If you happen to live in any of the sites highlighted in the light blue, then beware! Council has earmarked these sites as Substantial Change Area 1. This means:
- You will go from a 2 storey mandatory height to 3 storeys
- The mandatory garden requirement ranging from 25% to 35% of land size will be removed
- Rear setbacks will in all likelihood also be removed.
- Retention of trees will only be ‘encouraged’ where ‘practical’
As for the commercial sites themselves, these will also be changed to greater heights if the following, taken from the Housing Capacity Analysis (page 52) is any guide –
Bentleigh is thus in the firing line for major changes that in our view will do nothing except impact incredibly on residential amenity, on the environment, and on issues such as parking and traffic. We repeat ourselves, but given that we have capacity for 50,000 dwellings and only require 13,000 until 2036, it is simply unconscionable for this council to even contemplate further ruin of our suburbs.
Readers may also remember that over the past few years council conceded that the Residential Zones introduced in 2013 were inadequate on several levels – ie heritage properties were included in the Residential Growth Zone (4 storeys) and many streets had multiple zonings which simply didn’t make sense. Well, given the above mooted zonings, it doesn’t appear as if council has learnt from its past mistakes. Take Whitmuir Street for example. Only half of this street is to be rezoned. Why? Especially when this proposed rezoning includes about 24 houses on both sides of the street and all are either single or double storey. There are 2 blocks of flats (one of 9 apartments and two storey) and another contains villa units. The street itself is narrow making it impossible to pass if there are parked cars.
We have visited this street and taken the photographs at the end of this post. Many are beautiful Californian bungalows that if anything, should be under a heritage overlay, and not offered as fodder to developers. Even more disheartening is that we have not been provided with any valid justification as to why streets like Whitmuir are on the chopping block. Remember Bent Street that is now a canyon of apartment blocks? The same could happen to Whitmuir!
We urge all residents, and especially those who reside in these targeted sites, to write to councillors with their views as well as commenting on the so-called ‘consultation’ from the Have Your Say website. Things will only change with massive community opposition. Make your voices heard!
Here is what most of Whitmuir Street looks like!
Glen Eira Debates 
March 2, 2022 at 10:31 PM
The developer want every street, road, and lane, and our planners are more than willing to hand them over on a sliver platter.
March 2, 2022 at 10:38 PM
These morons are killing everything that people want to maintain like open space and getting sun into their rooms and back yards
March 3, 2022 at 9:27 AM
When will you stop citing the 50,000 housing capacity figure as if it is anything but an illusion? It is a total capacity of the entire GE city including all those homes that are currently single dwellings that could be doubled and all the commercial zones shops with no apartments built over them and all the Major Activity Centres that are not built yet. It is an illusory figure. GE must grow like every other suburb. Do we control it with plans or just let it rip? By all means argue about the details – that is what consultation is about – trees, coverage, landscape, built firm and set backs. But growth will happen. We can’t continue with NIMBYism.
March 3, 2022 at 11:48 AM
I am having great difficulty in following your logic. You say that the 50,000 is an “illusion”. Various sections of the Victorian Planning Provisions state quite clearly that councils have to show that there is sufficient capacity to cater for future growth. If the 50,000 is not accurate, then this does fall back onto council’s planning and their justification for anything.
I would also urge you to carefully read the housing capacity report (which I have) and see the basis upon which they have come up with this number. What can be built and what is built are two entirely different matters. Council has to provide the former but only after they have considered things like lot size, recent development, heritage and so on. There are a whole lot of criteria which set out what is excluded from this analyses and what is included. Far from an “illusion” I would say. They even analyse uptake for the various areas. After all this the paid for consultants still conclude that with the proposed changes the city will have capacity for 50,000 new dwellings.
March 3, 2022 at 1:44 PM
I resent you implying that I and others who aren’t happy with what council is doing are nimbys. We live in a street with lovely gardens and where every neighbour knows the other neighbour and most of us have lived together for over twenty years. I am not a nimby just because I want to be able to use my backyard without a three storey unit or apartment block overlooking my back yard. I want to look out of my front lounge room window and see a tree and from my kitchen several trees in the back yard. I want our kids to be able to have a backyard where they can put a trampoline.
But if I’m right in looking at the maps in the housing strategy our street will become nrz2 where there will be less space, less vegetation, less setbacks from the monsters behind us, and a hell of a lot more traffic and parking problems. If this is progress then I’m against it and nothing you can say will convince me that any of this is necessary if we’ve got room for 50,000. You are totally out of touch with residents if you think they are happy with what is happening.
March 3, 2022 at 9:34 AM
Along with many, many residents, at least four Councillors are not happy at all with the Draft Housing Strategy. The plan for Bentleigh is only one example of the many major concerns with what is proposed.
March 3, 2022 at 2:00 PM
Hi. Just thinking out loud .. at a Ratepayers Vic meeting last year their person said that local government was an offshoot of State govt. Not a third tier of govt. So the many things that GE Council does are actually State govt requirements. So if this is true then us protesting to the Council is pointless because they are just under direction from Dan and the Labor govt plus Dan is happy because we’re directing our ire at them and not him. So if this is true ought we not to direct our frustration at the State govt? Or campaign against Dan’s edicts to the local council? “Dan has told Glen Eira Council to do x. Are yu happy with Dan?’ Mobilise a grassroots campaign to attach Dan’s name to everything that the council does that’s ridiculous. There’s an election in November. Look how he caved in on the ‘social housing levy’ when the developers arc’d up. Not because they arc’d up (he’s used to that and he just presses on) but because it gave the opposition the chance to campaign on blaming Dan for high house prices.
We have stood up against GE Council for a long time now and little has changed. Time to change the strategy?
Just a thought.
Sara Hood
March 3, 2022 at 3:35 PM
Sara, you’re right on lots of points. What’s happening at state level is disgraceful. That doesn’t and shouldn’t exonerate council though. There was a post up here a couple of days back that looked at other councils and the results they got. All pretty recent. Both should be targets.
March 3, 2022 at 7:27 PM
Development should be sustainable, and Cr. Zinger you should be across this as you are a Greens councillor. As a Green please look at the sustainable living of what is being proposed. Personally I think the direction we have been heading in for well over a decade is becoming shakenly unsustainable on more and more levels. Although you did make a few good suggests that would be helpful to councillors. These should be taken on board
I add if sections of our community are becoming alienated by all this rapid development, maybe this is sign of unsustainable living. Residents do have the right to feel safe and untroubled in their lives. If they don’t due to the consent turmoil happening around them it is not their failing.
The communications from the CEO and her army of bureaucrats isn’t reassuring and in my opinion this is purposely so, they are not even trying to take the community with them. They could be doing a whole better here.
It’s just so coinvent for the bureaucrats to dump their whole mess into the laps of councillors and leave you to deal with the backlash. You shouldn’t tolerate that kind of tactic. They are in control, you are their employer make them accountable in explaining their actions. Bad communication is usually at the root of all conflict.
David your are running the risk of becoming and sounding like a privileged insider, blaming the victims for what they see and how they feel. This isn’t a good look and a pitfall trap almost all councillors fall into. Please do not let the townhall machine make you their whipping post.
March 4, 2022 at 1:41 PM
I normally don’t respond to anonymous posts but I will make an exception today as you raise many issues. Sustainability is first on my agenda – hence you will see me leading the vote against commuter carparks and the so-called Advanced Waste Processing and organising the protest at Caulfield racecourse that saved so many of the trees before they were destroyed. My green credentials are my record.
Secondly, Councillors employ the CEO ONLY. The CEO is then responsible for all other officers. Councillors are forbidden by the LGA 2020 to interfere with or pressure officers.
Thirdly there will, unfortunately, be “sections” of the community who are not happy about the decisions of the council. We cannot make everyone happy – but we must do is ensure that all voices are heard and taken into consideration. Hence my support for in depth consultation on the Housing Strategy. I apologise that I didn’t get the improved consultation and community engagement on the Caulfield Structure Plan. Clearly we all slipped up on this one.
Fourthly if you are not happy with a Council decision or plan don’t just complain here – it has no impact – but write to the mayor and the CEO.
Finally please spell my surname correctly. I am not a chicken burger!
March 6, 2022 at 3:18 PM
Hi Anonymous … During the zoom “Planning” meeting on the updated Planning Scheme, I fielded suggestions/recommendations that Sustainability (including the mitigation of the effects of Climate Change) be captured and measured by adopting the sustainability Industry models, such as Green Star, and for there to be a “pass mark” measurement within those models as submitted when developers lodge their plans. The reception was good, as no one had previously suggested a planning “arrangement” that could fit within the approval process. If this is completed, then Planning Officers will have a “pass mark” within the sustainability models for the developers to achieve when submitting plans. It will be a significant improvement on anything from previous Councils – as sustainability within developments will be “measured” and there are multiple topics such as the carbon emitted from basement machinery to the thermal mass of buildings affecting the Island Heaty Effect.
Watch this space – if this gets through, within the Planning Scheme – this Council will have achieved much more for the future than any previous.
My view … and I am excited about the concept as finally there will be an environmental measurement applied on development sites. (Oops, and by the way, with every respect, David Zyngier suggested the concept at a prior Council meeting about receiving environmental reports on Plans, we just took the idea, developed the idea and ran with it … well done David for speaking up!)
March 6, 2022 at 12:42 PM
There nothing about sustainable development in this strat. No data demonstrating how the existing built amenity will cope with the rising density levels either population or physical infrastructure. How our open space can absorb the amount of new resident wanting to use or public open space or play sport. It just takes for granted existing amenities will cope. Will our urban forest strategy be able to make up for the tree canopy loss that is the inevitable result of this strategy, and by what date this will happen. When are the references to our Sustainable Living Glen Eira Strategy about the community reaching zero carbon emissions by 2030. Our biodiversity loss, noise and air quality predictions. Can schools cope with the rising populations and roads cope, can pools cope. This reads like pure bubble thinking, without any concerns or care about preexisting policy or strategies. This pro development perpetual growth model thinking is pre-COVID, unsustainable, anti-carbon targets unsustainable nonsense.
This Housing Strategy fails on all levels to collectively compliment or enhance or even remotely fit in with our Biodiversity, Sustainability, and Open Space Strategies.
Any contorted position one could invent to justify this Housing Strategy place with any other contemporary policy and strategy in Glen Eira fails. This Housing Strategy should be rejected outright.