Glen Eira Debates

The agenda for Tuesday night’s council meeting includes our first look at the draft Bentleigh Structure Plan.  The recommendation is to put this document out for public consultation for a period of 6 weeks. We know little about the nature of this consultation, except that it will include: a range of in-person and online opportunities for the community to provide comments, feedback and ask questions. In other words, we anticipate another mock consultation that only achieves the ‘consult’ range rather than the ‘involve’ stage recommended in the IAPP2 ladder for public participation.

Far more depressing are the actual recommendations contained in this draft. A short summary follows:

• Discretionary heights of up to 8 storeys along Centre Road for non heritage buildings – which means developments could be even higher.
• Only heritage buildings to have a mandatory 5 storey height limit (17.8 Metres) along Centre road
• A discretionary 7 storey height directly abutting a two storey heritage overlay along Campbell and other streets
• The real possibility of a reduction in onsite care parking requirements
• No mandatory rear site setbacks for developments abutting residential/heritage
• Discretionary front setbacks for non heritage properties
• Potential sell-off of council owned land for mixed use development that might include social housing. Please remember that council’s policy as it stands only asks for a 5% component for large developments. Other councils have asked for as much as 20%!
• Winter solstice considerations only to be taken into account at a measurement of 3.9 metres from the site boundary in side/local streets. How many of these streets have footpaths that are a bare 2.5 metres in width?

Here’s a run down of the proposed heights. CLICK TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE

Readers should note the following:

• Only those hatched sites (ie with///////markings are heritage listed). Thus all other sites earmarked as 5 storeys could potentially be much higher.
• The number of residential properties that are currently in NRZ that will have a discretionary 7 or 8 storey building backing onto them – ie Wheatley Road, Campbell street, Smith Street, etc. Clearly a difference of 5 or 6 storeys does not matter to our council planners!

Finally, what’s not shown in the above map are the proposed future rezonings of the residential hinterland.

We urge all readers to carefully consider the published documents and to partake in the upcoming consultation.

Like so many councils, Glen Eira has an Urban Forest Strategy. Yet we really know nothing about the progress of this strategy. We do have an ‘implementation strategy’ which is full of aspirational, motherhood statements, rather than clear and precise plans. As an example here is a screen dump from part of this strategy.

Please note that council’s annual report fails to reveal how many trees were removed. All we are told is the number of new plantings. To the best of our memory, we have yet to see any ‘audit’ of the strategy. If this has been done, then it should be in the public domain!

Nor does the Urban Forest Strategy outline how the disparity in terms of canopy cover between various areas are to be tackled. Yes, there are a few sentences which state the areas with lower tree canopy but nothing is proposed on which areas will become top priority, nor how. Since the adoption of the strategy, no further information has surfaced in regards to this important factor.

By way of contrast, we urge readers to compare Glen Eira with Bayside. In the latter’s current agenda we find lengthy documents for each of their precincts – shown below –

We’ve uploaded the Brighton East document merely as an example.

Yet the analysis, and draft actions, are specifically directed to the individual characteristics of this area – even street to street as shown by the included maps.

Finally it is worth reminding readers that Bayside has set a target of 30% tree canopy cover by 2040. Glen Eira has been forced to change its initial target and go up to 22% by 2040 – for a municipality that has close to the greatest loss of tree canopy in the state and definitely the least amount of public open space per capita. When will we see some real action, some real  planning, and some meaningful financial resourcing so that the tree canopy will indeed increase dramatically?