GE Consultation/Communication

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August 9, 2019

Another 721 Page Agenda!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
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Another mammoth agenda of 721 pages. We comment on some of the major items in this post.

LOCAL LAW SUBMISSIONS

Council’s agenda for Tuesday night features the submissions forwarded in response to council’s proposed Local Laws. We are mightily impressed with the effort that has gone into these 28 submissions (a record for Glen Eira we believe). Most submissions are far from complimentary to what council proposes. Submitters have provided lengthy and often extremely well researched and documented examples of how much Glen Eira is out of kilter with other councils.  What is stated time and time again is:

  • Poorly worded clauses
  • An overreaching of intended laws that either cannot be enforced or are covered by existing laws and organisations
  • Laws which potentially endanger human health (ie permitting of burning on private property).

What irks us more is the way in which these submissions have been summarised in the officer’s report. We quote:

The highest number of submissions received by Council, in relation to the proposed Community Local Law, concerned clauses 38 (Lighting Fires) and 23 (Model Aeroplanes in Public Reserves). Other issues raised include the keeping and feeding of pigeons, animal litter, derelict vehicle on a trailer, organised social and sporting activities and parking. There were also submissions concerning the proposed Council Meeting Procedure Local Law.

Either council officers are unable to count accurately, or their reporting is deliberately screwed! The above paragraph makes it sound as if council’s Meeting Procedures were in a minority. In fact, they weren’t. Of the 28 published submissions, eight made direct reference to either publishing of the agenda earlier; all public questions requiring entry into the minutes and the lack of a notice of motion. Meeting procedures were the most commented upon and not as implied above. 

We urge all residents to carefully read these submissions. To facilitate this, we’ve uploaded them HERE

WASTE 

Another agenda item features the proposal to implement a rubbish collection trial in the McKinnon Ormond area. This would involve changing current collection rates to the following: (1) weekly collection of green bins and (2) fortnightly collection of red bins.

We certainly support the reduction of refuse going to land fill. Our queries relate to some of the assertions and assumptions made in the officer’s report. For example:

  • We are told that the McKinnon Ormond area is the most ‘supportive’ of the change. Yet, when one considers the number of actual responses claimed for this area, then the percentages are far from conclusive. The graph reveals less than 50 residents supporting the trial in Ormond and even fewer in McKinnon. If we are working on support for the proposal then areas such as Carnegie would be streaks ahead. We’ve provided a screen dump of the responses below.

  • Councils ‘solutions’ to the various problems identified by residents also boggles the mind. For those households which use nappies, council suggests The option of discounted 240 litre bins will be extended to households with children/babies in nappies. Council is also prepared to trial this: Discount on a weekly washing service for cloth nappies. A preferred supplier will be selected following a competitive selection process. Does this mean that residents will subsidise the selected service and at what cost? Further, has council done any research to discover how many households actually still use cloth nappies or how many would be willing to change as a result of this discount offer? Or is it all pie in the sky stuff?
  • More importantly, council’s solution to the multitude of apartments that have private collection services is literally laughable , ie. Provide discount on worm farms for apartments that do not use green bins. A preferred supplier will be selected following a competitive selection process. Yes, we can really see this as a ‘goer’ for apartment blocks that have no open space, or garden and consist of BnB apartment dwellers, renters, etc. Worm farms will work a treat no doubt!

For whatever reason, council is determined to trial this option in McKinnon Ormond. We are not against a trial but simply wish that for once council provided the evidence that would support their recommendations!

HERITAGE

Council has clearly been rocked by both the media and residents’ reactions to the demolition of 2 dwellings in Seymour Road that arguably deserved heritage protection but didn’t have any! Thus we find in the current agenda masses upon masses of information relating to Heritage Reviews and their proposed timelines. Thus far we have draft amendments for Bentleigh and Carnegie only. Other areas are still to be completed.

A few things to note:

In an admission of past folly, we now find this incredible paragraph regarding 80 Mitchell Street, Bentleigh. In response to submissions received following the pre-amendment consultation, it is  recommended that 80 Mitchell Street, Bentleigh not be included as part of the expanded HO69. The reason for this is that this property sits of the very edge of this large heritage precinct and it is the only new property within this expanded precinct that is located in the General Residential Zone which allows medium density development. Given the extent of redevelopment that has occurred around this site and trying to resolve the issue of having a property located with a zone that allows development and an overlay that restricts development, it is considered appropriate in this instance to not include this site in the proposed revised HO69. Logic in reverse here we suggest! If a property is worth protecting then removing it just compounds the incredible errors made in 2013 when the GRZ zoning was introduced. And god forbid that council should put any impediment in the way of a potential developer!

Another item on the agenda seeks to remedy council’s inaction by granting power to officers to seek interim heritage protection on sites that may be potentially demolished and would be worthy of protection. Whilst acting when the horse has bolted, residents need to be aware that granting this power means that there will be no consultation, no third party objection rights, and probably no notification that this is happening. In short, more power to our unelected officials. We would argue that the more appropriate methodology would be to accelerate immediately all necessary heritage work!

 

August 3, 2019

Heritage & Broken Promises!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
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Given what has been happening in Seymour Road, Elsternwick with the destruction of two period homes, and council’s failure to have up to date heritage overlays, we thought it worthwhile to revisit a post we made in October 2018.

The significance of the ‘action plan’ of 2018, is that council has watered down most of the promises given to residents in 2016 at the time of the Planning Scheme Review. We repeat what we wrote at the time and urge residents to note how much of what was promised no longer exists in its entirety, or has morphed into meaningless, discretionary controls only. More to the point, most of these promises have now been pushed back years and years. Heritage is the perfect case in point.

We have created a table below which features the promises from 2016 and put them alongside what is the plan today. One major difference between 2016 and 2018 that should be highlighted is the disappearance of any intention to introduce a Neighbourhood Character Policy. In 2016 we got these statements:

A Neighbourhood Character Policy is recommended to clarify when protection of existing character is required, and clarity on neighbourhood character design outcomes for ‘change areas’

AND

The work plan also recommends that the residential zones support the neighbourhood character policy by including additional neighbourhood character objectives and increased schedule standards to protect and enhance character.

In 2018, this has gone and with no explanation, justification, or further reference, is replaced with this single sentence – The implementation of the Quality Design Guidelines addresses the Planning Scheme Review 2016 Work Plan action to implement a Neighbourhood Character Policy. 

There are several things to note about these proposed changes:

  • The Quality Design Guidelines only apply to the existing structure plans of Bentleigh, Elsternwick and Carnegie. They are not mandatory.
  • Its status in the Planning Scheme is nothing more than a ‘reference document’ and hence is basically useless. At least a full blown POLICY, whilst also not mandatory, would at least have more weight at VCAT than an appended ‘reference’ document.
  • The 2016 statements applied to ALL housing diversity, not just the 3 Activity Centres of Bentleigh, Carnegie & Elsternwick.  Yet even in these latter activity centres nothing has changed in terms of the schedules for permeability, site coverage, open space, etc.

There is much, much more which has been tossed out in the 2018 version -ie

  • The major heritage ‘review’ is now set down for the Major Activity Centres with no time line as to when the entire municipality review will be completed.
  • Tree registers and open space amendments are years down the track
  • And poor old neighbourhood/local centres such as Ormond, McKinnon, East Bentleigh, etc.will not have any protection for years and years. Council is only committing to ‘one or two’ urban design frameworks starting in 2021/22!!!! PLUS no longer any talk of ‘structure plans’ for these centres just Urban Design Frameworks!!!!.
  • Limiting the impact of car parking basements is also watered down so instead of definitive standards such as Bayside implemented years ago in its schedules to the zones (ie max of 75% site coverage) our council is happy with statements such as this in its so called QUALITY Design Guidelines – Buildings should minimise basement footprints within the front and rear setbacks to provide for deep planting. No ‘musts’, no numbers, no changes to the schedules throughout the municipality.

Here is the table which quotes verbatim the August 2016 report and the current 2018 report. We have only highlighted some of the most important issues. The dates in parenthesis for 2018 merely indicate the STARTING TIME AND NOT COMPLETION TIME.

Please read carefully and consider the consequences.­­­

This is anything BUT a Planning Scheme Review. Yes we acknowledge that after 15 years of doing nothing Glen Eira Council is certainly behind the eight ball. But this should not be the excuse for watering down what was promised in 2016 without consultation and most importantly, without any strategic justification. It is merely another example of why this council cannot be trusted!

 

July 30, 2019

Save Glen Eira: Inaugural Meeting

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
[17] Comments 

A fabulous turnout at last night’s Save Glen Eira inaugural meeting with an audience of over 100 concerned residents. And, their concern, anger and distrust of Council was palpable.

The evening began with several presentations from 5 residents. Four of the presentations honed in on current planning applications, their impacts especially on neighbouring sites and how little Council has done to ensure that such outrageous applications are doomed to fail at VCAT. The final presenter queried council’s prognostications as to the required housing needed to cater for the expected population growth and showed that at current rates Glen Eira’s building boom is close to double what is needed. The question thus was: why double the size of activity centres? Why insist on 12 storeys across the board? Where is there any strategic justification for such a ‘vision’?

The evening was then thrown open to the audience for a Q & A session. The questions and statements covered a range of topics, including:

  • Lack of genuine consultation and help from council
  • The need for sustainable development (and please remember that Glen Eira has no tree protection on private land)
  • The power of lobbying and lobbyists
  • Unifying community voices everywhere
  • Electing councilors who will truly represent the community

Much, much more was said. The overall feeling was that Save Glen Eira had taken a very positive step in uniting residents across all areas of Glen Eira. Planning incompetence touches everyone, especially when we have a council that refuses to listen to its residents. This was the real take home point from last night.

Also present were David Southwick and Kelvin Thompson.

 

July 26, 2019

Only Half Right!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
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CLICK TO ENLARGE

The above screen dump is from Thursday’s Age newspaper and as stated is in response to a previous article written by the CEO of the Victorian Planning Authority. Please remember that the VPA is all about ‘development’. They are the government’s (of both persuasions) agency designed to achieve more and more development.

Putting this aside, it is a great pity that Tim Smith is more concerned with the simplistic solution of ‘decentralisation’ and pushing the Liberal agenda, than in really attacking the Mosely (VPA) argument. There is so much more he might have written. For starters, how about:

  • Reforming the planning system from a ‘performance based’ formula to one that contains prescriptive controls and parameters?
  • Reining in the powers of VCAT and councils?
  • Ensuring that residents do not subsidise developers, as in Glen Eira when we have no Development Contributions Levy and no Infrastructure Levy and this council is happy to exact pittance from its major developments for open space (ie Caulfield and East Villages)?
  • Ensuring that delegations at compulsory conferences are accountable to residents and councillors and do not simply cave in to developers.
  • Ensuring that the planning system is far more transparent and accountable to residents
  • That the ministerial intervention powers also be tightened and that full disclosure of department recommendations become public.

There is much that needs to happen before we have a planning system that works for residents and not developers. It’s just a pity that both sides of politics are so entrenched in their views that Mosely may just be right ie things will get worse and developers will continue to rule.

 

July 19, 2019

Who Really Runs The Show?

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance, GE Service Performance
[4] Comments 

The following two screen dumps have been taken from the agenda items for next Tuesday night’s council meeting. They are part of the minutes for the Recreation Advisory Committee meeting.

Several things need pointing out:

  • Why has it taken 5 months for these minutes to make it into the public domain? This is becoming par for the course when we also have councillor requests for report(s) that have on occasion taken over a year to appear!
  • Who is really running the show here? Our councilors or unelected officialdom? The screen dumps provide an interesting insight!

 

July 10, 2019

Why Is Glen Eira Council So Lamentably Weak?

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

For the past few years now social and affordable housing has been in the spot light at Glen Eira. So now we’ve finally got a ‘strategy’, but only after it was pointed out to council at VCAT that they didn’t even have a policy when they tried to enforce the social housing component for the Caulfield Village development. Further, this strategy comes only after the State Government provided Council with a grant to formulate the strategy! Other councils have had a strategy for well over a decade in some cases and without such state government benevolence! (A case of he who pays the piper…..?)

So how good is this strategy? What will it achieve? In our opinion, it follows the general pattern of all Glen Eira policies. That is:

  • Plenty of waffle
  • Plenty of empty promises
  • Plenty of shifting the onus onto state and federal government, meaning ‘let’s not do anything except wait because it is their responsibility’.

What is especially galling is the continued cave ins to developers. East Village is the perfect example. It appears that Council is ready to accept a 5% outcome on the current 3000 net new apartments. That equals a mere 150 homes out of 3000. Plus, we have no doubt that this ‘preliminary’ figure of 3000 will grow in precisely the same way that the original mooted 1100 for Caulfield Village has ballooned out to probably 2500 net new apartments! Thus 5% will eventually dwindle down to 3% unless these escape clauses are closed off in any Section 173 agreement.

Thankfully, not all councils operate as Glen Eira does. Their policies and strategies do not accept a 5% number for social and affordable housing. They go much higher. Moonee Valley for example on its VPA partnership over the Commonwealth defence site has demanded a 20% coverage for social/affordable homes. There are others too, as shown in the following screen dumps from Yarra, Kingston, and Maribyrnong. Thus if social and affordable housing is such an issue for Glen Eira as proclaimed, then why are we settling for a paltry 5%. Why can other councils go for double this percentage and voice their opposition to government plans, as in Bayside? Why is Glen Eira so compliant? So amenable to developers? And so indifferent to the plight of its residents when it comes to anything to do with planning?

Admittedly all of the above are ‘policies’ and hence do not have great statutory weight. They do however outshine anything that Glen Eira produces. If this council is serious about addressing the issue of the lack of social and affordable housing then going for a 5% imposition is only scratching the surface. Gillon and his mates (the VPA) are continuing to laugh all the way to the bank!

 

July 9, 2019

No Snail’s Pace For Sell Off!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Governance, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
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July 3, 2019

Telling It Like It Is!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Planning, GE Service Performance
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Please listen very carefully to the following audio from last night’s council meeting. It features one resident’s questions that exemplify everything that is wrong with this council. Needless to say, the responses to her queries were anything but satisfactory!

This is not the first time that applications have gone to VCAT and been ‘settled’ at what is known as Compulsory Conferences. Countless times we have the situation where councillors have refused a permit outright, only to find that the planning delegate at VCAT has caved in and the developer got everything he wanted. Since these compulsory conferences are ‘confidential’ residents have no idea as to the reasons behind the cave in. Caving in at a compulsory conference also means that there is no full hearing and no decision published. Perfect for avoiding full transparency and accountability!

Here are some decisions that were agreed to by council’s delegate at VCAT compulsory conferences. More disturbing than anything is the fact that some of these decisions fly in the face of councillor resolutions to refuse the permit outright. We doubt that councilors are even aware of what officers argue in these compulsory conferences and certainly not the grounds upon which permits are granted. Since no decision is published since a full hearing was averted, the community has no idea why some of these applications  got their permits. This in itself says heaps about the lack of transparency and accountability.

Here are some examples of cave ins at compulsory conferences:

2/4 Blair Street, Bentleigh. Councillors refused permit for 4 storeys and 24 apartments. A consent order granted 4 storeys and 22 apartments!

12/14 Howe Street, Murrumbeena. Councillor refusal. Permit granted for 10 x2 storey dwellings.

670 Centre Road & 51 Brown’s Road. Councillor refused amendment for addition level (up to 6 storeys). Permit granted for 6 storeys.

233/47 Glen Huntly Road. Councillors refused permit for 13 storeys . At compulsory conference permit granted for 12 storeys and 105 dwellings.

777 Glen Huntly Road, Caulfield. Councillors refused permit for 4 storeys. Permit granted at compulsory conference.

8 Egan Street, Carnegie. Councillors refused permit for 8 storeys. Permit for 8 storeys at compulsory conference.

Besides these major cave ins, there are plenty of others which were refused at officer level (ie never even making it to council) and then suddenly they get their permits at compulsory conferences. Admittedly, some developers might compromise and adjust their plans. This does not however excuse the granting of permits for high rise that were refused overwhelmingly by councilors.

So the questions remain:

  • Do councilors even know what happens at compulsory conferences in regards to the planning officer’s position on the application?
  • Have councilors voted or even agreed to the planning delegate’s position?
  • Why do Glen Eira councilors continue to allow unfettered delegations that excludes councilors completely from their rightful roles as decision makers?

Finally, we provide the following screen dump (from Boroondara council meeting) which shows clearly that not all councils operate in the same manner as our lot. Until our councilors have the balls to stand up to this planning department and insist on full transparency and accountability, then nothing will change. Residents will continue to be the casualties of a planning department allowed to run riot!

None of the above listed applications came back to council for deliberation.

 

June 20, 2019

More Pathetic Window Dressing!

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

The State Government’s latest ‘review’ of our laws has led to another instance of doublespeak, window dressing and the continued watering down of legislation that serves the purpose of making things as difficult as possible for communities to peek behind the veil of secrecy and lack of accountability.

We remind readers that on every occasion when real reform to local government and planning could, and should, have been achieved, Wynne and his cohorts have literally wimped it in favour of bureaucratic (continued) control, or in favour of developers and the construction industry.

We’ve had the following legislation changes that are nothing more than empty words:

  • The Objector’s Act that was supposed to take account of resident objectors’ concerns to development applications and pay heed to the number(s) of objectors. It does nothing of the sort and is a dismal failure as various VCAT decisions have pointed out.
  • Better Apartments. Another whitewash where instead of stipulating mandatory size apartments we got nothing more than guidelines for ‘ventilation’, etc. A complete cop out.
  • Garden area requirement for NRZ & GRZ developments. More fiddling and failure. Following several VCAT decisions where it was decided that land under eaves should NOT constitute part of the open space requirement, Wynne changed the Practice Note so now these areas CAN be included in the calculation. Also changed was the requirement that these areas be on the ground floor level. That also went so that now that this aspect of open space can be part of someone’s balcony.
  • VicSmart (Amendments C143 & C148) are nothing short of disastrous for residents. No need to advertise some applications and the introduction of the Transport Networks, has resulted in 80% of Glen Eira now not having to provide visitor car parking.

The latest woeful effort is the proposed changes to the Local Government Act. Instead of ensuring that councils are far more accountable and transparent, this proposed Bill does the exact opposite. Parading as giving residents more say we now have a farce writ large!

Currently only another councillor or an officer may report a councillor to a Conduct Panel. In trying to appear as if this government really gives a damn about resident views we have the intention to ‘broaden’ this so that a petition can be sent off asking for a ‘commission of enquiry’. Not so simple however. The applicant has a 200 word limit, plus this petition must obtain 25% of signatures of residents eligible to vote in the municipality. This is not only ludicrous. It is designed to fail. In Glen Eira at the last council elections there were 104,000 qualified voters. That means that any petition asking for an investigation under this ruling would require at least 25,000 signatures. The chances of that happening are zilch. But it surely sounds good, when the government talks about more ‘community accountability’.

Another aspect of great concern is the proposal that a councillor can only be dismissed if there have been 2 findings of gross misconduct in the space of 8 years. What happens if the misconduct takes place over 9 years? More importantly, this completely changes what the current Local Government Act states:

If VCAT makes a finding that a Councillor has engaged in conduct that constitutes gross misconduct, VCAT may order that the Councillor is disqualified from continuing to be a Councillor for a period specified by VCAT not exceeding 8 years and the office of the Councillor is vacated.  

No second chances here. That councillor can be booted out immediately for a period up to 8 years!

We present below the two pages from this draft for readers to digest.

In summary, every legislative review of the past few years has not resulted in greater transparency and accountability to the community, but the exact opposite. Shameful in a so called ‘democracy’’

 

June 13, 2019

Local Law(s): Maintaining The Reactionary Status Quo

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance
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At this week’s council meeting, it was resolved to advertise the long awaited draft Local Law. Residents will be disappointed with the proposals given that:

  • The significant tree register does not feature. It will take another report, another round of consultation before anything is codified. We assume this will not be before March 2020. Shameful that after all this time, council is still unable to get its act together in a timely fashion. Further, there is still no guarantee that it will even get up with the likes of Magee, Esakoff, Sztrajt and Cade already stating their potential opposition to laws regulating private property. We will have to wait and see what kind of compromise the draft document features.
  • Even more disappointing is the failure of this council to even entertain the idea of a Notice of Motion. We have commented on this ad nauseum over the years. How is it in the best interests of residents and sound governance that Glen Eira is the only council in the state (the last time we checked this out) that refuses to grant councilors the opportunity to raise an issue and hence to adequately represent their constituents? If there is concern about making ad hoc decisions without the ‘expert’ advice of officers, this is easily overcome with the opportunity for officers to comment at the next council meeting. That’s how Kingston does it for example.
  • Also unacceptable is the continuation of the current Public Questions policy. Still a limit of 150 words. Still no public record of what was asked if the questioner isn’t present since the query is not read out and does not go into the minutes. Hence calling this section ‘PUBLIC QUESTIONS’ is ironic indeed. Answers to questions should be on the public record. That is how accountability and transparency are maintained. It is simply not good enough that a ‘response’ is given to the individual and the community has no idea of the question, the answer, and the issue.
  • Council’s constant refrain is that they desire to engage more people. Placing Public Questions near the end of each meeting defeats this entirely. It forces residents to sit through up to three hours (often of sheer tedium) before their questions are read out. All of our neighbouring councils see the folly of this approach. Municipalities such as Bayside, Stonnington, Port Phillip, Monash and Kingston for example place their Public Questions early on following the confirmation of the minutes. Why this can’t be done in Glen Eira is mind boggling, unless of course it is to ensure that few residents have the stamina to wait for hours before their question is read out and responded to.
  • Finally we also remind readers that an ombudsman’s report of recent times recommended that council agendas be made available at least 5 working days prior to a council meeting. In Glen Eira the mantra is that agendas are only available on the preceding Friday after noon and that public questions must be in on the following Monday before noon. It certainly does not give residents time to digest what is often hundreds upon hundreds of pages, nor the time to successfully lobby councilors before a decision is made.

It is instructive that when councilors resolved to advertise the Local Law the above issues (apart from the tree register briefly) weren’t even mentioned. If council is serious about enhancing community engagement, and being as transparent and accountable as possible, then these ‘laws’ are the things that will ensure it doesn’t happen.

 

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