Glen Eira Debates

The new year has not got off to a great start in our municipality with the release of the latest agenda. Planning in Glen Eira remains incompetent, ad hoc, and entirely pro development. The current agenda proves this in spades. Council can of course now cite Wynne and the Labor government as a very convenient scapegoat for the proposed changes to the current amendments/structure plans for Bentleigh & Carnegie. This however, does not absolve them of years upon years of inaction and disastrous strategic planning.

A brief summary of the agenda is in order.

• All heights for strategic sites/urban renewal sites have now become ‘discretionary’ rather than mandatory as they currently are. That of course means that developers can go for broke in terms of heights.
• Our estimation is that about 180 sites in Bentleigh and Carnegie have been ‘upgraded’ so that they will now go from 2 storey height limits to either 3 or 4 storey height. Others that are currently 3 storey will now be permitted 4 storey. No justification for any of these changes has been provided. Nor is there any explanation provided as to why Godfrey Street in Bentleigh from number 9 to 27 will now be assigned a 4 storey height limit. Why not number 29 Godfrey Street, especially since the argument proposed by council is that they are attempting to ‘fix’ the problems of 2013 when single streets had multiple zonings. This kind of decision is simply repeating the mistakes of the past. Literally unbelievable! The same questions apply to changes to other streets throughout these suburbs.
• We also have an admission that council’s ‘uplift’ policy, that was based entirely on what Melbourne City Council had created was a definite ‘no/no’ in order to determine what constitutes ‘community benefit’. They have now been told that what is required is a Development Contributions Levy. Of course, council’s response to this (after promising it in the 2016 planning scheme review) is:

Incorporating a Development Contributions Plan into the Planning Scheme for Carnegie will not be able to be undertaken as part of Amendment C184 due to the length and complexity of this process and may be worth examining at a later date.

So is this another council promise out the window?

• Gone as well is the useless Quality Design Guidelines that was so vague and nebulous that you could drive a truck through it.
• Most important is the simple fact that this council does not have an up to date Housing Strategy. The last one was done in 2001. Instead we now have the smoke and mirrors exercise of a ‘city plan’ that is supposed to do the work of examining closely every single street in the municipality. It doesn’t come within cooee of a decent housing strategy. Also worth pointing out to readers is that countless other councils have had housing strategies for well over a decade and have reviewed them continually. Not Glen Eira. The question that then needs asking is how can you perform decent strategic planning when no such overall strategy or policy exists. As per normal, this council does things arse backwards. First, and only because you’ve been ordered to, you get structure plans done, and then worry about a housing strategy!!!
• Wynne and the department also recommends the use of Neighbourhood Character Overlays. For the past few years, council has been bent on removing NCOs from the planning scheme! So is it back to the drawing board again on this one?
• As for the schedules to the zones themselves, council is quite happy with what already exists, instead of improving things like permeability, site coverage, etc. We’ve pointed out previously how other councils make a mockery of Glen Eira in that they have even 40% permeability in the GRZ zones whilst Glen Eira is stuck on its meagre 20%!!! Another big opportunity lost to do something positive! RGZ 4 is the most remarkable. Here site coverage can be 90% and permeability a fabulous 5%! Well done council!

There is much much more in this agenda that requires commenting upon. We will provide updates in the coming days. However, we believe that it is important that all those residents who will be affected by changes in zoning to fully comprehend what the changes will mean.

Below is council’s list of the proposed changes:

Dirty tactics would appear to be in plentiful supply when it comes to the two largest developments to ever occur in Glen Eira ie Caulfield Village and now East Village.

CAULFIELD VILLAGE

With wonderful timing, we have another development stage for Caulfield Village that will grow the site by another 437 apartments. Residents can submit their views (not officially ‘objections’ since there are no third party objection rights) by DECEMBER 24^TH, 2019. No need to comment on how inappropriate this is!

Please consider the following facts:

• The developer’s submitted documents are dated from August to September 2019
• The actual application went into council on the 1st October, 2019 according to the developer’s letter of submission.
• Given that there would have been plenty of discussions already between council and the developer prior to this date, we do not see why the plans could not have been made public at the November council meetings. We also note that council states that they only announced the application on the 3^rd. Again over 8 weeks after it was received. So, is this dirty tactics by the developer and/or council, we ask? How convenient that Christmas Eve is the deadline! Machiavelli couldn’t have planned it any better!

Next we have the actual proposal itself:

• 4 buildings up to 9 storeys high
• 94 Studio apartments with an average size of 40 square metres
• 191 single bedroom apartments with an average size of 50 square metres
• 142 two bedroom apartments with an average of 70 square metres
• 10 three bedroom apartments

Even more startling is that NONE of these properties are to be sold. They are all for rent! And that includes 21 dwellings that will be offered at 20% rent reduction for ‘social/affordable housing’. So magnanimous of the developer when they fought tooth and nail to avoid any social housing component, even though this was stated in the Incorporated Plan.  And so magnanimous of council to cave in and not fight this tooth and nail when they had the opportunity!

Bear in mind that we still have the 20 storeys and more to go and that will probably add another 1500 dwellings to this monstrosity, ably abetted by council. The 2014 Incorporated Plan that was passed by Hyams, Esakoff, Lipshutz and Pilling (only 4 out of the existing 9 councillors) specified a dwelling component of 1100 to 1200 apartments. We are already past this figure with this application and still have the Smith Street Precinct to go which will include at least 20 to 22 storeys!

Even more outrageous is that the Incorporated Plan states that if any of the site is to be listed as ‘student accommodation’ then third party objection rights would come into play. Nothing in this current application designates this as ‘student housing’. Yet it is a stone’s throw from Monash Uni and with dog boxes (studios and single bedroom) the majority, how can they be anything but student housing?

This is simply another application in the long history of the Caulfield Village fiasco and a council that has aided and abetted the developer at every step of the way.

EAST VILLAGE

The Planning Panel for Amendment C155 has now concluded. In an attempt to possibly placate residents councillors resolved for the following in their updated Comprehensive Development Plan and Schedule in October 2019.

• Mandatory heights of 8 storeys
• Mandatory 3000 maximum apartments
• Mandatory setbacks
• Mandatory overshadowing conditions, especially at the winter solstice

In private discussions between the developer team and council’s team we now have the possibility of:

• NO MANDATORY HEIGHT LIMITS
• NO MANDATORY SET BACKS
• NO MANDATORY OVERSHADOWING CONDITIONS FOR THE WINTER SOLSTICE
• 4 storey podium along Central Park instead of 3 storeys
• Trigger points for road construction relaxed and/or removed entirely

The only mandatory condition that council maintained was 3000 apartments when the vast majority of residents stated this was an ‘over development’.

Whilst there is no guarantee that the panel will accept these compromises, our guess is that when the two major stakeholders reach agreement it is unlikely that the panel will adjudicate differently.

Plenty of questions come out of this episode, namely:

• Were councillors informed of this change of heart by officers? Judging by Hyams’ comment on social media they certainly weren’t!
• Since this was a formal council resolution and has not been rescinded then it still stands
• Given that we are now dealing with an entirely different amendment to what was put out for comment, shouldn’t this be readvertised to the public?
• What legal authority is granted under delegation for officers to change/alter a council resolution, especially without consultation and further decision making?

Both of these examples illustrate completely how ineffectual our councillors are when it comes to representing the community. It also illustrates who runs the show at this council and that all important decisions are made by officers, regardless of whether or not they have the power to do so. Councillors can change this via their voting on delegations. The fact that they continually cede more and more power to officers is against the public interest and certainly shows an inability to either understand what is happening or the will to change it. Either way, these councillors are failing the community!

Wynne’s letter to Council that features in the current agenda is interesting to say the least. It raises innumerable questions, the foremost being:

• Why has council published only this letter? Could it possibly be that it fits in oh so nicely with the current mantra of ‘it’s not our fault. It’s all the Minister’s and/or Government’s fault? Perhaps residents would have far more faith if our council happened to be a little more transparent and published ALL DOCUMENTATION that surrounds the proposed amendment? For example: we now learn that there are two documents that council submitted to the Department that have never been made public. These were cited in the documentation for the East Village amendment. The documents are named as:

Urban Form Analysis – Carnegie (December 2018) prepared by Glen Eira City Council;
Urban Form Analysis – Bentleigh (December 2018) prepared by Glen Eira City Council

These documents would be essential to determine the rationale of why council first wanted only 6 and 7 storeys in Carnegie for the first iteration of the interim amendment, and then decided that 12 storeys was just as good to stop ‘inappropriate development’ in the second interim amendment.

• Council claims that the proposed amendment was submitted in January 2019. Ten months have therefore elapsed and still no public exhibition. What has council been doing in those 10 months? What other meetings, discussions, emails, research have gone on throughout this period? Why haven’t residents been informed as to the true reasons for the delay? And why hasn’t council been screaming blue murder if all their recommendations are being rejected by the Minister or Department?
• Wynne basically chastises Council for its failure to have any definitive Housing Strategy. We quote: …the amendment is not underpinned by an adopted municipal wide housing strategy. Wynne is correct. Council’s Amendment C25 which was gazetted in 2004 and established the Minimal Change/Housing Diversity split up of the municipality was based on data from the late nineties. It has not been touched since! This of course is another example of how out of step our council is when compared to all other metropolitan councils alone. Others such as Port Phillip have had such a policy since 2007; Maryibyrnong in 2011 and updated in 2015; Brimbank 2012 etc. We could go on and on with dates for the various councils. The point is that Glen Eira has again done nothing to provide a comprehensive and valid housing strategy across its entire municipality.
• Hyams recently stated that Glen Eira has to meet housing growth expectations for the next 50 years! There is nothing in Wynne’s letter that even comes close to this number. If Plan Melbourne is the ‘guideline’ then that stretches out to 2051 and NOT 2069 as Hyams would have us believe.(see: https://gleneira.blog/2019/10/20/hyams-the-spin-maestro/)
• Wynne’s letter is of course nothing more than mumbo jumbo as well. NO clear criteria is provided, no clear definitions, no inkling of set in concrete housing figures. If major urban renewal sites are not to be used in the arguments against developing the existing activity centres areas in Glen Eira, then all this reveals is that Glen Eira will well and truly be EXCEEDING by thousands the various prognostications for 2051. To ignore what’s on the cards such as East Village, Caulfield Village and Elsternwick, is ludicrous given, for example, that the documentation for East Village nominates a 15 to 20 year time span for completion. Well and truly within the time frame set by Plan Melbourne Refresh.
• Wynne’s conflation of ‘density’ and ‘diversity’ is a joke. A joke that is swallowed whole by council.
• One is left to wonder whether Wynne is really happy with council’s expansion of its activity centres. Such centres are supposed to incorporate the commercial/mixed use areas and the immediately surrounding residential areas. They are not supposed to double in size and incorporate countless NRZ streets. This is what council has done in its attempt to argue that reducing streets that are zoned RGZ (4 storeys) to now GRZ (3 storeys) and upgrading NRZ (2 storeys) to three storeys is the answer. In this respect council has not followed state government VPP that occurs in all planning schemes. The irony of course is that by doing this, council is admitting what an absolute failure the secret introduction of the residential zones in 2013 really were and that the doyen of planning (Akehurst) got it all wrong! Sadly, current and future residents will be paying for the incompetence and indifference of councillors in 2013.

The outcome of all this will undoubtedly be more high rise and more RGZ in Bentleigh and Carnegie and probably elsewhere. The most disappointing aspect is that this council has not offered a single, prolonged public outcry. It continues to ignore resident views. It continues to operate in secrecy. It continues to plan abysmally, without justification and without concern for its residents.

Here’s the Wynne letter in full. There’s much, much more that could be said about this letter. We will return to it in a later post.