Councillor Performance

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October 15, 2013

Back To The Drawing Board!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Council Meeting(s)
1 Comment

Here’s a rundown of council decisions from tonight. The full reports in coming days. It should be noted that Delahunty was absent.

C60 Amendment – passed unanimously in about 2.5 minutes
Koornang Rd trees – all to go. This took about 5 minutes to decide.
Tree Register – back to Local Laws committee. About 20 minutes of awe inspiring argument – we are joking of course!
Magee’s request for a report that police not use council land for hidden traffic cameras – longest ‘debate’ of the evening perhaps. Shows a fantastic grasp of priorities by these councillors.
Open Space strategy – passed unanimously – maybe 6 minutes.

It would also appear that the penny has well and truly dropped for Cr Lobo in his realisation that he will not be Mayor next year. Lobo provided the fireworks tonight and achieved one spectacular result – pulling the rug from under Hyams feet on the Tree Register item. More on this soon.

All in all, another evening of stunning grandstanding, misleading statements (ie cypress trees are only ‘hedges’) and arguments based on anecdote, emotions, and very, very short on substance, logic, and plain old ‘facts’.

October 15, 2013

Letters To The Editor

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
[5] Comments

October 14, 2013

The Saga Of The Tree Register

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Governance, GE Service Performance
[7] Comments

A long, but important post on the Tree Register saga, so apologies. The following should be borne in mind:

At least ten years in the making and still no satisfactory resolution
Residents and councillors are totally excluded from the processes that are about to be implemented. Thus full control and decision making power resides exclusively with unnamed and unaccountable officers.
The suggested Tree Register has slowly morphed into only applying to private property when its original intention was to include both public and private land as enunciated in the Community Plan. Of course, no public consultation has occurred to validate this surreptitious ‘transition’.
Glen Eira has a Street Tree Policy, which is primarily concerned with what to plant and where.
Glen Eira does not have a Tree Maintenance Policy – only a Tree Removal Policy
Glen Eira does not have any policy whatsoever that can assure residents that trees are not the victims of greedy developers or poor maintenance.

All of the above coalesce in the again UNNAMED OFFICER’S REPORT for Tuesday. The report is largely a verbatim repetition of the document that appeared in February 2013. This time however, pretending to be ‘seeking guidance’ by proffering 4 totally skewed and misleading ‘arguments’. All are heavily weighted to achieve only one outcome – that which has already been pre-determined. We will go through each one of these spurious arguments by quoting directly from the officer’s report and then commenting.

Given around 1,200 planning applications per year, many being for residential development, it is estimated that over 200 valued existing trees are protected each year. Removal of a tree contrary to a planning permit is a breach of the Planning and Environment Act which can attract court penalties far in excess of any breach of a local law. Penalties of between $5,000 to $20,000 are relatively common.

COMMENT

Here’s some terrific bluff and bluster but what this doesn’t tell us is:

What protection is there against any owner who decides to CUT DOWN a tree on his property not at a subsequent planning application stage, but at the perhaps initial SUBDIVISION stage?
What happens if the property is landbanked for years and years, no application goes in, and then suddenly a tree is gone? Or what if one year and one day after an application has gone in, the tree is removed?
How many prosecutions has council actually followed through on?
How many fines have been issued (and paid) in the last ten years?
How many ‘valued’ trees on public or private land have been added in the past ten years?
How many trees have been removed from public parks and streets WITHOUT a full arborist’s report?
How many healthy trees have been planted on streets and then removed within months in order to aid and abet the installation of a carriageway in a new development?
What if any notice is provided to residents about the intended removal of park and street trees – especially when this is done en masse?

The ResCode mechanism is that any tree removed within 12 months of a town planning application being lodged must be assessed as though the “removed” tree is still in place. This has proven to be somewhat of a defacto tree retention control because it has effectively removed any advantage a developer could gain from moonscaping. This means that any town planning application for medium density dwellings needs to consider existing trees/vegetation.

COMMENT

We love the first sentence for its sheer inanity! The TREE IS GONE – end of story! For a developer the risk of being prosecuted by a pro development council is minimal. Secondly, even if there was some action taken, the advantage of being able to squeeze another unit, worth maybe $400000 – $500000 onto a property compared with a paltry fine of even $20,000 is a total no brainer!

We repeat our message from an earlier post that included photograph after photograph of moonscaped properties – bereft of any vegetation including trees. Only one property still retained a palm tree in the corner of the site. All other developments resembled the Sahara Desert. And yet council has the gall to claim that it is successful in preventing rampant moonscaping!

The problem is that the Planning Scheme is designed to regulate matters which are unlikely to change over the short to medium term (eg buildings) whereas trees grow, become senescent, may become hazardous and die. Over time, the Planning Scheme will include trees which need, for safety reasons, to be removed. To reflect that in the Scheme would require a full Planning Scheme Amendment process in each case which would be cumbersome.

COMMENT

Never, but never put anything into a Planning Scheme because that becomes far too binding and gives residents the legal potential to object to council decisions. Via a Local Law, which provides no leeway for resident objections, this little obstacle is overcome!

So, after much manoeuvring we’re left with the obvious solution – proposal D which reads –

A Local Law but only over Classified Trees

This option also uses a Local Law which covers only those trees which the Council has included on a Classified Tree Register. The Register would include those trees which the Council had assessed and considered were important to protect. The owner would have the opportunity to challenge whether the tree would be included in the Register or not. Once included, a permit would be required to lop or remove the tree.

COMMENT

This represents the heart of the issue. It is officers only who will decide on what is ‘valuable’. No outside interference from residents or councillors permitted. No ‘suggestions’ for trees on public land. No objection rights for resident neighbours – only developers. Residents won’t even know when a tree will be gone. The chain saws will come out one morning and poof – gone with the wind! No notice, no explanation, no objection rights, and only profit for the developer.

Given this current state of affairs it is worth pointing out the radically different approach taken by countless other councils. Some have vegetation overlays in their planning schemes; some have opted to include the requirement for a permit within these planning schemes. Those that have the need for permits only as part of a Local Law at least request residents to nominate trees on both public and private land and residents are given full notification and objection rights if a decision is made to cut down a tree. Many make their policies and laws applicable not only to a tree register which might consist of only 100 to 200 trees, but to any tree earmarked for removal. Here are some examples:

http://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/tree_protection.htm

http://www.boroondara.vic.gov.au/our-city/trees/significant-trees http://www.kingston.vic.gov.au/Planning-and-Building/Significant-Tree-Register

http://www.bayside.vic.gov.au/environment_trees.htm

http://www.frankston.vic.gov.au/Environment/Trees/Register_of_Significant_Trees_on_Public_Land/index.aspx

http://www.yarracity.vic.gov.au/environment/trees/significant-tree-register/http://www.darebin.vic.gov.au/Files/Item_8.4_Appendix_A_-_Report_to_Council_on_17_September_2012.pdf

http://www.banyule.vic.gov.au/Council/Environment-and-Sustainabilty/Trees-and-Plants/Significant-Tree-Register

http://www.greaterdandenong.com/document/23514/trees

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/Sustainability/UrbanForest/ExceptionalTrees/Pages/AssessmentInfo.aspx

http://www.mvcc.vic.gov.au/planning-and-building/long-term-planning-in-moonee-valley/significant-trees.aspx)

THE PROPOSED LOCAL LAW

We make the following observations on the draft Local Law:

The appeal process consists of officers and ‘independent’ arborists. No councillors of course and no need for a council resolution or public documentation to support any decision making. All is to be left in the ‘capable’ hands of administrators. There is not even the requirement that results of such appeals be placed in the public domain, or that any documentation sees the light of day. Again in stark contrast to what happens at other councils such as Bayside.

Last but definitely not least, we remind readers of the previously stated opinions of Lipshutz, and Esakoff. Okotel also voted against having a Tree Register in February. We will now see whether consistency is their strong point, since the circumstances have not changed and the anti arguments certainly have not changed. Maybe they will cut their losses and think that a minimalist Tree Register of only 50 or so trees, or even 100 trees is better than letting the public in on anything. So the question is: Will they become turncoats and vote for a register, or will they introduce some nice little pre-orchestrated amendment? Here’s what they said way back in February (from our post of the time) –

ESAKOFF: didn’t support ‘tree protection’ and that people in general ‘do appreciate the value of trees’ and that people don’t remove trees ‘without good reason’ ( such as property damage, or dangerous). Thought that people ‘should have the right of choice’ over their own property and shouldn’t have to pay to get a permit to prune, or ‘being forced’ to hire an arborist to ‘report on whether they should be allowed to prune’. Accepted that there are a ‘range of views’ and that some people would feel that ‘they are over-governed’ and to introduce a tree register ‘will only cement that view’. Existing mechanisms include town planning, so that if there is a significant tree then town planning conditions are ‘put in place to protect them’. There are also ‘large penalties’ for ‘breach of those conditions’. Other safeguards are landscape plans, 4 metre setbacks and open space requirements which means that more trees can be planted. ‘There are enough hoops to jump through’ without adding to them.

LIPSHUTZ: said this has been up to council a ‘number of times’ and council has changed its mind a few times. Doesn’t support a tree register for the reasons basically outlined by Esakoff. Said that his worry is that ‘I don’t trust the arborist’…’I don’t trust the people who make the heritage decisions’. He sees heritage advisors saying it’s heritage but ‘I see nothing heritage about it’….’it’s in the eyes of the beholder’ since there’s ‘no scientific way of saying this is heritage or this is a significant tree’. Said that laws exist. Reflected on his personal trees but ‘over the last 20 years’ they’ve gone because they were ‘ordinary specimens and they’ve been replaced’, Now he’s got ‘nicer’ and ‘better trees’….It was my choice to do that’. Doesn’t want people telling him ‘this is the way to do it’. Local laws committee has ‘investigated’ this and ‘gone a fair way down the track’. In the end it’s about ‘making a decision on your tree’. Didn’t believe it’s ‘our’ role to ‘implement this law which infringes on our rights’.

OKOTEL: talked about the expense of this and trees on private property that can’t be removed. There will be ‘ongoing costs…..increased red tape’ and ‘continuous discussion’ about what is or is not a significant tree. She thought that residents ‘are more than sensible enough to know’ what’s a good tree and ‘what’s appropriate to maintain’ and ‘to make those decisions for themselves’.

October 11, 2013

Cramming It All In – As Per Usual!

Posted by gleneira under Caulfield Racecourse/C60, Councillor Performance, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
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Tuesday night’s agenda contains at least 4 crucial items for decision and discussion –

The Draft Open Space Strategy
The Tree Register
Caulfield Racecourse and the C60
Koornang Park removal of Cypress Trees

We will need some time to fully digest the implications of all these documents and recommendations. What is obvious from a superficial reading is:

Nothing much will change in terms of open space – everything is qualified by the term ‘where feasible’ – the typical Glen Eira Council jargon for ‘we will decide what, when and if something is ‘feasible’.
Developers have hit another home run with the mooted changes to the Incorporated Development Scheme for C60. Council officers do not see too much wrong with ‘little’ changes such as intrusions, height, etc.
It’s ironic that when on the one hand council consistently states its commitment to trees and landscape in Glen Eira it is again so willing to take out the axes to an entire group of trees in Koornang Park. Taken together with the lame waffle that constitutes the tree register report (no author assigned of course!) developers are again given a free hand to remove as many trees as they like.

We urge all residents to carefully read these agenda items. We will provide our analysis of each in the next few days.

October 9, 2013

How It Can & Should Be Done!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Governance, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
[11] Comments

PS: More grist to the mill comes from Whitehorse City Council on the residential zones. In the extract below this council makes it absolutely clear why CURRENT ANALYSIS is required in order to obtain maximum benefit from the new zones. They are currently undertaking full community consultation on: Housing and Neighborhood Review; Drafting new Urban Design Guidelines and reviewing the Whitehorse Housing Study. Only then, will they embark on shaping the residential zones. We repeat – when is the last time that Glen Eira undertook any analysis, any genuine consultation? Here’s what Whitehorse has to say. The full explanation is available at: http://www.whitehorse.vic.gov.au/hanc.review.html

Why do we need the Whitehorse Housing and Neighbourhood Character Review 2013?

Council currently has two main studies that guide decisions on housing development:

The Whitehorse Neighbourhood Character Study 2003
The Whitehorse Housing Study 2003

Both documents were prepared some time ago, and there have been changes both in terms of the housing development which taken place since the studies were prepared, and the needs of the residential community into the future.

Council faces changes in its future housing demand, with a trend towards smaller household sizes, a more diverse mix of household compositions and backgrounds, and an ageing population. The number of households to be accommodated is expected to grow.

The review seeks to ensure that Whitehorse can cater for these changing needs, while still ensuring the City’s preferred future neighbourhood character can be maintained and enhanced. It is also important that the new strategies and corresponding controls (including designating substantial, incremental and minimal change areas) reflect changes that have occurred over the past 10 years and provide opportunities to meet the future needs of Whitehorse residents.

There have also been a number of developments within some of Whitehorse’s smaller shopping centres, referred to as Neighbourhood Activity Centres. To provide greater direction in determining the form of development which may be suitable for these locations, draft Urban Design Guidelines have been prepared for most centres

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

The contrast between Glen Eira Council’s secrecy, lack of up-to-date planning, and total disregard for residents is becoming more and more evident when compared to what lengths other councils are going to in order to both INFORM and CONSULT with their residents on the residential zones. Below we feature two screen dumps from the Boroondara Council’s website on the issue. Please note that their draft document is:

Going out to full consultation
Is based on years of local analysis (Neighbourhood Character Study) and research where their municipality was divided up into 75 individual precincts. The document was only finalised as recently as this month. When did Glen Eira last perform such a study that covered the entire municipality?
The expense and technological wizardry that Boroondara has gone to should be applauded. Residents are able to use the ‘interactive’ maps to locate their homes and immediately see the proposed zoning, and the statements on ‘preferred character’ for that area, as well as the related schedules. Glen Eira in all its documents has no ‘preferred character’ statements for ANY of their zones – that would only handicap future development if actually expressed in black and white.
We’ve already noted the schedules and how vastly different they are to the Glen Eira ones in an earlier post.

The Boroondara effort can be viewed in detail at: http://www.boroondara.characterstudy.com.au/

October 8, 2013

Do You Want This Man?

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Governance, GE Service Performance
[15] Comments

The Local Government Act requires that if a council intends to advertise its CEO position then that must be done 6 months prior to the termination of the current CEO’s contract. Newton’s contract expires in early April 2014. As far as we know, council has not placed another miniscule advertisement in The Age, nor have they made any public announcement on their website. We can only conclude, since the 6 month deadline has passed, that once again this group of councillors have decided to renew Newton’s contract without advertising his position. What we don’t know is whether they have handed Newton another 2, 3, or the maximum 5 year contract.

That will make it contract after contract that has never been advertised; contract after contract where we, the salary paying public, have no idea of Key Performance Indicators, no idea of the voting figures, and no idea of how Newton measures up against any standards. All we ever get is the party line that he is doing a good job so why look elsewhere. The simple answer to this is: how do you know that someone else might not do a better job if you don’t even bother to look and test the waters? In our view, no position anywhere should be for life. More importantly, best practice dictates that there is a ‘time limit’ for CEO’s in any major organisation. Newton has been there since 199/2000. During this time his rule has been mired with controversy after controversy; legal threats; and let’s not forget the sacking of council. We know of no other council that has had to endure 3 formal Municipal Inspector Investigations, and heaven knows, how many ombudsman official and ‘unofficial’ investigations. Coincidence? Perhaps, but possibly also a reflection on the one constant throughout this entire time – Newton.

More importantly from residents’ points of view, under his stewardship, every vestige of real transparency and accountability has been eroded and reduced to nothing – secrecy and a culture of ‘we are right’ over-rides every facet of good governance. Oh, we acknowledge the puerile argument that officers do not vote and that it is councillors who make resolutions. However, what pressures are brought to bear? What tainted information is provided upon which to base such decisions? And why on why are certain councillors continually voting en bloc for the vast majority of Newton’s anti community recommendations?

Several years ago, 586 residents signed a petition requesting that councillors advertise the CEO position in order simply to ‘test the waters’ and see who else is available. We remind readers that Esakoff, Hyams and Lipshutz voted against the acceptance of such a petition – a first, we believe in Glen Eira – and hence emblematic of the undemocratic culture that now rules Glen Eira Council.

October 7, 2013

Trees V’s Concrete: Guess What Wins In Glen Eira!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Service Performance
[6] Comments

Storms are an act of god. Falling tree limbs may also be an act of god. What is not an act of god is ensuring that large, mature trees become unstable because you have hacked their root systems to pieces so that any breath of wind is likely to topple them over. That is not an act of god – especially when you have been warned that this could happen. That’s the story of the GESAC car park extension in Gardener’s Road. Council killed off one huge gum almost immediately; last week’s winds completed the job with the remaining 2 huge gums being downed.

Council should be mightily relieved that no-one was killed or injured and that cars just happened NOT to be parked directly under these massive trees. We’ve previously shown photos of the damage done to the roots. Here are the latest shots of the downed trees. Residents may well ask why trees are always second to concrete in Glen Eira and whether or not indifference, if not straight out negligence, ensured the demise of these particular trees.

October 4, 2013

Collusion & Deceit?

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
[20] Comments

It is our firm belief that further consultation (on residential zones) could not have resulted in a better outcome, and may well have had the opposite effect. Our concern, on this as in all matters, was to achieve the best possible result for the Community. (13^th August, 2013)

Thus spoke Council as part of the answer to a public question! The villainy is further compounded by the Minister’s mandatory release of his ‘reasons’ for approving Amendment C110 under Section 20(4) – that is, without public consultation. We’ve uploaded the complete Ministerial statement here and highlighted some choice sections below. What is absolutely clear is:

Council’s continued responses to public questions were at worst entirely dishonest and, at best, deliberately evasive and disingenuous
‘Negotiations’ between the department, minister, and Council had been ongoing well before the announcement of August 5^th 2013
The Minister’s statement reads exactly like something that would have been composed by the public relations arm of Council and he merely signed off on it.

Here are some extracts and residents should question the failure of governance that has spawned this amendment –

The Glen Eira City Council has requested that I prepare, adopt and approve Amendment C110 to the Glen Eira Planning Scheme, with exemption from the notice requirements under section 20(4) of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 (the Act).

The Glen Eira City Council gave effect to its Housing and Residential Development Strategy (Strategy) with the introduction in 2004 of Amendment C25. Work on the Strategy commenced in October 2000, and included a community notification and consultation process. Nine community workshops attended by approximately 50 people also contributed to the development and refinement of the Strategy. The Strategy was adopted by the Council in 2002.

Exemption of the amendment under section 20(4) will enable a prompt decision on the adoption and approval of the amendment and will allow for the orderly application of residential zoning controls for this planning scheme, based on previous strategic work. It will avoid the need for a further notification, exhibition and consultation process, which is considered unnecessary given the strategic basis for applying the new zones can be found within the existing planning scheme.

As the Glen Eira City Council has requested the amendment, the support of the Council for the amendment is evident.

I consider that further notification through the formal statutory process is unnecessary. Consultation has been conducted during the development of the Housing and Residential Development Strategy and in relation to Amendment C25, which introduced the local policies upon which the application of the new residential zones is based.

October 3, 2013

How Do You Like Them Apples?

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
[5] Comments

We urge readers to carefully consider the following map which reveals in all its gory details the consequences of the new residential zones. Please keep in mind the following:

All white areas here are Commercial – meaning that there are NO HEIGHT RESTRICTIONS WHATSOEVER
Brown areas are 4 storeys
Blue areas are 3 storeys, and
Green areas are supposedly eligible for only 2 storeys

What this carving up of the municipality, plus the addition to both the brown and blue zones, actually means is that residents living alongside, behind, or opposite certain streets will now be confronted with the view of 3 storeys hovering near, over, and around their properties. Council’s so called ‘transition buffer’ is nothing more than spin and semantics. There is no ‘buffer’ unless you consider that recessive storey setbacks even come close to any form of ‘transition’ that will not impinge on the social, and environmental amenity of neighbours.

Adding to the sheer lunacy is that council, for whatever arbitrary reason has decided that it is okay for the 11^th house on one side of Mahvo street to be 4 storeys, the 12^th house 3 storeys but the 13 house can remain as the equivalent of minimal change. To compound the stupidity, we then have on the opposite side of the street, only the first 8 properties that are deemed suitable for 3 storeys! This same outcome is evident for all of the areas marked in blue – ie Oak St., Loranne St., Burgandy St., etc.

This pattern is continued throughout Glen Eira. No real strategic justification has been provided for such decisions, and certainly no real safeguards accorded to the 13^th and 9^th house in Mahvo street. No everyone from the 13th and 9th property will suddenly decide to subdivide and build 2, two storey units. Hence it is conceivable that all such streets will have 3 storey and 4 storey apartments towering over single storey homes. All that has happened is that a magic wand has been waved across Glen Eira and the past policies transferred holus bolus into the new zones (plus some major additions and all without major and long overdue review). And we again remind residents that councillors allowed this to occur in secret, and without proper recourse to the community itself. That is definitely NOT ‘representing’ one’s constituents.

October 1, 2013

Hyams & More Weasel Words!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Governance, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
[16] Comments

According to today’s Leader article, the Alma Club site development is now ‘settled’ when resident objectors agreed to new amended plans put in by Monark Pty Ltd. The upshot is that instead of 75 units, there will now be 69, and one townhouse has been ‘downgraded’ to 2 storeys. The other ‘win’ is that instead of the original intention of 4 visitor parking spots, there will now be a ‘generous’ 10 spots (Even under the abysmal ResCode standards, the number should be a minimum of 14).

‘Mediation’ in this instance is far from an appropriate term when one considers:

The huge financial pockets of Monark as opposed to residents
The potential costs of a 3 or 4 day hearing at VCAT when residents would feel obliged to hire their own barristers, planners, urban designers etc. The costs involved are prohibitive for any group of residents faced with opposing a Goliath such as Monark.
The real failure of council to support residents via its planning scheme and the absolute, total, failure to introduce schedules into the new residential zones which would not allow something like this to ever happen again.

How far removed this council is from residents and how little thought and effort has gone into ensuring the protection of residents’ amenity, is encapsulated by the alleged remarks of Hyams. The Leader article reports him as stating: We’re pleased that the parties have worked together to achieve an outcome that’s satisfactory to everyone’. When a financial gun is held to your head that’s not our idea of a ‘satisfactory’ outcome! One of the objectors in fact retorts with this alleged comment: It (the outcome) gives some benefit to the neighbouring residents but it’s still not an ideal solution for the site’.

We remind readers that:

Council had the opportunity to purchase this site in an area deficient in open space for the bargain basement cost of $3 million. The decision not to purchase never went to a council meeting, and was not noted as being discussed in assemblies. Someone, other than the full crop of councillors made this decision. So much for good governance and transparency.
There is nothing in the old planning scheme or the new residential zones which will prevent a repeat of such events. Glen Eira has kept its options open when it comes to the size of lots, even if they happen to be in minimal change.
We also do not accept for one moment council’s claim that it was the Minister for Planning who ‘decided’ unilaterally and arbitrarily to remove the minimal change zoning from this land. Given all the huge developments that Guy has not interfered with, it is inconceivable we believe that he would involve himself in something so paltry as a 7000sq metre piece of land – unless he was consistently urged to do so!

Any resident who believes that this council has done its utmost to protect our suburbs is living in a fool’s paradise. The best, and most recent example of this comes with a comparison to the Kingston draft residential zones where they have included 10 specific schedules into their Neighbourhood Residential 1 Zones – following months of consultation of course!. Glen Eira could only manage 2 with no limitation on subdivisions or the number of dwellings that could then be erected. Kingston’s objectives are to negate this cramming of countless units onto a single block of land. Here are their schedules on this. Without such limitations, the Alma Club scenario can, and will be repeated countless times in the very near future. Any block of sizeable land under this regime represents an open invitation to developers.

Here’s what Kingston have done:

“Rather than rely on the default of two dwellings per allotment a series of schedules be developed which provide for the following outcome:

Schedule No.	Lot size	No. of Dwellings
1	Under 500m2 and/or recently developed greenfield areas	1
2	500m2 – 899m2	2
3	900m2 – 1199m2	3
4	1200m2 -1499m2	4
5	1500m2 – 1799m2	5
6	1800m2 – 2099m2	6
7	2100m2 – 2399m2	7
8	2400m2 – 2699m2	8
9	2700m2 – 2999m2	9
10	3000m2 or above	10

But Kingston don’t stop there. There is also a nice little dig at Glen Eira –

The approach taken by the City of Glen Eira in its approved Amendment is to first rely on a subdivision application of larger lots in the Neighbourhood Residential Zone and then additional development application(s). Such a City of Kingston approach is considered time consuming and costly for the land owner(s). Further by needing to instigate a subdivision application first, it is likely to create an increased potential number of disputes between neighbours due to the lack of clarity about the eventual development outcome and as a consequence create additional constraints on resources and discontent with planning processes.

The approach recommended for Kingston will allow Council through its strategic planning to have a much clearly understanding of ‘development capacity’ across its areas zoned Neighbourhood Residential.

In our view, it is precisely this lack of ‘clarity’ which is the desired objective of Glen Eira Council. Like everything else, when nothing is set in concrete, then all is permitted. When the policy is to evaluate on a ‘case by case’ basis, then chaos and inept planning is the inevitable outcome.

Finally, to return to our erstwhile Mayor, we remind readers that on one of his pre-election promises there was this noble sentiment – Take advantage of the new government planning zones to achieve maximum protection from overdevelopment for our neighbourhoods.

Need we say any more?

PS: WE NEGLECTED TO MENTION THE FOLLOWING KINGSTON INITIATIVES THAT LEAVE GLEN EIRA FOR DEAD –

Glen Eira has 25% permeability quota, but only for its equivalent to minimal change. Kingston has decided that 40% is required and not just in its minimal change areas but also for its Growth Zones. In these latter zones there is the stipulation of 30% permeability requirement for each of its 3 Residential Growth Zones
Also incorporated into this amendment is the Open Space Levy of 5% across the board and 8% for businesses. Glen Eira is still stuck on 0.25% for some areas. Even if the new Open Space Levy is recommended, it will take another amendment to make this law. That could be years down the track as Hyams likes to tell people. In the meantime developers will continue to get away with paying nothing or a mere pittance.
And last but not least there is this commitment from Kingston which is unheard of in Glen Eira –Although the Advisory Note indicates that Councils with existing Local Planning Policies could immediately begin a Planning Scheme Amendment and potentially seek the Minister for Planning’s consent to exempt public notice, this approach has not been followed by Council. The Council has chosen to ensure that community feedback on how the reforms are best implemented in Kingston is sought. The Planning Scheme Amendment is also to include community consultation.
As a consequence of the consultation period which ran from the 17 June – 26 July 2013, a total of 153 submissions were received. A detailed briefing on the submissions was provided to Councillors on the 5 August 2013 and copies of all submissions have been made available to Councillors.

Council has maintained the view that it is important that this initiative is broadly promoted across the Kingston Community and opportunities for the community to participate in firstly understanding the reforms (Stage 1) and secondly commenting on the Planning Scheme Amendment which introduces the reforms is provided (Stage 2).

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