes. To the best of our knowledge, this has not occurred previously. Whatever Zyngier had wanted to say is not the issue. Nor is the final voting the issue. What is the issue, is how politics has come to play a major role in many council decisions and this applies to both sides!

Since none of the above 4 councillors provided reasons for their decision to disallow Zyngier his requested time, we have no idea why they voted the way they did. Simply not good enough.

On another matter, it seems that McKenzie has adopted the Paul Burke method of reading out public questions as fast as she possibly can in a steady monotone, making it difficult to follow the intricacies of the question for those listening or viewing. This was not the case 6 months ago!

As everyone has known for years, Glen Eira has the least amount of public open space per capita in the state. We also lay claim to the 5^th densest municipality behind Melbourne, Yarra, Port Phillip and Stonnington (all of these being ‘inner municipalities’). Our rate of development continues practically unabated and lest we forget, East village and Caulfield Village are waiting in the wings for at least another 7,500 residents. Given these facts, it behooves all residents to ask some basic questions of their council – namely:

• Why can Darebin, Monash produce current amendments which seek a 10% open space levy?
• Why can Yarra produce a current amendment which seeks a 10.1% open space levy?
• Why is Glen Eira ‘satisfied’ with a 8.3% levy in the face of its rate of development and lack of existing open space?
• Is the Open Space Refresh document a valid strategic justification for this 8.3%?

Residents have until late December to provide a submission to this latest proposed amendment. We urge all readers to compare what other councils (with far greater existing open space) see as required compared to what Glen Eira proposes. Until a decent levy is imposed, Glen Eira will continue to see a decrease in its open space requirements.