Glen Eira Debates

How much does it cost ratepayers to go through a practice day hearing, then a compulsory conference and then a 2 day full hearing (classified as ‘major case hearing’) at VCAT – only to lose? Could the loss have been avoided?

We believe it certainly could have if:

• Council had not sat on its backside for 15 years and instead worked to amend its planning scheme
• If representation at VCAT was based on sound argument and ‘evidence’
• If council’s and especially councillors’ solution to every application was not to merely lop off a storey or two and reduce the number of dwellings
• If there was ‘cohesion’ between the traffic department, the planning department and councillors

The case involved an application for a 5 storey development at 9 Royal Avenue, Glen Huntly. Councillors in their wisdom granted a permit for 4 storeys, 16 units and a reduction in both visitor and shop parking. At VCAT, following all the above ‘conferences’ between developer and council, the developer won. He got his 5 storeys and most of the conditions imposed by council were tossed out! This of course means that councillors’ record remains intact! Every single time that we know of, when councillors have reduced the height and the matter has ended up at VCAT, the developer has won. They simply do not learn! The solution has never been to reduce height. The answer has always been to amend the planning scheme – to introduce controls that have some punch. For this pro-development council, such actions are anathema. Residents then literally pay the cost in both monetary terms and in the destruction of residential amenity.

For those interested in reading the decision it is available at – http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VCAT//2018/891.html

Apart from the usual commentary such as no height limit constraints, no overlays, no structure plans, etc. the member also made these important comments that go to the heart of council’s ‘quality’ in defending its position at VCAT.

I understand the provision of one or two visitor parking spaces rather than three spaces was supported by the Council’s professional planning and traffic engineering officers…..I am satisfied the provision of one visitor parking space is acceptable

…clause 52.06 does not specify the dimensions of car stacker spaces……If the Council considers that a width of 2.6 metres is necessary, it should present expert traffic evidence and examples to support this proposition;   The Hercules car stacker system has been on the market for a decade and if the dimensions are unworkable, it would be known in the industry and probably would have been remedied by this time;

There is no statutory basis for the Council’s insistence on the wider dimension

Glen Huntly is included in Plan Melbourne’s vision as a Major Activity Centre – despite the fact that council has always treated it as a ‘neighbourhood centre’. Yet, we are still waiting for any comment on council’s plans for this suburb. In the meantime, developers will continue to have a field day it seems!

The agenda for tonight’s council meeting features an item on council delegations. We are told that the reason this item was withdrawn from the previous council meeting was because there was the need to resolve an administrative error in the attachment. One can hardly call major changes to what appeared in last month’s agenda as merely ‘administrative’. The reasons for these changes are not explained. Could it simply be that councillors have again been put in their place and the power of officers retained and enforced?

Some background is important here. Scores of other councils in their delegations set hard and fast rules for when applications are to go to a full council decision, or will be determined by officers alone. Whitehorse for instance states clearly that officers can only decide an application if there are 5 or less objections. Otherwise it goes to a full council meeting. Hobson’s Bay specifies 7 objections. Boroondara cites between 1 and 5 objections plus this significant clause –

3-storey or 3+ storey dwelling/s or 3-storey or 3+ storey residential buildings within the General Residential Zone (excluding residentially-zoned land located within the boundaries of an activity centre);  

Buildings that exceed the applicable preferred maximum overall building height described in Design and Development Overlay Schedule 17 (DDO17);

In last month’s agenda the withdrawn item included such specifications. This latest version has reverted to what has always been council’s position – ie no quantitative clarification of when an application goes to a full council meeting for decision. Why the change? And can residents ever hope to receive a full and honest explanation?

There are plenty of other issues with these delegations and they are not new. Some councils have the equivalent of Glen Eira’s Delegated Planning Committee where councillors sit on these panels. In Glen Eira, the DCP consists entirely of officers and no minutes are ever published. Councillors are effectively side-lined. Considering that officers make approximately 95-98% of all planning decisions, this endows them with enormous power but without the necessary transparency and accountability.

We have for years bemoaned the fact that in Glen Eira there is no ‘councillor call-in’. In other councils, any councillor may determine (some with other councillor endorsements) for an application to be brought to council. This simply does not exist in Glen Eira. Again a very useful omission to safeguard officer’s autonomy and power. For the record, here is a list of a few councils who do provide for councillor call in via their delegations –

Ballarat

Bayside

Boroondara

Darebin

Kingston

Manningham

Melbourne

Melton

Moorabool

Monash

Yarra

We do not expect councillors to determine every single application. That would be unworkable. What we do expect is that when councillors see the need, for whatever reason, that they be granted the legal right to determine the outcome and for there to be a record of their decision making which is published. The way things stand in Glen Eira, councillors are nothing more than an inconvenient impediment to bureaucratic rule and must be kept in their place. This approach, plus all the other processes employed by this council, is the antithesis of what good governance and transparency demands.

The roll out of legislation after legislation that purports to achieve major reforms in planning continues with Wynne’s latest effort on affordable/social housing. As with the Objector’s Act, the Garden requirements, and the Local Government Review, this latest effort is laughable. Here’s the hyped up media release –

Nothing is mandatory. Nothing forces the developer into any private arrangement with councils. If voluntary, then it will all depend on the dollars the developer sees as coming his way. For example: 12 storeys in Elsternwick and Carnegie is council’s ‘gift’ to the developer in exchange for 20 or perhaps 30 apartments set aside for social housing?

All Wynne has done with this latest legislation is to spell out the income levels that would classify individuals as ‘low’ or ‘average’ income earners and hence make them eligible for ‘affordable/social housing’. It goes nowhere in forcing councils and developers to set aside a reasonable percentage of land within developments to ensure that such housing becomes available.

By way of contrast, this extract from a recent article by ‘The Conversation’ shows what is being done overseas. There is much that could have been achieved if the will was really there.

There are now more than 500 inclusionary planning schemes operating in municipalities across the US. Some require developers to include affordable housing as part of development in a particular zone (usually a fixed percentage of units or floor space).

For example inclusionary planning programs in the city of San Francisco, California (population of around 830,000) generate around 150–250 affordable units per year (around 12% of the city’s total supply).

Other schemes allow variations to planning rules in return for affordable housing. These variations might permit additional density in certain areas or waive certain requirements that would normally apply or expedite the development assessment process.

Other schemes require financial contributions from developers to offset the impact of a project on affordable housing demand or supply.

These programs provide a way for governments to ensure affordable housing for lower income residents even in rapidly gentrifying neighbourhoods.

(source: https://theconversation.com/england-expects-40-of-new-housing-developments-will-be-affordable-why-cant-australia-94581)

For those interested in reading the actual legislation and what it states, we’ve uploaded the relevant documents HERE and HERE