We are committed to facilitating genuine debate within Glen Eira. Your views on planning, environment, open space, CEO and councillor performance matter.
Featured below is an image detailing the potential outcomes of what this government is planning for our suburbs. Most of the changes impact directly on our quiet residential areas and not necessarily on the commercial zoned sites.
In order to demonstrate the extent of these proposed changes, we’ve produced an image which is based on the current state of play as per our planning scheme. Added to this image, we’ve outlined in red the areas that are now considered for ‘upgrading’ by this government.
Please note carefully:
The size of the new ‘borders’ that include countless properties that are zoned NRZ1 – ie height limit of 2 storeys. They will now ALL be available for 3 storeys and if on large sites, the height limit becomes 4 storeys.
Many of these sites also are heritage listed, or under a Neighbourhood Character Overlay. Our previous post commented on the lack of clarity as to how heritage sites will be protected under the proposals.
Government has now removed the need for visitor car parking. Hence, the possibility of three storey apartment blocks everywhere, with no adequate onsite parking, turns our streets into parking alleys where residents and visitors will battle for parking spots.
The changes impact on probably a thousand sites in just this one activity centre. When this is combined with what is happening throughout the municipality, then it is probably quite feasible to envisage a future where well over 70-80% of our municipality is earmarked for much greater density comprising not townhouses but apartment blocks.
As has been said previously by us and commentators, no thought has been given to sustainability, infrastructure, open space, traffic, and overall quality of life.
If this future frightens you, then please make your concerns known to this council. Insist on some real fight, and full transparency in everything they are doing. Silence is consent after all!
Submissions on the state government’s latest planning travesties, close on March 22nd, 2026. Glen Eira council has put up several media releases encouraging residents to view the Engage Victoria website and hopefully, submit their views. Is this enough however? Interestingly, the February 2026 council media release concluded with this sentence:
We encourage everyone to learn more and share their views via the Victorian Government’s Engage Victoria website at www.engage.vic.gov.au/traintramzones.
Do residents really ‘learn more’ by reading the government spin? Do they achieve anything from a survey that is unashamedly geared towards confirming proposed planning changes? If we are correct in characterising the Engage Victoria exercise as nothing more than another sham consultation, then what is, and should be, the roles of councils?
Should councils, cut through the spin and provide residents with:
A clear summary of proposed height changes for all activity centres nominated?
Debunk government claims when and where appropriate?
Provide clear statements as to the impact of proposed changes on heritage, environment, sustainable development, traffic, infrastructure, open space, economy, density, and scores of other potential impacts?
March 22nd is literally days away and we are yet to see council’s submission. On Tuesday there was a council meeting. Why was there no submission presented? Does this mean that residents will not be privy to the submission that is eventually submitted? Or will we be shown this submission only after it has already gone in? Why can Stonnington get off its backside and produce a superb submission that was tabled at their March 16th council meeting? Given that councils have had plenty of warning as to closing dates, why haven’t we seen anything from Glen Eira?
What we find as particularly impressive about the Stonnington submission and its information sharing with the community is the series of maps which show residents exactly what is proposed. Here is one of these maps:
It is difficult to be any clearer than the above. Residents can immediately see the current planning controls regarding the increases in proposed heights. In Glen Eira none of this has really been spelt out for the community.
Stonnington has also engaged its own consultants to do 3D planning analyses, as well as breaking down how much of their municipality is likely to be changed. They claim that 70% of Stonnington will covered by the activity centre planning proposals. When one looks at what is proposed for Glen Eira we think that it is even higher for our municipality. Will Glen Eira even bother to do this work to ‘inform’ residents? We doubt it!!!!!
Finally a few quotes taken from the Stonnington March 16th submission and the accompanying officer’s report –
The proposed heights exceed those established within Stonnington’s existing strategic work as shown in Council’s height comparison maps at Attachment 3. This is likely to impact the heritage significance and character of our historic streetscapes, undermine pedestrian scale, reduce sunlight to streets and parks, and detract from residential amenity.
An alternative extent and application of Housing Choice and Transport Zones (HCTZ1 and HCTZ2) is recommended based on local conditions. Stonnington’s approach excludes areas with heritage and neighbourhood character overlays, and alters the application of the HCTZ (from HCTZ1 to HCTZ2) to existing and proposed Neighbourhood Residential Zones (NRZ) in the Housing Strategy
There is a disconnect between the stated objectives of the Activity Centres Program and the Stage 2 maps released for consultation. No modelling, testing, sight line diagrams or analysis has been provided to demonstrate how these maps meet these design principles. It is unclear what setbacks would apply to street and residential interfaces to manage adverse impacts associated with tall buildings. Council’s modelling shows some of these principles, such as ‘sunny streets’ cannot be met by the heights proposed
State Government’s Activity Centres Program has been progressed over a short timeframe by using a consistent approach across metropolitan Melbourne to activity centre planning. As a result, their maps are not adequately tailored to local conditions.
Nor are they informed by an evidence base, such as built form modelling and testing that provide an understanding of heritage impacts, sunlight access, wind, views from the public realm and neighbouring sites
The State Government’s Train and Tram Zone Activity Centres (TTZAC) Program (including the Chadstone pilot centre) affects a large proportion of land within Stonnington – as shown in the adjacent figure. Approximately 70 per cent per cent of Stonnington is impacted.
In the absence of growth targets per centre, it is unclear if the level of change proposed is purposefully (and effectively) meeting this stated outcome. Transparent targets would provide a baseline understanding of how much housing, employment and services the areas need to accommodate over time. Without this context, decisions about building heights and density and infrastructure upgrades risk being ad hoc or misaligned with the needs of the community and may not take into account the existing development that has occurred across these major centres
The proposed inner and outer catchments include highly valued heritage precincts with some of the most substantially intact, consistent Victorian, Federation and interwar housing in Stonnington. Approximately one third of the properties within the residential area proposed for the Housing Choice and Transport Zone (HCTZ) with increased heights is covered by a Heritage Overlay or a Neighbourhood Character Overlay. Most of these areas along with residential streets of consistent character are currently within the Neighbourhood Residential Zone or General Residential Zone with a 9m height limit (2 storeys), whereas heights of between 3-6 storeys will now be allowed.
Whilst the State Government has stated that existing Heritage Overlays will remain in place with planning permit triggers and assessment unchanged, the proposed controls create an inherent tension by establishing an underlying zone promoting higher growth.
The existing NRZ includes this relevant purpose ‘To manage and ensure that development is responsive to the identified neighbourhood character, heritage, environmental or landscape characteristics’ which will no longer apply when it’s rezoned to the HCTZ.
The areas identified for increased density and growth (Housing Choice and Transport Zone) appear to apply blanket zoning changes without any clear justification beyond distance to the centre. The inner catchment has been applied to areas adjacent to the centre regardless of clear constraints such as Heritage Overlays, Neighbourhood Character Overlays and flooding risk.
Stonnington’s adopted Housing Strategy has considered building heights within the catchments, and provides a context-responsive approach, allowing for realistic levels of growth based on existing constraints and opportunities.
Council considers that all areas where precinct Heritage Overlays or Neighbourhood Character Overlays apply, should be removed from the proposed inner or outer catchment.
Council appears to have learnt a lesson from its last disastrous effort to sell off our aged care facilities when the decision was made in secret and without community consultation prior to the decision making. This time at least, there is some notification and community consultation prior to the ultimate decision.
Over the past few years council has slowly but surely divested itself of some fundamental community services (ie child care, aged care; home support) and the refrain remains the same – costs are too high and will impact on other services unless we get rid of them! The result, despite cutting the previously mentioned services, council has still voted to apply for a 5% rate hike. What therefore needs to be asked is – how well is council dealing with our financial resources? How can you cut back on so many services and staff, and still claim to be unable to ensure financial sustainability?
The following media release is important. Please read carefully. We have bolded and underlined sections for emphases.
Have your say on the future of Warrawee Community
Residential aged care is a specialised and highly regulated service, and the sector has seen significant change in recent years.
For over 30 years, Warrawee Community — Glen Eira’s 90-bed residential aged care facility in Bentleigh East — has been a place of care and connection for local residents.
Recent Australian Government reforms have strengthened registration requirements and tightened governance, compliance and safety standards for all residential aged care providers. These changes are designed to improve the quality of care — which is something we wholeheartedly support — but they also bring added complexity, regulation and cost, particularly for smaller, standalone providers like Council to continue operating sustainably.
These reforms tend to favour larger providers who operate a number of facilities and have the scale to meet strengthened standards more efficiently.
Keeping up with these requirements requires ongoing investment which impacts funding available for other important community services. We are the only council in Victoria — and one of very few in Australia — that operates a standalone residential aged care facility. The cost of delivering this service has risen sharply, and Warrawee is forecast to operate at a $5.5 million loss in 2025–26. This impacts Council’s ability to continue delivering more than 120 services across our municipality.
A decision now needs to be made about the future of Warrawee Community. This is the beginning of an important conversation — one we’re committed to approaching with care, transparency and respect for everyone involved, to inform our future decision.
The options we’re considering
We are seeking community feedback on two possible options:
continuing to operate Warrawee as a Council-run facility requiring ongoing investment.
transferring ownership to a registered aged care provider that can continue delivering high-quality, local care at the site.
This is a conversation about Warrawee Community continuing as business as usual or transferring ownership to a new provider — we are not considering closing the site.
In both options, Warrawee remains a residential aged care home — that does not change.
Cr Dr Zmood said Council’s priority is the wellbeing and stability of residents.
“Warrawee Community is not closing.
“Care continues as usual. We want to make sure residents keep receiving the high-quality care they know and trust, and that staff feel supported through this process.”
She also emphasised that the community’s voice will directly shape the outcome.
“No decision has been made,” she said.
“This engagement process is about listening to you, gathering information, and understanding our community’s priorities before any decision is made.”
Responsible long-term planning
This decision is about planning carefully for the future and understanding what will best support our entire community now and for years to come.
We need to review how we can best support older residents to ensure our services to our residents remain sustainable, compliant with sector reforms, equitable and aligned with community expectations.
We know from previous conversations that residents want Council to focus on services that benefit the whole community and make fair, transparent decisions. Reviewing assets and services like Warrawee is part of responsible long-term planning.
Read the report summary
We’re committed to transparency, so we’ve created a summary of the Council report which includes all the information we can release. This is available on our Have Your Say page, and includes the full report except for sensitive commercial and staff information.
How to get involved
Your feedback will play a key role in the decision Council makes later this year.
Hearing from all voices in our community is essential in helping us understand what matters most.
Visit Have Your Say to learn more and complete the survey by Wednesday 25 March.
Several statements in the above media release emphasise that Warawee will not close and that the service will continue either as a council operation or by another organisation. We then have to query why in the accompanying Have Your Say survey pages, we find the following –
Does this mean that there is a real possibility that the site could be sold? Doesn’t this contradict what the above media release has stated? Will we be informed prior to any sell off decision or will we see a repeat of what occurred a few years back?
Going back over past budgets, we find a few interesting facts in terms of stated deficits.
We have no doubt that regulations, staffing and overall standards have changed. But again we have to question why only two years ago the deficit for running one facility was $2.7M and has more than doubled in the space of 2 years. Surely it can’t all be due to government changes? Or how much has this been caused by years of lack of attention to the facility and then having to upgrade? Surely it would be informative if council produced some detailed information as to how this $5.5M deficit is calculated and verified?
The bottom line in our opinion is that if council is really there to serve the community, then it is the community who must decide whether they wish to subsidise this service.
Item 10.1 of the latest council agenda, contains this paragraph and its recommendation:
This report recommends moving forward on this a key element of the Strategy. It proposes a one-year 2.25 per cent variation above the announced rate cap of 2.75% for 2026–27, a total increase of 5 per cent in 2026–27 generating approximately $3 million additional rate revenue per year
The officer’s report goes on to claim that overall the community supports council’s ambition to increase rates and this is ‘evidenced’ by an enormous round of community consultation held over the past few years.
This approach reflects strong community input over the past two years. Through comprehensive engagement programs such as Our Priorities, Our Future (2023) and Our Place, Our Plan (2025), more than 3,200 participants took part in conversations about priorities, trade-offs and funding options. In the 2023 deliberative Community Priorities Panel, 73 per cent of members supported applying for a rate cap variation as part of a broader package of measures to strengthen Council’s financial sustainability.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? – 73% supporting a rate increase!!!!! A clear majority. However, when you go back to the actual Community Priorities Panel report, we can be forgiven for thinking that this is truly representative of the community. Please bear in mind that this committee consisted of up to 39 members only and therefore hardly constituting what could be considered as genuine community representation. Hardly surprising however that the report chooses to highlight this percentage and provides no other stats from the various surveys!!!!
Even when we investigate the results from the community survey on Our Priorities, Our Future, we find the following:
• The community may be open to increasing fees and/or charges to maintain current service levels, with 52 per cent of the community responding in the ‘maybe’ range, but ‘no’ is the most common single response at 37 per cent.
Please note the phrasing of the question. Instead of calling a spade a spade, (ie rate increase) the terminology becomes ‘fees and/or charges’. This is entirely different to a rate increase and we have no idea whether participants simply saw this as raising child care fees, entry costs to swimming pools, etc instead of reading this as an increase to rates.
When the question was finally asked as to how council’s finances could be increased and the methodology council should employ to achieve this, only 10% (166 responses) were in favour of rate increases.
Even more disturbing is council’s continued refrain, that Glen Eira residents have ‘some of the lowest rates in Victoria’. When rates are calculated, please remember that this is done according to property/site value. Clearly many Bayside suburbs would have a greater site value than those in Glen Eira, and the same could be said for Stonnington. Therefore their overall rates would be higher in these municipalities. But what also needs to be taken into account is not just the final rate, but the INTEREST RATE per annum which is applied to all properties. For well over a decade preceding the state government’s rate capping introduction (2016/17) Glen Eira was the highest by far in comparison to our neighbouring municipalities. Here is a comparison we made in April 2015 –
CONCLUSION
We do not doubt that prices for everything have increased dramatically. Nor do we doubt that governments have cut back on grants and attempted to pass on more costs to councils. But does any of this really justify a 5% rate increase across the board – especially in these times and when this is backed up by some very spurious claims as to overall community support. Could we for once get an officer’s report that is not misleading and fabricated to evince councillor support?
The bottom line of course is how well council has run our finances. Did we really need an $80M mini GESAC pool? Did we really need to embark on gigantic loans that will take another decade to pay off? Questions abound. At the core is the issue of whether or not this council is truly listening to residents.
The State Government has now released the next swathe of planning interventions for 25 activity centres. Whilst it may be argued that Glen Eira does slightly better than Bayside or Boroondara in terms of height limits, the overall impact of the proposed changes are catastrophic for residential amenity and urban living.
Once again there is nothing in these newly released documents which provide any information on: infrastructure costs, traffic, open space, etc. All we’re told is that developers can now build to their heart’s content and bypass resident objections in most cases. Even the government run consultation surveys are again nothing more than a tick the box exercise (see the Boroondara link for access details). We are still to see what plans are in store for Bentleigh, Elsternwick, Glen Huntly and others.
It is indeed extreme folly to believe that what will eventuate will be affordable housing. These inner suburbs basically cater for ‘luxury’ apartments selling between $2m and $3m or dog boxes that in no way suit a family.
Here’s what is proposed for Carnegie –
Whilst the council structure plan remains the same (and already includes allowance for 12 storeys) the surrounding areas are severely impacted. Please note that the light blue sections in the above image can now be built to 3 storeys and the darker blue to 4 storeys. If the land is ‘large’ (and this isn’t defined) then the limits go to 4 storeys or even 6 storeys.
When this is compared to the current zonings, then hundreds upon hundreds of sites are being earmarked for height increases and therefore a massive density rise. For example here are our current zonings:
All the areas shown as light pink in the following image are currently zoned as NRZ (neighbourhood residential zone) meaning they are either single or double storey dwellings. They can now become 3 and 4 storeys if they are on an average 500 square metre site, or if larger, the option is to go to 6 storeys.
There are very few 3 storey town houses, which means that most developments will consist of apartment blocks and not town houses. Besides, building an apartment means that more dwellings can be squeezed in compared to town houses.
What we are witnessing is the creation of unsustainable development that will become an urban wasteland that consists of apartment blocks following apartment blocks with no regard for heritage, open space, environment, and certainly no cheaper housing that suits families and downsizers. If our councillors aren’t screaming blue murder right now, then they are not doing their jobs in representing their constituents.
The select committee’s report on its investigation into the recent planning provision amendments has now been released. In many respects, the report is a damning indictment of both process and the lack of transparency by this government. It is available via this link – https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/get-involved/inquiries/VPPamendments/reports
The report contains 12 recommendations and 20 findings most of which are highly critical of government. These findings/recommendations are significant in that they highlight many of the issues that Glen Eira’s submission basically ignored and which we commented upon in our previous post! What is disappointing is that there is no specific recommendation regarding the proposed removal of third party objection rights. The committee basically states that this element has a long and important role in the state’s planning history!
We’ve highlighted some of the major comments and conclusions below. They are quoted verbatim.
A major problem facing the Committee was the absence of requested modelling fromthe Government, to demonstrate that the amendments will achieve their objectives.Without that modelling, the Committee was reluctant to downplay the manyunintended consequences arising from the new planning provisions that were identifiedby users of the planning system.
Of the many unintended consequences identified by stakeholders, the most concerningfor me related to the new townhouse and low-rise code: the removal of considerationof flood risks from the planning process, the reduction of environmentally sustainabledevelopment standards in major local government areas, and the excessive removalof existing trees. Surely we can address Victoria’s housing challenges without alsocreating these new risks (from introduction by chair – David Ettershank)
Finding No. 5 – Little convincing evidence was advanced to the Inquiry that the StateGovernment’s announced planning changes will guarantee additional housing and nosubstantive evidence was advanced that the Government’s plan would with certaintyprovide additional affordable housing.
FINDING 6: The Victorian Government did not properly consult on these threeamendments and the Committee is of the view that the Minister has inappropriatelyexempted herself from expected consultation.
RECOMMENDATION 4: At a minimum, modification of planning schemeamendments should be undertaken after a round of genuine consultation with councilsand communities.
FINDING 9: The Committee acknowledges that the concerns expressed by manysubmitters that heritage and heritage values are at serious risk of being compromisedby these planning amendments are valid. Protections should be available to protectour city and its magnificent heritage buildings and zones.
RECOMMENDATION 7: The decision guidelines of clause 65 of the Victoria PlanningProvisions should apply to all decisions made under clause 55. This is most importantwhere risks to human life and health, and to the environment, should be identified andmanaged.
FINDING 15: Without being presented with any evidence to the contrary, theCommittee is concerned that clause 55 of the Victoria Planning Provisions may lead tothe excessive removal of existing trees and reduce tree canopy.
RECOMMENDATION 9: That the Victorian Government publish and releasemodelling regarding the expected impact of the planning scheme amendments on treecanopy and vegetation in areas affected by the changes.
RECOMMENDATION 10: That the Victorian Government make improvements toclause 55 of the Victoria Planning Provisions including the addition of a separatelandscaping objective and standards, and changes to the tree canopy cover objectiveand standards. The introduction of any improvements should be undertaken as early aspossible.
RECOMMENDATION 11: That the Victorian Government promptly review andimprove the environmentally sustainable development standards in clause 55 of theVictoria Planning Provisions with a view to ensuring the statewide standards meet thehigher standards found in 28 local government areas.
FINDING 18: The planning amendments mark a reduction in long standing thirdparty appeal rights in the planning system.
Whilst Glen Eira basically sits back and does practically nothing, apart from a very belated media release by the CEO, Bayside City Council has been working flat out to ensure that the community knows what the State Gov is planning for their council. They have:
Held a community forum on December 18th with expert commentators where over 200 residents attended
Published summaries of what is proposed and its impact on their municipality
In contrast, residents of Glen Eira would be hard pressed to locate any specific information on council’s website, and there certainly has been no information sessions/forums held by our council.
One activity centre of concern to Glen Eira is Moorabbin where the west side of South Road is in Glen Eira and the East covers Kingston and south Bayside. Here is what Bayside has said about the proposals for this area and its views on the proposed housing targets –
Perhaps it is a little bit early to pass complete judgement, but the hope that with this new council, decision making could potentially be free from political party alignments and/or affiliations appeared to be firmly dashed on Tuesday night. The item that illustrated this in spades was the proposed 3 storey development at the corner of Halstead and Hawthorn Road in Caulfield North.
Here are some details of the application:
3 storeys, 26 dwellings of which 12 are single bedroom and 14 double bedroom
The officer report recommended a permit and the waiver of 4 onsite parking spots
The double site is 1300 square metres and just outside the Caulfield North activity centre
The area is zoned GRZ2 and is located along a main road hence no requirement for visitor parking
Prior to the item being debated, Halstead Street residents voiced their strong opposition in the public participation section of the meeting. They emphasised again and again the lack of available street parking given the close proximity to the commercial core in Hawthorn Road which meant that visitors to the shops were often forced to park in surrounding residential streets. The result, according to residents, was that Halstead street was already ‘parked out’ and made it impossible for tradies, emergency vehicles, visitors, carers, etc. to find parking near their destinations. Interestingly, only 7 properties had been notified of the application and yet there were 32 objections.
Karslake moved the motion to accept the recommendation and this was seconded by Zhang. The ‘accepting’ vote went along indisputable ‘party lines’ with Karslake, Zhang and Ragni voting in favour of the permit and Esakoff, Daniel, Szmood, Kennedy and Rimbaldo voting against. The motion was thus defeated 5 to 3. Parasol had previously declared a conflict of interest.
Once the motion to grant a permit was defeated, Esakoff presented an alternate motion that the proposed 26 units be reduced to 22, and thus the allocated parking would not involve any waivers. This was passed 6 to 2 with the opposing councillors being Karslake and Zhang. Ragni decided to vote in favour of the motion this time around.
Whatever the outcome at the presumed future VCAT hearing, the issue here is not really about the merits of the application, but whether or not certain councillors will see their role as backing state government proposals instead of firmly representing their constituents and addressing the ills of our current strategic planning.
We’ve uploaded the comments made by Karslake, Zhang and Esakoff and ask readers to carefully listen to what was said and then decide as to the credibility of the arguments. We will also comment on the officer’s report for this item in our next post.
We have repeatedly contrasted how other councils approach dealings with the State Government and how their official communications vastly differ. In Glen Eira the criticisms and dare we say ‘outrage’ is muted and practically non-existent. Nor are residents truly informed as to what is going on behind the scenes.
This post concentrates on the draft Moorabbin Structure Plan released by the State Government in August 2024. Bayside publishes its proposed submission in the current agenda. Glen Eira merely presents a ‘summary’ of what officers will draft (September 3rd council meeting) and then resolves to send this off without placing the eventual submission into the public domain. The submissions are due on the 29th September.
Bayside does not hold back in informing residents as to what occurred. Their officer’s report states:
The VPA and DTP scheduled a meeting with officers from Glen Eira, Bayside and Kingston City Councils on Wednesday 21 August, informing that Phase 2 Engagement on a Draft Plan for Moorabbin would likely occur within the coming days, and that the Draft Plan would be released to Council officers and the public at this time. On 22 August, release of the Draft Plan was made via an article in the Age
All we learn from Glen Eira via the September 3rd report is:
The State Government has released the Draft Activity Centre Plans for Moorabbin and Chadstone for comment to both Council and the public on 22 August 2024.
No mention of the indecent haste; no mention of meetings and certainly no mention of the failure to inform council and the community directly. Is this a minor oversight, an unfortunate lapse? Or does it signify Glen Eira’s refusal to even imply major criticisms of the State Government’s processes and autocratic actions?
Here are some other comments made by Bayside in their officer’s report –
Council officers are extremely disappointed in the manner that the VPA and DTP has and continues to engage on this important project. The limited time and information available to provide meaningful feedback has created significant scepticism and lack of trust in the State Government’s ability to appropriately plan or manage such projects. Specifically, the approach provides little confidence and raises significant concern about the State Governments failure to follow its own planning framework and principles of the State Governments own Planning and Environment Act 1987 which sets out the principles for a transparent planning process. Instead, the State Government, VPA and DTP are failing to openly engage with Council or the community, presenting all parties with plans for the Moorabbin Activity Centre without any technical reports, justification for the proposed approach, or any planning provisions.
There are grave concerns that the State Government is operating on the very outskirts of the Planning and Environment Act 1987, with the process of this program going far beyond what orderly and proper planning seeks to achieve. (Bayside bolding)
The Activity Centres program continues the State Government’s continued erosion of the community and local government participation in the planning process. It is based on the State Governments false narrative that Councils are a critical block in the delivery of housing.
The VPA and DTP have informed Council officers that there will not be an open or transparent review process. The plan will be presented to a Standing Advisory Committee on papers only – considering submissions raised. This approach will remove any peer review or cross examination of experts. The State Government, VPA, and DTP are running a process where there is no accountability or opportunity to question their work (which has not been released to the public).
It is understood that the Activity Centre Program is a pilot program which will be used as a basis to replicate across the metropolitan area. The approach undertaken by the VPA and DTP does not provide Bayside, nor should it provide the remainer of the Local Government Sector across Victoria, with any confidence that a replicated approach could be efficiently or effectively rolled out. The localised issues and needs of communities will be different and the work undertaken has not given due regard to the community expectations.
The VPA and DTP continue to inform Bayside of the program rather than genuinely consult or collaborate which represents a lost opportunity for a collaborative approach which could genuinely achieve improved outcomes. Bayside sees the output to date by the VPA and DTP as not having any real value or improved planning outcome beyond a small uplift in building heights in the most sensitive part of the project area.
There are plenty of other statements we could have included. This officer’s report is then followed by a 25 page formal submission. If the Glen Eira submission gets to even 12 pages we will be surprised!
The Bayside submission includes discussion on:
The State Government’s abandonment of its own planning rules and processes
Whether the gov’s draft plan is in accord with the ’purpose’ of an Activity Centre Zone to facilitate commercial growth.
The 3rd September Glen Eira report ignores most of the above categories. Not a word is stated in regard to: housing affordability; transport and traffic; Sustainable Design; actions/plans in accordance with the ‘purpose’ of an Activity Centre Zone. Whilst the 3rd September report is supposed to be a ‘summary’ only of what will eventuate in the actual submission, its lack of coverage and detail is concerning. Of greatest concern is the overall TONE of the report. Yes, we get verbage such as ‘concern’, a token acknowledgement of the ‘community’ but nothing to match what Bayside sees as vital to full transparency and democratic process.
This isn’t simply an issue of semantics. When we have a State Government that bulldozes through ill thought out planning changes as a political escape clause to camouflage its incompetence and indifference to the housing crisis, then it is incumbent on ALL councils to stand united and to call out such incompetence in the strongest terms. Glen Eira remains the odd man out – refusing to call a spade a spade, and thereby failing in its obligations to the thousands of residents (and future residents) who will be impacted by these spurious ‘reforms’. As we’ve said before – why on earth is Glen Eira taking this course? What is really behind such mealy- mouthed responses?
Last night’s ‘debate’ on the proposed new local law/meeting procedures belongs in the annals of high melodrama. It is also an indictment of councillors who once again failed miserably to support residents by ensuring democracy is alive and well in glen Eira.
What’s Missing
Cade moved the item and introduced several amendments – all technical – but without a single word explaining the necessity for these amendments. Residents would not have a clue what these things meant.
More concerning was that no councillor mentioned the most important aspects of the proposals such as we’ve highlighted in our previous post. Of course ‘best practice’ rated a few mentions!!!!
No one commented on:
Why the banning of notice of motion 6 months out of an election
Why Glen Eira differed so dramatically from what other councils have done
Why notices of motion could not apply to council policies
Why notices of motion required 3 signatories when other councils insist on one, or two signatories
Not one single mention was made of any of these points by any speaker. And we note that most councillors were silent and simply put up their hands at the end to vote these laws in unanimously! Surely when important issues are up for decision, residents have a right to know WHY councillors vote they way they do? Even the councillor Code of Conduct requires this – ie Councillors swear that they will: represent my views truthfully and be prepared to discuss how my views were formed. This did not occur. In the end residents are the losers as councillors meekly towed the party line and handed over full control to our unelected bureaucrats.
The Melodrama
All attention was focused on the clause which would ban placards and posters being brought into council meetings. Two councillors (Karslake and Athanasopolous) voted against the local law, solely it would seem, on this basis. Athansopolous even brought props with him – a walking stick, cakes of soap, handwash, and various bits of makeup that could reside in a woman’s handbag. His claim was that any of these things could be used as projectiles and since the proposed law didn’t cover these items, that concentrating on posters was basically discriminatory and ineffectual.
We take no position on this issue. What we do expect however is that ALL aspects of the proposed laws are given the same attention as this single clause. It wasn’t.
That leaves some questions:
Did all councillors agree with ALL the clauses of the proposed law? If not, then why not comment and provide your views? If they did agree, then again, the reasons should have been forthcoming.
Is the 9 to 7 vote real or simply a camouflage? If a camouflage then what does this say about the internal operations of this council and the pressure that is put on some councillors to keep shtum? And what does it say about the way in which this administration and councillors view and treat their residents?
Last night was indeed a sad day for Glen Eira ratepayers!
