Please consider carefully the above table. It provides a breakdown of what’s been happening between the 2016 census and the 2021 data. ‘Medium density’ is defined as townhouses, attached dwellings, units, etc. High density is apartments over 3 storeys. Profile id. has used the 2021 census and compiled these figures for each municipality. You can access the individual data sets from this link and then type in the required council – https://profile.id.com.au/glen-eira/dwellings?WebID=10
We already know that Glen Eira is the 5th DENSEST municipality in the state – behind Melbourne, Yarra, Stonnington and Port Phillip. All of these councils are ‘inner Melbourne’ and most importantly, they include heaps more land zoned as Commercial – and that’s where most development has occurred in these municipalities. Glen Eira has about 3.3% zoned commercial compared to Stonnington which has 10% and more industrial land to boot. What this means is that development in Glen Eira has occurred everywhere in our quiet, residential streets. This has been further advanced by Glen Eira’s lack of any development levies on developers, ill considered zoning, no real tree protection to speak of, incomplete heritage protection, and a low open space levy especially for activity centres. All of these factors have accelerated overdevelopment in Glen Eira.
Yet the question of density remains irrelevant to our council. Given that we have the lowest amount of public open space per capita in the state, a drainage system that includes 100 year old pipes, 40% of the municipality covered by the Elster Creek flood plain, a pathetically low canopy tree cover, Council still wants more and more inappropriate development as evidenced by our recently adopted Housing Strategy and various structure plans. All this when research clearly shows that high rise development has only one advantage – it is cheaper for developers to build whilst at the same time is less energy efficient and certainly does nothing for essential open space.
Remember that council plans to:
- Increase site coverage in NRZ areas
- Decrease permeability in NRZ areas
- Remove the mandatory garden requirement in ALL GRZ areas
- Reduce the open space requirement in various areas
- Remove the 4 metre setback in NRZ areas
- Upzone scores of residential streets from 2storey to either 3 or 4 storeys
- Allow (as it stands at the moment) up to 20 storey ‘discretionary’ developments in certain areas
- Reduce onsite car parking requirements in various spots
- Allow 6 and 8 storey heights in heritage overlays
The Glen Eira planning department is god’s gift to developers as it has been for eons. Nothing has changed except that our density is going through the roof and will continue to do so if these strategic planning documents are allowed to go through without a whimper from our residents.
Glen Eira Debates 
November 10, 2022 at 10:34 AM
Frightening stats and more frightening because every single piece of council propaganda fails to include the latest information available via the 2021 census. The 2020 to 2021 period was fraught with covid so less development and a temporary halt for the construction industry. I would expect that the numbers to go even higher from here on. This isn’t stated or taken into account.
Trends are obvious from the table. Glen Eira increased its percentage by over 4% of medium and high density. The second highest in the table despite covid.
Council’s planning for the future makes things stacks worse and the question of whether we need all this stays unanswered. The work is shoddy, unexplained, incompetent and completely indifferent to the effects this will have on residents – basically living in each other’s pockets and with no open space around them. That’s what density does. Why other councils can do so much better is very important. Maybe they’ve got planners who do the work properly and fight like hell to protect their residents and don’t see developers as their buddies.
November 10, 2022 at 1:18 PM
How you can have the latest information available and choose to ignore it, is beyond me. Council don’t like these stats because it means they can’t deny that plenty of development has been happening and we don’t need any more.
November 10, 2022 at 6:38 PM
Population drops but dog boxes keep going up. Something’s drastically wrong with this council.
November 11, 2022 at 2:05 PM
We are getting the worse of many worlds here. I notice shockingly bad building designs and low to likely no enforcement of standards, if such a thing even exist anyone under this era of privatization and self assessment. Poor materials choices leading to very expensive post occupation repair costs and all the disruption this entails. Sustainable living doesn’t even come into consideration in GE’s planning processes. These blindsides and more will come back a bite us on the bum soon enough.