Below is another resident’s comments from last week’s council meeting. We again urge everyone to pay particular attention to the response provided by Torres.
COMMENT
Torres’ comments are inaccurate and completely misleading. His claim that what is ‘predominantly’ built in Glen Eira in relation to townhouses are ‘four and five’ bedroom developments is false. The latest ABS census data (shown below) makes this abundantly clear.
CLICK TO ENLARGE THE TABLE
According to the above table, the number of 4 bedroom dwellings in the ‘townhouse’ category is 1,761 out of a total of 13,778 dwellings. That equates to a percentage of 12.78%. If we look at the number of 5 bedroom dwellings then the percentage drops to 1.07%. Not within coo-eee of being ‘predominant’ as claimed by Torres.
In terms of apartments, then the numbers are even more telling. There are a total of 256 four bedroom dwellings built in apartments for an overall percentage rate of 1.56%. For 5 bedroom apartments we get the magnificent ratio figure of 0.14%!!!!!
If we examine these figures even further, we find that HOUSES remain the largest building component that contain 3, 4 and 5 bedroom dwellings – and not townhouses or apartments. And with the continued loss of detached housing in Glen Eira, we can only anticipate that the result will be more 1 and 2 bedroom apartments given that council has no control whatsoever over what developers wish to build.
If we even look at the breakdown of 3 bedroom places, then the percentage for apartment buildings with this number of bedrooms is 10.79% and for townhouses we get 42.61% – not even half. For Torres to therefore claim that what is being built in Glen Eira are ‘predominantly’ townhouses of 4 and 5 bedrooms is a total misrepresentation of the facts.
As the officer officially in charge of strategic planning in Glen Eira, it is surely not too much to ask that he is au fait with the current data (which has now been available for 5 months), and that public statements do actually mirror these facts instead of attempting to facilitate the pro-development agenda that constitutes the Housing Strategy.
Glen Eira Debates 
November 7, 2022 at 2:20 PM
Great stuff. We’ve now got the ceo and the planning director bullshitting for all they are worth. Time for a full scale inquiry into this lot.
November 7, 2022 at 5:24 PM
The table relates to occupied dwellings on the night of the census. That leaves about another 7000 unoccupied which is about 9% of total. This doesn’t change much in my opinion because the relative ratios would still be the same. Plenty of one and two bedroom joints and definitely not too many that are four and five bedrooms in townhouses or apartments. All of this makes it even worse when the mrc are contemplating another few thousand one and two bedroom apartments in Caulfield Village area. This makes me laugh when we are told again and again that the lack of medium density townhouses is a crisis.
Would be good to know whether the 9% unoccupied are sub-standard dog boxes of one and two bedrooms and how long they have been standing empty because no-one wants them.
November 8, 2022 at 9:33 AM
Been looking at the “action plan”. Calling something “short term” means 1 to 5 years. With this council that means never.
The 2016 planning scheme review told residents that they would introduce a levy on developers. 6 years have gone and we still haven’t got anything and chances are that we will still be waiting in another 6 years if at all.
Not good enough to assign some useless timeframes for actions. Even the category of immediate isn’t defined. Does that mean 6 months, a year, two years? Then the statement that the structure plan will only be reviewed every four years. In four years time everything could have gone to pot. I suspect that’s what council wants.
November 8, 2022 at 5:56 PM
Planning department has to go. They’ve got no idea about planning and what’s supposed to be done. Everything they touch they have to redo like with city plan, bentleigh and carnegie structure plans, the quality design guidelines that are useless. The stuff they should be doing they don’t like housing strategy years ago, or decent structure plans 15 years ago. Earlier comment wrote about development levies – where the hell are they? Once upon a time council did have them, like they had parking waiver levies. All out the window to make developers richer. Torres and Slavin have to go. They’re useless and followed by McKenzie.