We are committed to facilitating genuine debate within Glen Eira. Your views on planning, environment, open space, CEO and councillor performance matter.
Over the past week or so we have had announcement after announcement regarding the proposed changes to our activity centres. All bereft of strategic justification and lacking essential detail as to eventual heights, open space provision or infrastructure and its appropriate funding. We await the gazetting of other plans.
This tsunami of proposed changes will undoubtedly impact Glen Eira more than other councils and most will be without third party objection rights.
We itemise below each of these proposals –
Moorabbin
The changes to the Moorabbin major activity centre will affect Glen Eira in many ways. The latest version is depicted in the image below. Please note that Glen Eira sites feature north of South Road and north/east of Nepean Highway. The other areas included are within the Kingston and Bayside areas.
A summary of the most important changes are:
Catchment areas increased all the way from South Road to Patterson Road. Highly questionable whether this range is really 800m or simply as the crow flies.
The areas marked light blue are currently zoned as NRZ (ie two storey height limit). They will now be rezoned as suitable for up to three storeys and some four storeys depending on land size.
Most of the green coloured sites now have a three storey height limit which will be increased to six storeys.
Car parking requirements remain unknown
Thus hundreds of Glen Eira sites are impacted.
Railway Stations/Activity Centres
Yesterday’s announcement of another list of activity centres about to be changed forever has Glen Eira featuring prominently. We will now have 5 areas designated for major high density development – Bentleigh, Ormond, Glen Huntly, Elsternwick, and Caulfield. No other details as to heights, setbacks, parking, infrastructure, etc. has been released, nor most importantly what size their respective ‘catchment areas’ will be. We have no idea as to whether we are looking at 10 or 12 storeys (even though North Road has already been granted the ‘right’ for 10 storeys as this stage).
The only other council to have 5 areas nominated is Stonnington. What’s important to bear in mind is that Glen Eira is only 38.9 square km in size compared to most other councils. We also lack the commercial areas that Stonnington and other councils have – ie we are basically a residential municipality compared with the size of the commercial areas in other councils. (ie Glen Eira has 3.8% of land zoned commercial compared to Stonnington nearing 9%). With the prospect of all these areas suddenly becoming high density, this could mean that close to half of our municipality will now be a developer’s paradise. Glen Huntly currently has, according to profile.id data, a population density of 5,824 persons per square km – the highest in Glen Eira as well as being one of the smallest suburbs. Parts of our drainage system feature pipes that are 100 years old; our roads are often narrow, and congestion is already a major headache.
Equitable distribution of increased population planning does not seem to exist for this government. As long as there are railway stations, then the myth continues to be propagated that this is suitable for high density regardless of the fact that:
People living in one or two bedroom apartments still own cars as we’ve recently illustrated
More dwellings does not mean more affordable housing. When three bedroom apartments can sell for over $3m and two bedroom apartments for $1.4m then affordable housing is truly a myth in most of Glen Eira.
The tsunami of recent media releases by this government appears to mirror the Trump techniques – inundate readers with a deluge so that the ability to clearly focus, question, and assess becomes limited. Secondly resort to spin and more spin that simply makes no sense except to push a political agenda creating the impression that government is actually doing something.
Unless our council is prepared to become far more proactive and critical, as other councils have, then Glen Eira is basically doomed. It will, in our opinion, become the ghettos of either high priced luxury apartments, or our future slums with no real advance on affordable homes or protecting existing residential amenity.
The most relevant and crucial point made at last night’s council meeting on the Woolies’ application came from Cr Daniel when she asked the following question. The audio also includes the response she received from the officer in charge:
How on earth it is possible to claim that the current application will not have any further ‘detriment’ on surrounding areas when:
A six storey building will now be ‘acceptable’ as a nine storey building with many changes to setbacks, balconies, reconfiguration of apartments, etc.
How is it possible to basically ignore almost completely the findings of the last VCAT hearing and claim that ‘on balance’ the crucial conditions imposed by VCAT can be ignored in favour of Woolworths?
What makes last night’s events even more unacceptable is the actual council submission itself. The last 3 pages of the submission list council’s recommendations. The final sentence states: Council does not object to the granting of a planning permit for application PA2403410, subject to the above recommendations being implemented. So what do these recommendations actually state? There is not a single word in these recommendations that have anything to do with the increased heights of both proposed towers nor the detailed findings of VCAT!!!!! The 3 pages of the recommendation consist entirely of commentary on such things as glazing, construction management plans etc. No recommendation is to be found in terms of heights, apartment reconfigurations, the impact on the proposed cultural centre and traffic movement etc.
Council does admittedly refer to the increase of heights in its first few pages. But these increases are largely seen in relation to council’s proposed structure plan via amendment C256 and how this new amendment reduced the existing 10 storey height to 8 storeys. Thus instead of objecting strongly to the woollies proposed heights as having a detrimental impact based on what VCAT found, the submission only refers to the newly proposed amendment and how the application exceeds the 8 storey limit. Given that both the 10 storey and now proposed 8 storey limit is ‘discretionary’, it will not be hard for Woolworths to argue that an increase in one or two storeys is okay if not ‘negligible’!!!!!!
Last night’s offerings especially by Karslake were indicative of what we consider to be the pro development agenda of this council. It is deliberately misleading for Karslake in her summation to present the issues against ‘rejection’ as a simple black and white dichotomy – ie we have to be in the game so rejection is not feasible! This does not mean that council’s submission could not have included some strong commentary urging the minister to reject the application based on previous findings and that if a permit was to be granted that the issues determined by VCAT be given serious consideration. This would not exclude the other recommendations made by council – but it would at least show strong support for community!
We’ve uploaded the full discussion on this item. Please listen carefully.
We have repeatedly sought strong council opposition as to how the state government has been riding rough shod over councils. Glen Eira has largely been officially silent apart from a belated media release by McKenzie (who has now resigned!!!!) and some mealy mouthed submissions to various state run ‘consultations’. When compared to how Boroondara and others have acted recently we find Glen Eira’s responses woeful and a real desertion of their duty to residents. Here are a couple of paragraphs from Boroondara’s reactions last year to the imposed dwelling quotas for councils –
What Council is not supportive of is the additional ‘catchment area’ that extends a further 800m from the boundary of the centre and will allow for development height up to 6 storeys in heritage areas and low scale single dwelling leafy neighbourhoods. Neither Council nor the community have been consulted on this alarming new catchment area, which is illogical and representative of poor planning.
This vast catchment area encompasses 4,500 heritage listed properties. It is estimated that approximately 48% of this catchment area is land currently protected by the Heritage Overlay (refer to map provided). Council does not support this catchment area in any way and condemns the state government’s disregard for local heritage and amenity. This catchment area has been imposed with no evidence of any strategic analysis, assessment of local infrastructure capacity or consideration of the impact on local services and community facilities.
Any claims by the Minister for Planning that they have undertaken consultation with Council on the latest version of their plans are completely false
Social media has been busy with the Woolworths’ new plans for Selwyn Street, Elsternwick. As pointed out repeatedly, they have gone directly to the planning minister with a new application that seeks to undermine previous VCAT decisions and restore heights that had been knocked on the head years ago. In other words, if you don’t get what you want, then simply ignore the umpire’s previous decision and have another go via one single individual – the planning minister. Even worse is that such an action effectively sidelines objectors and even council.
This is hypocrisy of the highest level – especially when we consider the Woolworths’ arguments at the second VCAT hearing, which they now clearly have forgotten. At this hearing, their argument was:
The Applicant’s closing submission highlights examples of this and points out a second VCAT hearing should not be about forum shopping and relitigating previously determined matters in the hope of securing a different outcome. The Applicant also highlights that the previous Tribunal comprised experienced legal and planning members and their reasoning was considerable in explaining why particular issues were acceptable.
So these ‘experienced legal and planning members’ of VCAT, cannot now be ‘trusted’ to endorse Woolworths’ ambitions. They must be sidestepped and appealed to the planning minister in the hope of a fast tracked permit that is all for seeking a ‘different outcome’.
The only conclusions that can be drawn from these events is that our planning system is an entire mess that invariably favours developers. Council itself has been complicit in these events as its lousy planning over the years and unwillingness to take on major developments have shown – ie with the MRC, with the Virginia Estate, and now with Woolworths. It is residents who literally pay the costs of such folly and craven inaction.
Glen Eira Debates 