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!
Glen Eira Debates 
December 15, 2021 at 10:26 PM
Possibly some revenge happening on the recent vote on whom was to become the Mayor and David found himself on the wrong side.
As for the CEO it’s time she left, she has lost control and the staff and situations seem to be running her. Very unbecoming.
December 17, 2021 at 12:55 PM
Did you how many meetings have Pilling and Athanasopolous have missed?
December 17, 2021 at 2:54 PM
For those of you who are interested here is my full analysis of the Officer’s Report which I was presented from presenting:
Why I voted against the Officer’s Report to Council
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I want to thank the effort that the Officers have gone to prepare this report. However, it does not represent the data accurately nor is it evidence-based.
Why the Officers’ Report and Recommendation are flawed and should be rejected:
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I have over 17 years high level research experience. The community Consultation is a typical mixed-method research project comprising a quantitative component (A survey) a qualitative component (an opportunity for extended written responses) and focus groups (SAC, STAC and a Community Forum).
However, while the Officers Report includes all the data from the three collection methods – which would assist in confirmation of any conclusions by what researchers call triangulation – the gold standard for research – all the qualitative data is ignored. Only the quantitative (numerical) results are used to derive the conclusion that most respondents are in favour of the car parks.
Based on the information provided … ? Is this a commuter carpark or for shoppers?
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Only 80 of the 473 respondents to the surveys possibly read the detailed VLC Report and only 80 looked at any of the FAQ’s. That might explain why the responses in favour recorded by both Have Your Say and Community Voice respondents indicated a misunderstanding of the proposal – mainly due to the misinformation provided regarding the use of the carparks being available to shoppers and traders.
The detailed data on pages 57 onwards (attachment 1) explains why this confusion arose: The comments in response to “Why should GE proceed” all refer to a misconception about the proposed Commuter Car Park Project – that the proposal will provide for more parking near the shopping areas and it will reduce pressure on local parking networks.
Comments such as (p.39) We are in favour of the multideck car park being built at the proposed location because it
• Free up funds for other projects
• Increased parking for growing elderly population
• More parking options for residents
• Supports small businesses and local traders
• Decrease in street parking creates viability for outdoor dining options
• Reduces pressure on on-street parking
• Increases open space available for cafes and restaurants
• Provides parking to compensate for increased apartment development
• Additional carparking is needed within the shopping precinct. The need for additional carparking will only increase within the next few years as the Selwyn Street Cultural Precinct/Jewish Art Quarter (JAQ) are built and will draw more people to the area. With plans for the JAQ not including an onsite car park additional parking in the precinct is paramount for our local shoppers and visitors to the area”
• Better car parking will also encourage locals to eat out and move around the area and support local business
• Local businesses are struggling. By improving parking, it will enable easier access to those businesses. I am concerned that with continued parking problems, especially in the Elsternwick area many of those businesses will be forced to shut down as people decide to shop elsewhere.
These comments contrast with the feedback from the three focus groups which were privileged with a Q&A presentation from Council Officers. In all three groups, the overwhelming majority were strongly opposed to the project continuing. As the Officer’s Report acknowledges: “these provided participants with the opportunity to consider the carparks project in-depth, and allowed participants to delve into each issue, consider outcomes and gain a more considered view of the project. The group generally expressed negative views to the proposed carparks.”
While the Strategic Transport Advisory Committee (STAC) and Sustainability Advisory Committee (SAC) also expressed very negative views the Report incorrectly states that both committees were” eager to understand more around design and feasibility should the project proceed.” As the Chair and Deputy Chair such sentiments were not expressed by any of the members of these committees.
Finally of the 198 respondents who gave qualitative comments over two-thirds were vehemently against proceeding.
Those most impacted reject the proposal
Interestingly the Officers do acknowledge that “the respondents who chose Elsternwick as their residential suburb were not supportive of using the funding or the chosen location in Elsternwick. Similarly, to the Elsternwick results mentioned above, when drilling into the suburb specific data, the respondents who chose Bentleigh as their residential suburb were not supportive of using the funding or the chosen location in Bentleigh.
Incorrect or unsupported conclusions
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The Officers make an incorrect interpretation of the results from Caulfield North:
“Drilling into the neighbouring suburb of Caulfield North, where the second highest amount of survey respondents indicated this was their residential suburb, there was strong support for the developments proceeding, potentially due to this suburb being further proximity to train stations.”
In fact, Caulfield North residents are closer to Malvern Station and are well served by tram and bus routes to the city.
What about the Climate Emergency response?
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The Officers’ Report states that the analysis into congestion-busting aligns with Council’s Climate Emergency Response Strategy. No analysis has been presented apart from the VLC Research Report which concluded that there is a risk of local traffic congestion if park and ride facilities are expanded – especially for Elsternwick – Park and Ride encourages people to NOT use public transport or active transport to access parking. Park and Ride in Glen Eira will remove 1 CBD trip for every 3 new carparks made available while increasing local congestion (p.25). That is for every 210 car spaces provided only 70 trips will be removed from the CBD. The report was underwhelming and equivocal but did not address Climate Emergency as this was beyond its scope.
Glen Eira Council declared a “Climate Emergency” in 2020. Council has set zero net corporate emissions by 2025 and zero net community emissions by 2030. Significantly, Council has also stated that all Council decisions will consider carbon emissions and the environmental footprint of all projects. Multi story carparks use huge amounts of concrete in their construction, emitting large amounts of greenhouse gasses. They also radiate large amounts of heat when completed.
As members of the on-line focus group commented:
These are some comments from the STAC and SAC.
“How does building more multideck car parks and encouraging greater use of fossil fuel burning vehicles align with this Council policy? This is a disappointing combination of poor planning and total hypocrisy. The environmental impacts of building multi deck car parks are not just from encouraging the use of cars over public transit or walking and cycling, but also from activities related to building and maintaining the infrastructure. The energy use and materials associated with creating more parking spaces has a significant environmental impact. A huge amount of resources are used to build a multi deck car park mostly concrete, which has its own environmental implications.”
“Providing free parking only encourages more cars into local streets, and raises the levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Glen Eira has the lowest amount of open space within any Victorian municipality, and a tree canopy which is gradually being eroded. Building a multi deck car park on scarce open space, and removing the established, mature trees at the site would worsen these problems.”
“A concrete multi deck car park would create an urban heat island. Replacing natural land cover with a dense concentration of concrete that that absorbs and retain heat, would result in heat trapped by the hard concrete surfaces, increasing urban temperatures, and resulting in a less liveable and less attractive neighbourhood. Council needs to investigate how we can cool down our suburbs. Building more artificial surfaces which hold more heat and make our urban environments hotter, with heat radiating from roads and footpaths is not a solution.”
Finally, “the large trees currently on the site reduce air and surface temperatures through shade and evapotranspiration, shading building surfaces, deflecting radiation from the sun, and releasing moisture into the atmosphere. In addition, the removal of trees and vegetation would have flash flooding runoff impacts. Again, Council is guilty of poor planning and failure to commit to initiatives which would remedy these long-standing problems. This proposal reeks of climate hypocrisy.
The Minister’s threat to not fund GE:
Over the past 4 years the Commonwealth have granted GE $59 million mainly for Aged Care; Family and early learning centres. This money will always be provided. Only $1.61 was for capital works of a non-recurrent nature.
The Minister’s threat to Council should be ignored.
What is the expert evidence?
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The Senate Inquiry heard that ‘congestion reduction is a fruitless ambition’, which ‘should be abandoned in favour of objectives more appropriate to urban prosperity and the imperatives of the climate emergency’. Further, decisions to provide parking as a solution to mobility issues was ‘typically a political decision that might win votes but displaces and exacerbates the transport problem’.
The Inquiry reports of ‘falling into the trap that so many political processes have fallen into in the past—to take what seems an immediate, popular approach of giving people more supply but doing that in a way which doesn’t tackle … induced demand’
Evidence to the Senate inquiry has highlighted the fact that commuter car parks may not necessarily be suitable for inner and middle ring urban settings such as Glen Eira and therefore may not properly address urban congestion as anticipated under the aims of the Urban Congestion Fund. Commuter car parks are instead better suited to outer urban and growth areas, where either walking or bus feeder services aren’t practicable or available.
Evidence to Senate has made it clear that there was no analysis of the actual congestion reduction potential of commuter car parks in the locations chosen. The committee was concerned with the evidence that the Department does not appear to have undertaken any research regarding congestion and car parks in urban areas, relying instead on the findings of Infrastructure Australia—which did not relate to inner urban areas.
The evidence provided to the committee by experts shows that more car parks in and around railway stations may not be the best way to address congestion and could in fact make it worse.
Conclusion
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When the opposing comments on the qualitative responses of the survey are added to the numbers attending the three focus groups to the various emails opposing the carparks together with the Petition from Elsternwick residents which contained 23 signatures (of which only 17 were judged as valid) the quantitative results are approximately 50-50% and certainly not an overwhelming endorsement that the Officers’ Report states. As we know if we misinterpret data we inevitably have errors in conclusions.
As one member of a focus group stated: “Sounds like the dazzling dollars are driving this and giving a solution that we don’t really need.” Indeed a solution looking for a problem!
Or as Shakespeare wrote: “All that glisters is not gold!” William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act II Scene 7
December 17, 2021 at 11:01 PM
That is a a very good summation from Cr. David Zyngier, many of us have had serious misgivings about how council officers go about their surveys many, many times before this car parking survey. The bureaucrats have shown themselves as masters at rigging the data via the questions to get their preferred position/s, and you point out it even more serious than even that type of manipulation.
With your deeper knowledge of data analysis you do raise serious doubts on how they have used this data. Having little understanding of how to quantify data myself, and I believe I’m not alone in this fact. I can see how easy it is for bureaucrats to hoodwink the general public.
On the environmental front you also nail the issues perfectly, can we balance our, or more importantly reverse our carbon emissions. If it’s going to be business as usual we will soar above that 1.5 degree target.
We cannot afford to pay lip service to the climate change strategy, we need to actually change behaviours, starting with ones own behaviors. This included people in decision making positions, they need to take real efforts and steps to actually change behaviours.
As mentioned concrete is bad news and coupled with encouraging more traffic, this is irresponsible behaviour. As part of declaring a climate change emergency Council decision are supposed to take in to account and balance the social, economic and environmental effects of all their decisions. And communicated how their decisions are reached in a form residents can comprehend. Muddying the waters with B/S surveys and fiddled meaningless data is not communication its PR of the worst type that just breeds mistrust.
It’s beginning to look like we have a whole host of politically aliened climate change deniers within the bureaucracy hell bent of sabotaging any behavioural change on climate change, to what end I have no idea. It should be up to the CEO to make sure strategies and policy are carried through by the officers, if they are resistant to change or refuse to understand or carry through policy or strategy they should be sacked and replaced by people who can implement them.