GE Governance

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July 11, 2018

More On Overshadowing!

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

We urge all readers to carefully consider the significance of the following screen dump. It comes from the consultant’s report that accompanies Melbourne City Council’s attempt to ensure that ALL of its parks receive the appropriate amount of sunlight during the winter months. Melbourne has now formulated Amendment C278 in order to achieve this. (Uploaded HERE)

The image depicts the overshadowing resulting from a 20 metre (6 storey) building. Glen Eira in its wisdom proposes buildings to a height of 43 metres, with a 4 metre ‘exemption’ for masts, etc. Even if a building is of a lower height as envisaged for East Village, (ie 8 storeys) the fact that public open space will be surrounded by 8 storeys on all sides, is great cause for concern. If a 6 storey building has the potential to throw a shadow of between 90 and 111 metres in winter, what percentage of the proposed ‘public plazas’ will be in the dark for most of the day? What does this also mean for council’s structure planning such as in Elsternwick which will have new open spaces surrounded by 12 storeys? And Caulfield Village plus Monash’s Fusion Plan that will reach at least 22 storeys surrounding its public space reserves?

The very fact that several council meetings ago, there was no commitment forthcoming to support Melbourne City Council in its endeavours reveals much about the mindset that dominates in Glen Eira. Thus far they even seem incapable of providing shadow diagrams able to stand up to full scrutiny.

 

July 6, 2018

Living Like A Mole!

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

The following images are the result of an FOI application. They depict the overshadowing at the Winter Solstice for Carnegie. What is staggering about these images is:

  • Residents living in these areas will resemble moles. Building after building will be in total shadow for most of the day in winter
  • Despite what council promised in the following, it is clearly not so – Protect the future open space at Egan and Woorayl Streets, in accordance with Council’s Open Space Strategy, with no overshadowing for a minimum of 5 hours at the September Equinox (9am to 2pm achieved) and 3 hours at Winter Solstice (11am to 2pm achieved). (Officer’s report – 27/2/2018 – when the structure plan was voted in)
  • These images have not been made available to residents by council. The FOI application did not yield any shadow diagrams for Elsternwick – yet councillors voted to go ahead with structure planning that is clearly so deficient and so contradictory to what the spin suggests.
  • We also have to wonder how accurate these diagrams are – ie permits already exist for 12 and 13 storeys in Egan and Woorayl streets. What impact would these buildings have on overshadowing? Why aren’t they included in the diagrams
  • The images depict 5 and 8 storeys alongside Rosstown. This is NOT what the adopted structure plan included. Hence two possibilities – council has been ‘forced’ to change its plans, or what is depicted here is once again a total work of fiction! Regardless, it is obvious that for the winter months at least, Carnegie residents might as well forget about direct sunlight for most of the day!

 

July 3, 2018

Trees & Council’s ‘Action Plan’

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

Council’s ‘update’ on its planning scheme review action plan includes the following on ‘tree protection’ –

Surely it is incumbent on Council to produce statements that are honest, accurate, and informative. The above is both misleading and ineffectual as an action to protect our trees. Here’s why –

  • Wynne’s amendment C143 which introduced the ‘garden requirements’ has got absolutely nothing to do with ‘tree protection’ per se. It simply provides a scale that determines how much of the varying site sizes must consist of ‘garden area’. It does not stop moonscaping. It does not stop the removal of any tree prior to an application being lodged.
  • As for ‘basement’ requirements, there is absolutely nothing in the Better Apartment Guidelines / Amendment VC136 that we can find that specifies the protection of trees. In fact it even foreshadows moonscaping! See below:
  • Then we have the reference to the Urban Design Guidelines. Again, there is nothing in this document to ensure that trees are NOT REMOVED. What we do have is paragraphs such as – To provide side setbacks, towardsthe rear of the lot, with adequate width to permit canopy trees, creating a garden setting for dwellings.

We repeat. All of the above do NOT protect EXISTING trees. They are all looking ahead and what should happen in terms of landscaping once the existing tree has been removed. Yet council is quite happy to claim that the issue of tree protection has been at least ‘partially addressed’ by these documents. Nothing could be further from the truth!

But there’s more to this entire issue of tree protection which has been around since at least 2003 in Glen Eira– despite  consistent data that highlights the priority that residents place on the protection of our trees. Discussion after discussion has been stymied by certain councilors (some of whom are still on council) and who have refused to even entertain the idea of tree protection on private property. As far as we know, council has never provided any data on:

  • The percentage loss of canopy coverage over the past decade in Glen Eira
  • How many private trees have been removed prior to a development application
  • How many permits have been granted for the removal of trees post permit – nor the reasons for such permission (ie 2 recent permits granted in Murrumbeena for tree removal despite what the original conditions of the permit stated)

In short, we know very little about the destruction of these vital assets over the years – and we speculate that council does not know either!

So now we finally have some discussion on a ‘significant tree register’. What council has not explained fully enough to residents via their Clayton’s ‘consulation’ survey is that ‘significant tree registers’ generally feature only a few hundred trees. Nowhere near enough to safeguard thousands of trees from being ripped down by developers.  And a lot depends on the criteria actually used to determine whether something is ‘significant’ or not! Council also appears to be satisfied that if and when a tree register materializes it will only feature in its Local Law, and not be a specific item in the Planning Scheme! Simply not good enough. Further, questions abound – will council introduce permit requirements on private land for large trees that are not listed in the register? Will they follow Stonnington’s lead and introduce ‘compliance’ measures on developers for each application?

In the end, every single site in Glen Eira is a potential ‘development site’. As such, what is needed is far more than a few hundred trees placed on some register.

 

June 29, 2018

More Council Hokus-Pokus & Keeping The Peasants Ignorant! -#1

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
[14] Comments 

In what purports to be a ‘progress update’ on implementing the recommendations of the Planning Scheme Review, council has published its  ‘updated work plan’. No real detail is provided. No costings are provided. No real information is provided as to what any amendments might contain. Basically, residents are again being kept in the dark.

Worse still are innumerable statements that are incorrect, misleading, or nothing more than vague, useless motherhood statements that reveal the absolute minimum.  After two years of so-called ‘extensive consultation’, residents should know far more about what council has in mind. The fact that we don’t is testimony to the lack of transparency that is the modus operandi of this council.

Here are some examples which substantiate our claims. The images are taken directly from today’s published agenda (Item 9.5)

Some things to note:

  • Urban Design Guidelines are just that – guidelines. Generally they enter the planning scheme as a ‘reference document’ and thus are pretty useless in enforcing policy and ensuring that VCAT adheres to them. To therefore claim that ‘neighbourhood character’ will be protected at best, or strengthened via the Urban Design Guidelines is a total furphy. What is required is the inclusion of ‘preferred character statements’ for all housing diversity areas (and not just the current structure plans) into the planning scheme as a separate policy with clear directions for interpretation. This would involve an overall Housing Character Study, which council hasn’t really undertaken since 1996 when the document was produced. The 2011 Planishere review basically looked at certain areas for Neighbourhood Character Overlays. It certainly did not revisit the entire municipality which was required. Further compounding the lack of planning is the fact that Glen Eira has never had a ‘neighbourhood character policy’ and only those sites in minimal change have had anything comprising ‘character statements’. Most of these have been unworkable since they incorporate vast areas into their descriptions (ie Bentleigh, Ormond and McKinnon are lumped together in 5 short bullet points). Other councils have been far more proactive and have such policies enshrined in their planning schemes with substantial ‘preferred character statements’ for their entire municipalities. These councils are – Bayside, Boroondara, Darebin, Frankston,  Dandenong, Hobson’s Bay, Knox, Maribyrnong, Maroondah, Moreland, Port Phillip, Stonnington, Yarra. Many of these documents have been completed in the past few years. We’ve uploaded the Stonnington document as an example of what can be done and which Glen Eira has failed to even commence, much less complete. Available HERE
  • The Urban Design Guidelines constantly refer to ‘minimal change areas’ (ie NRZ) as containing One or two detached or semi-detached dwellings built on a lot. The height is one or two storeys. Since Wynne’s introduction of his 2017 amendment that removed the 2 dwellings per lot provision, there have been at least 16 applications go to council for multiple dwellings in areas zoned as NRZ. Many of these have already received permits. Yet, there is nothing in the Urban Design Guidelines that acknowledges this fact and its potential ramifications. Not a word is said about the impact of these developments on ‘neighbourhood character’. Nor are residents given any information as to how the schedules to the zoning might change in any ensuing amendment. If the plan is to ‘upgrade’ hundreds of dwellings so that they will go from 2 storeys maximum to 3 or 4, then how does this alter the ‘neighbourhood character’?
  • And are we still having to wait for at least another 3 years before anything is done? If so, what does this portend for our Neighbourhood Centres? We already have 6 storeys in McKinnon, 10 storeys in Ormond, and 7 storeys in Bentleigh East and Caulfield North. What ‘character’ will council see fit to delineate in these areas?
  • And of course the crucial question is: how can any valid character statements be made when there hasn’t been a genuine revisiting of the housing strategy since 1996?

Far more honesty is required from council. Two years have come and gone since the planning scheme review and all we’ve had is the imposition of changes that fly in the face of community views and without the opportunity to comment on such changes. Thus far we have still to see any strategic justification, or any inkling of what the schedules to the zones will contain. Residents are being treated like mushrooms – kept ignorant until it is too late and plans are set in concrete. That is governance at its most devious and despicable.

 

June 27, 2018

Planning Mayhem

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

Glen Eira is currently experiencing planning mayhem thanks to this council’s failure to enact any meaningful reforms to its planning scheme and the ongoing pro-development ethos. Three recent applications (two still to be decided) exemplify this lack of sound planning.

One application is having a third shot at a multi storey development (8 Egan Street Carnegie). This site has twice attempted a 16 storey tower. Both times it has been knocked back by both council and VCAT. Now there is a new application in for 12 storeys and 108 apartments. Only 4 of the proposed apartments will feature three bedrooms. All the rest are single and double bedroom.

What makes this application so unacceptable is that it sits in the Design & Development Overlay for a 7 storey ‘preferred’ maximum height limit introduced via the Carnegie amendment of April 2017. Of course, council has now proposed via its current structure plans, that the area be zoned as suitable for 12 storeys! How five storeys can be added in the space of one year simply beggars belief and makes a mockery of Wynne’s rubber stamping of the original request!

The second application is for the Selwyn Street Woolworths development which proposes not one, but two towers and 180 apartments. One tower will be 10 storeys and the second one 13 storeys. Again, council is quite happy with a 12 storey height limit here according to its structure planning. (PS: CORRECTION – council’s draft structure plan proposes 8 storeys here. Elsternwick is completely vulnerable however since no interim height amendments exist as with Bentleigh & Carnegie.)

A third application has already been granted a permit in a ‘confidential’ cave in at VCAT. This is for 14-22 Woorayl Street, Carnegie that will be 12 storeys and 109 apartments. The proposed council zoning here reflects the Egan Street situation – ie a 7 storey ‘preferred’ maximum a year ago and now ‘elevated’ to 12 storeys!

Thus in 3 applications alone we will have half of the ‘quota’ required per year to meet the projected housing needs for the future – 397 apartments!

Nothing can excuse council’s failure to undertake sound planning and to pursue amendments that meet the community’s aspirations. If 7 storeys was sufficient a year ago, then where is the strategic justification for 12 storeys now?

 

June 22, 2018

Hansard & Elsternwick

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

Elsternwick structure plan

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield)

My adjournment today is to the Minister for Planning, and the action I seek is that the minister immediately defer any decisions on the Glen Eira council structure plan, which will see massive overdevelopment, particularly within the areas of Elsternwick, until such time as residents are properly consulted.

Today I tabled a petition from 1300 residents around the Elsternwick precinct. Many of them live in homes of heritage value. Some of those homes date back to the late 1880s. They are very, very concerned about the overdevelopment that is happening throughout my electorate of Caulfield. This master plan which the Glen Eira council is proposing could certainly see loss of character and amenity and massive overdevelopment, which would see some single –storey homes being completely taken over by large towers in the area.

These residents need to be consulted, and we certainly want to make sure that we do not take up the squeeze that is being left behind from the protection that the Bentleigh residents have had in the overall precinct. We know that there is development need for housing, but Caulfield should not bear the brunt of that. The master plan sees a 20 per cent increase in population and we do not want to squeeze all of that into areas like Elsternwick.

The Liberals’ plan has already been stated. We will reintroduce a two -dwelling limit on neighbourhood residential zones, reduce height limits in neighbourhood residential zones and bring back the 9 –metre discretionary height limit in general residential zones. Certainly this would make a huge difference to many of those residents that I am talking about. But we do not want to see this rushed through. We have got an election in November, and we think that the residents should have the opportunity for proper consultation, not rush things through quickly before the election so people do not have the ability to have proper consultation. We saw the attempted rush through of the Ormond sky tower, and certainly we had to intervene in the upper house with that. We have seen Bethlehem Hospital propose 16 storeys in Kooyong Road. We are seeing massive overdevelopment through Caulfield. Enough is enough, and we are asking the Minister for Planning on this occasion to step in and make sure no decisions are made whatsoever until such time as the issues about excessive height and issues with car parking, traffic and general congestion in our area are fully explored and residents are properly consulted and protected when it comes to living in the great suburbs of Elsternwick, Caulfield and the broader City of Glen Eira.

 

June 16, 2018

How Much Does It Cost?

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Governance, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
[9] Comments 

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

We believe it certainly could have if:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

June 12, 2018

Delegations!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Governance, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
[4] Comments 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ballarat

Bayside

Boroondara

Darebin

Kingston

Manningham

Melbourne

Melton

Moorabool

Monash

Yarra

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

 

June 8, 2018

Open Space ‘Favours’?

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
[3] Comments 

Month after month the constant refrain from council in regard to its open space levy is –

All multi-unit developers pay a uniform 5.7 per cent of the value of the land (or give Council 5.7 per cent of the area of the land).

Apparently this is NOT the case as revealed in the minutes of the Audit Committee. We quote:

Clearly, not ‘ALL MULTI-UNIT DEVELOPERS’ pay their fair share, or in fact may pay anything at all! Questions thus abound:

  • Why aren’t all levies collected?
  • On what grounds were levies waived?
  • Who made these decisions and were they empowered to do so?
  • How many thousands (if not tens of thousands) has council lost since the introduction of the 5.7% levy?
  • How many developers did not pay and who were they?
  • Does the open space fund really have $11m in the kitty as claimed or is this more ‘creative accounting’?
 

June 6, 2018

The Latest Stats

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

For all the talk of a down turn in the construction industry, Glen Eira is well and truly maintaining its record rate of development. The table below is compiled from today’s ABS released figures on building approvals for the current financial year – up to and including May. That means 11 months worth of approvals. Again we note:

  • Glen Eira leading the pack
  • Victoria in Future predictions well and truly outstripped – ie 13,000 by 2031. At this rate, this figure will be reached by 2020/21
  • None of these figures take into account the additional 4,500 (‘preliminary’ numbers) set for Caulfield Village and Virginia Estate

There is absolutely no strategic justification for council’s current plans to double the size of activity centres and to impose 12 storey height limits, plus rezoning hundreds upon hundreds of sites that will be earmarked for higher height limits.

We’ve uploaded the latest ABS figures HERE

 

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