May 11, 2017
The Auditor General yesterday released his report on consultation practices in local government. Glen Eira was not audited for this report. However, the comments would still be relevant – particularly in regard to the processes for determining budgets and council plans. The full report is available from – http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/latest_reports/2016-17/20170510-pp-local-gov.aspx
Here are a couple of screen dumps that readers might like to consider –
May 7, 2017
We’ve featured the above 2 videos because we simply cannot understand why 2 playground ‘upgrades’ should cost $650,000 (video no.1) and $350,000 (video no.2) according to the budget!!!!! Nor can we understand how council is willing to spend $285,000 on installing more concrete plinths into our parks – plus another $90,000 to pour more concrete into the Heritage area of Caulfield Park! Surely this million and a half can be put to far better use such as – drains, traffic management, bicycle strategy, etc. etc. etc?
In an era of cost cutting and councils crying poor, it is unacceptable that so much money be poured into what we believe many residents would regard as ‘non-essentials’!
May 3, 2017
A fairly good turnout of residents (approx. 45) at tonight’s Bentleigh Forum on the structure planning process. Introduced again by the facilitator Jane Nathan, who then handed over to Aiden Mullen – the officer in charge of all the current activity centre work. Mullen summarised the results council had obtained thus far. Significantly missing from the presentation was resident concern with overdevelopment. This morphed into the somewhat simplistic categorisation as concern over heights!
Residents were asked to sit at the various tables and a planning officer was assigned to each table. One person from each table was asked to take notes and report back to the entire gathering. More disconcerting was that each officer had a prepared list of specific questions to ask – ie how many people in your household? How many bedrooms? How many onsite car parking spots? Where would you like to live in 15 years? etc. Basic demographics which in our view are both meaningless (given the sample available) and secondly far more precise figures are available from various sources.
A ‘vision statement’ was then put up as an overhead and residents asked to comment on whether or not they agreed with the statement. It basically went along the lines that Bentleigh needs to retain its ‘village’ feel as well as provide for a safe, diverse, and inclusive community. The majority of feedback indicated that people were in disagreement with calling Bentleigh a ‘village’ given the amount of high rise development and the promise of more intense development. Several residents were highly critical of council, claiming that they simply are not listening to what residents are saying and that council needs to inform people prior to asking Dorothy Dix type questions.
It would be fair to say that most residents wanted:
Our view is that council desperately needs to alter its approach to these events. Otherwise they are nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead of motherhood statements that can hide a multitude of sins, residents need to be provided with real information as a starting point. For example: council writes that it is investigating the borders of the activity centres, yet many residents believed that the exercise involved only the commercial centres. Secondly, Mullen kept praising the interim height guidelines without informing residents that they included 5 storeys as ‘discretionary heights’. Thus we have the near oxymoron of in the one breath talking about the ‘village feel’ of Bentleigh, without all residents being aware that 5, 6 or 7 storeys is now a possibility in Bentleigh. This height certainly does not gel with the idea of a ‘village’.
We simply ask:
If the aim is to produce work that is truly based on community views, then the community must be given all relevant information up front. It must also stop resorting to language that is far from appropriate and present findings that are indeed an accurate record of what residents say they want, need, and aspire to. Thus far, this has not happened in our view.
PS: As illustrations of how other councils go about conducting their structure planning consultation, we’ve uploaded part of the first survey conducted by Stonnington (late 2016 and another one from late 2015). Compare and contrast this with the kind of questions asked of Glen Eira residents and the information provided in both instances.
Below is another extract from an initial ‘survey’ done by Stonnington –
April 29, 2017
Item 9.10 features the ongoing saga of parking around the town hall and Caulfield Hospital. After months of supposed ‘negotiation’ with the hospital to close a gate, there is still no outcome. Councillors have thus been offered 3 choices. They are:
Community criticism over the lack of consultation in the recent parking restriction changes is acknowledged. Given the potential for increased parking demands on Glencoe Street, Garrell Street, and Dunbar Avenue, it is recommended that the residents of these streets be consulted prior to any decision to remove unrestricted parking from: Hillside Avenue, Harcourt Avenue, Gerard Street, Hartley Avenue, Sylverly Grove, and Alfred Street.
The upshot of all this is, let’s do nothing, or let’s delay some more. Council keeps presenting the argument that it is working on a ‘precinct wide’ traffic management plan. The Planning Scheme review stated that parking precinct plans would be introduced for its activity centres. The streets mentioned above ARE NOT included in any major activity centre, nor are they part of any neighbourhood centre. All council comments related to parking apply only to their ‘structure planning’ – ie As part of the structure planning process, parking and traffic movement will be reviewed with the potential for new traffic measures and controls to be introduced. (April, Glen Eira News).
No specific timelines are provided. Since only structure plans for Bentleigh, Carnegie, Elsternwick, and now Virginia Estate will be done in the next 18 months we have little confidence that parking will get a look in elsewhere – especially since council is now not promising structure plans for its other districts but an ‘Activity Centre Strategy’!
Residents are being given short shrift in our view. Council needs to be upfront and inform residents exactly what it plans to do about parking everywhere. Timelines are required as is a waterproof policy that is up-to-date and which initiates action now and not years down the track.
April 28, 2017
A short post alerting residents to the fact that council has published its draft budget, community plan and also included plenty of planning applications in the current agenda – a massive 555 pages!
We will report on the first two in much greater detail once we have had the time to fully digest the documents. What follows are simply some overall first impressions:
On other matters –
Watch this space!
April 26, 2017
We’ve received the following email –
April 24, 2017
The so-called ‘Tranformative Concepts’ for dealing with the issue of parking to in our activity centres basically proposes
One Mile Grid was then commissioned to survey ‘traffic’ flow in various streets. Their brief is defined as
Without stating the obvious, traffic flow and parking should be two distinct areas. It appears that council is determined to conflate both issues in the attempt to provide support for its highly questionable recommendations! Not surprisingly, the results of the One Mile Grid analysis for Elsternwick, Carnegie, Bentleigh concluded that – The results show that all intersections analysed are currently operating under ‘excellent’ conditions during both the morning and afternoon peak hours with minimal queues and delays experienced by motorists. Only Orrong Road brought up a ‘good’ condition report rather than ‘excellent’. Many residents travelling along these roads/streets would beg to differ!
We are not traffic engineers. We are simply residents attempting to understand how such results can lead to the recommendations when:
If council is indeed sincere about providing adequate car parking in its activity centres, then one must expect far more than a highly suspect report that does nothing more than focus on ‘traffic flow’ at certain intersections and concludes that all is hunky dorey for the most part and that public land can be flogged off for more private development.
By way of contrast we urge all residents to read the following that comes from Moonee Valley council’s amendment seeking to introduce both a parking overlay for the Moonee Ponds Activity Centre and a developer contribution of up to $13,000 per each car parking waiver. Then ask yourselves would Glen Eira ever attempt something like this given its pro-development agenda? We’ve uploaded the Moonee Valley traffic analysis, (a 175 page document) HERE
April 18, 2017
A huge gulf exists between resident responses to the ‘surveys’ on ‘transforming’ our activity centres, and what is portrayed as the ‘results’ of this ‘consultation’. The McKinnon report is another example of a work of fiction that fails to accurately represent what residents said – especially in the category of ‘private development’. Here is the pie chart claiming to depict the results –
Please note the following:
Please read the following comments and judge for yourselves as to the validity, honesty, and accuracy of this ‘consultation’ report.
April 4, 2017
Alarm bells should be ringing loud and clear for residents as a result of council’s latest news item on its proposed planning agenda. (See: http://www.gleneira.vic.gov.au/Council/News-and-media/Latest-news/Transforming-our-neighbourhood-together)
Several things are clear:
In order to form a community led vision and key objectives for the precinct, we are conducting our own community consultation. This will inform the development of a structure plan, which will guide what can be built on the site.
Visit www.gleneira.vic.gov.au/eastvillage to tell us what you would like East Village to look like into the future.
The opportunity to provide feedback on this stage closes Sunday 16 April.
There will be further opportunities to provide feedback once a draft structure plan has been developed.
We will use the community feedback on your concerns regarding development in residential neighbourhoods to develop new building and development guidelines.
There will also be a more detailed focus on Bentleigh, Carnegie and Elsternwick.
These guidelines will shape future development for land in activity centres zoned as Commercial One Zone, General Residential Zone and Residential Growth Zone.
No mention of reviewing the zones themselves or the borders of these zones. No mention as to whether these ‘guidelines’ will result in revised schedules or merely be part of the MSS. No mention as whether these guidelines will be a ‘one size fits all’ across all neighbourhood centres or will cater to the individual needs of each specific centre.
There is much in this media release that is (deliberately?) vague and even contradicts previous statements. What is entirely ignored, and of major importance is the Minister’s recent announcement of changes to Plan Melbourne via his gazetting of Amendment C110. The changes provide councils with the opportunity to rework their schedules and to provide clear ‘neighbourhood character objectives’ for both the NRZ and GRZ areas. This involves much, much more than ‘building and development guidelines’.
April 1, 2017
Booran Reserve playground in Glen Huntly could be best in Melbourne
Bianca Carmona, Caulfield Glen Eira Leader
April 1, 2017 12:00am
A CHILD’S smile might be priceless to most, but it comes with a hefty price tag of almost $11 million in Glen Eira.
The council has spent $10.8 million creating what could be Melbourne’s most expensive playground at Glen Huntly’s Booran Reserve.
It is almost twice the cost of the Royal Park Nature Play Playground next to the Royal Children’s Hospital, which opened two years ago and is considered one of Melbourne’s best.
By comparison, neighbouring Bayside Council has approved funding of almost the same amount ($10.48 million) to improve more than 60 play areas over the next 10 years.Booran Reserve in Glenhuntly will open soon.
The Leader asked Glen Eira council what bang ratepayers were getting for their buck, but the council refused to reveal a breakdown of the final bill, acknowledging only that the State Government had provided $700,000.
Leader can reveal the water-themed playground of the future boasts Australia’s first double-dome climbing net, custom-made play equipment, a water play area, outdoor gallery space, urban forest corridor and double flying fox.
Glen Eira Council infrastructure, environment and leisure director Samantha Krull said the reserve, which was formerly a reservoir, included a range of spaces that provided for play, activity and relaxation.
The construction of the playground at the corner of Glenhuntly Rd and Booran Rd is now almost five months behind schedule, building anticipation about its opening on Sunday.
Comments from the Glen Eira Residents Action Group were mostly positive, with member Vicki Howson writing: “Wow, looks fabulous … can’t wait to take my grandchildren here.”
But Ratepayers Victoria vice-president Jack Davis wasn’t impressed, saying the price tag was “ridiculous”.
“It’s an exorbitant use of ratepayers’ funds,” he said.
A Community Fun Day will be held at the reserve on Sunday, April 9.
The official opening will be held on Tuesday, April 11, by Victorian Minister for Innovation Philip Dalidakis.
Glen Eira Debates 