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November 24, 2023

Bentleigh Structure Plan – Feedback Summary

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
[5] Comments 

Once again a whopping agenda that lumps together some of the most important planning issues that confront the community. These are:

  • Bentleigh Structure Plan community feedback
  • Bentleigh East  Neighbourhood Centre amendment
  • Elsternwick Structure Plan amendment
  • Carnegie Structure Plan amendment

Very little has changed in regard to the Major Activity Centres, especially in relation to heights, and overshadowing. All this despite the fact that the majority of responses were opposed to various recommendations in the structure plans and the mooted DDO’s. Carnegie did not even have community consultation following the abandonment of version one (ie Amendment C184)!!!!!!!

We will deal with each of the above as separate posts beginning with the Bentleigh consultation summary.

Bentleigh Community Feedback ‘summary’

  • There were 106 survey responses, 17 emails and a petition of 221 signatories. Council states that it sent out 4,101 letters to surrounding households. The feedback equates to a pathetic 2.56% response rate for the survey. Why? Are Bentleigh residents so apathetic that they don’t care? Have residents given up on believing that their voices can affect outcomes in Glen Eira? Or is there something drastically wrong with the way in which council communicates its intentions? We have yet to see any analyses EVER of why feedback is so low and what can be done to improve this. It serves council well to simply go through the motions of ‘consultation’ despite the fact that survey after survey has been anything but a genuine attempt to elicit relevant and valid responses.
  • Again, we are not privy to the raw data. No publication of the responses as has happened in the past. Instead we have a ‘doctored’ summary that falls far short of reporting on what was actually said/written.
  • Language used remains a problem. The officer’s report is vague and imprecise with terminology such as ‘mixed responses’, ‘about half’, ‘support for accommodating growth’, ‘some support’, etc. Very little is quantified.
  • The summary report itself is nothing more than a public relations exercise. For example: On ‘retaining character’ we find this conclusion in the report – 55 percent of participants indicated that accommodating growth above the commercial strip was better than doing it in other parts of Bentleigh. Ostensibly this sounds like a majority are in favour, but one must query the value of the question itself. There could very well be support for greater density in the commercial core, but THIS DOES NOT MEAN that respondents are in favour of 8 storeys (discretionary) adjacent to heritage homes. The value of any response and what conclusions might be drawn are 100% dependent on the quality of the questions asked. The online survey as we’ve commented on before was carefully engineered to avoid as much as possible any responses that could be interpreted as ‘negative’ or opposed to the recommendations of the structure plan.  
  • The above criticisms can also be directed to this conclusion – 51% of participants indicated they ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ that measures such as height limits and upper-level setbacks for new development would help to retain the character of Centre Road. Of course people want height limits. But we were never asked what those height limits should be!!!!!!!
  • On page 4 of the summary report we are told that 20 percent of participants indicated they would like a building height limit reduction in the centre when asked about retaining character in a growing centre. This sounds like a clear minority in favour of reduced height limits. But this  alleged 20% is only from those individuals who took the option to write something in the text boxes. And again, no question asked what is an appropriate height limit?
  • More concerning is that the above cited 20% does not correlate with what is then presented in the following table:

 We’ve highlighted all those responses which could be seen as pertaining to the issue of height. The totals are far in excess of the previously stated 20%!!!!!! However, without full publication of all the responses then it is not possible to determine whether the 20% is anywhere near accurate or council’s fudging of the responses. Transparency is again the victim in this reporting.

CONCLUSION(S)

Until this council is prepared to undertake genuine consultation that includes full oversight by councillors and the community engagement committee in the drafting of survey questions then residents cannot hope to be participants in anything but a carefully orchestrated farce that fulfils legal requirements and nothing else. Nor can residents have any confidence in the resulting feedback summaries when the raw data is with-held. When council fights so hard to avoid full disclosure one must surely doubt the results.

As stated earlier, there must be a full analyses of why consultation in Glen Eira is such a failure in terms of community feedback. This should start at the first stage of notification to residents – are they provided with enough detail to engage their interest/concern? Are they expected to undertake hours of reading that involves hundreds of pages instead of succinct summaries? And how many residents have simply given up because they don’t believe that anything they put forward will eventuate? This isn’t apathy we believe. It is simply distrust of council and the predetermined nature of all decision making. If residents truly believed that council was ready to listen and act, then we are confident that feedback would quadruple and that residents could actually believe that council was acting on their behalf. Sadly this is not the modus operandi of Glen Eira City Council!

 

November 22, 2023

Boroondara Versus Glen Eira

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

Earlier this month Boroondara City Council voted in a resolution which basically condemned the flurry of planning changes introduced by the State Government over the past 18 months or so. The vote was a result of a detailed officer report outlining the consequences of these changes and how they would impact the Boroondara community.  In Glen Eira, apart from a bit of fear mongering by some councillors used to justify their voting patterns on activity centres (ie  we would get worse results if the minister calls it in, blah, blah, blah) there has not been one report, analyses, or discussion similar to the Boroondara stance. In all likelihood, residents have no idea of what these changes to the planning system entail, or what they mean for future development.

If councils are truly working for their residents, then it is incumbent on them to provide their communities with the necessary information and to work collaboratively with various community groups in their advocacy roles. None of this has happened in Glen Eira. Why not? Why can’t we have an officer’s report which is out in the open and discussed in council chambers so that everyone knows what this council stands for?

The Boroondara vote can be watched via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4f_0Tab2Ag. It starts at approximately 52 minutes into the webcast.  We’ve also uploaded several pages from the officer’s report. It was lengthy, but the highlighted comments here are important and reveal the primary concerns of Boroondara. Are these shared by Glen Eira? Who knows?

Again, we have a myriad of questions:

  • Have councillors even been briefed on what each new piece of legislation means?
  • Have options been presented to councillors on what can and should be done in response?
  • What communications have taken place between officers and departments? Have councillors been made aware of all such communications? If so, have they seen hard copies of this communication or simply had to rely on officer’s verbal summaries?

Residents deserve heaps better from our council. Or is the truth simply that the Glen Eira administration is fully behind the government’s actions in removing as far as possible all third party objection rights and allowing more and more development?

 

October 13, 2023

Elsternwick: May Street Finding!

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

We’ve received the following media release.

 A myriad of questions result from this:

  • If in 2008 legal advice found that May Street was indeed a ‘road at law’, and that council officers were informed and certainly aware of this finding, then where is corporate memory? The Woolies vcat decision goes back years and certain officers such as Torres et al were certainly working for council in 2008 and also up until recently. Surely it is part of their responsibility to have been aware of such documents – or was a blind eye turned on this ‘evidence’ because it would have made things far more difficult for Woolies?
  • Why has no mention been made of this 2008 decision? Why weren’t councillors informed? What does this say about council’s required record keeping and its required role in informing councillors of all relevant information prior to their decision making?
  • Council claims to have received its own ‘legal advice’. How does this supposed ‘legal advice’ refute the 2008 advice and STET’S own comprehensive legal advice? Council has done nothing in the intervening period to change the status of the 2008 decision – ie. no zone changes, no attempt to remove the ‘road’ status, etc. Until everything is out in the open so that the community can gauge for itself, then the perception the council has indeed failed in its ‘due diligence’ remains.
  • This is more than a simple failure to locate, assess and acknowledge the ramifications of a previous finding. It raises very real questions about the integrity of this administration and how far it will go to facilitate major development.
 

September 20, 2023

More Stuff-ups?

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
1 Comment 

On Tuesday night there was a Special Council Meeting to (re)consider submissions on the closing off of Orrong Crescent/Alma Road in order to facilitate the proposed pop-up park at this corner. What is staggering about the processes involved is that council never seems to get it right – despite all their planning and traffic departments and legal advisors. It is clear that what motivates this administration is to implement something that has already been determined regardless of what the legislation requires! Council wants the pop-up park in spite of previous consultations that were strongly opposed. The first step to achieving this is the closure of the intersection. Thus the two are intricately linked. Trouble is, the law has been ignored!!!!!!

Please listen carefully to the following submission made on the night. It highlights the legal flaws in what council has done as well as the lack of required evidence to support the proposal of closing off the intersection. This new attempt comes on top of the failure to properly advertise and seek submissions on the first attempt.

There can be no excuse for what is happening here. Due legal process has not been followed; pivotal research such as traffic reports have either not been done, or not provided to councillors. Not the first time that councillors are expected to vote on an issue without all the relevant information before them! Even the officer’s report distorts what the submissions say in the claim that 4 were in support and 7 opposed. Of the four allegedly in ‘support’, the focus is exclusively on the pop-up park and NOT the closure of Orrong Crescent which is what this item is about! Council’s approach is akin to a bull in a china shop where the objective is to ram through whatever has already been decided.Hardly transparent and good governance!

 

September 13, 2023

Bogus Reports: Bentleigh & Elsternwick

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

Council’s consultants are maestros in camouflaging the real facts and figures that should be the basis of all decent strategic planning. This of course only reinforces our view that the role of consultants is to provide any so called ‘evidence’ which will support decisions already made by this planning department.

This post focuses on the two traffic reports for the Bentleigh & Elsternwick structure plans. Both were done by the same company – yet they are very different in important components. Why?

We will start off with Elsternwick. On page 28 of the study we have this image:

We are told that: Dwellings in Elsternwick are a split of single detached dwellings (57%) and multi-unit dwellings (43%). The phrasing of ‘single detached dwellings’ would imply that these dwellings are stand alone houses and ‘multi-unit’ dwellings are interpreted as flats. Are we therefore witnessing some sleight of hand, when these figures are compared to what the 2021 Census results tell us? If our interpretation of ‘single detached dwellings’ coincides with the ABS interpretation, then these results are far more than bogus – they represent a deliberate attempt to distort and hide the true facts. Interestingly, we can find no definition in the consultant’s reports of what ‘single detached dwellings’ and ‘multi-unit dwellings’ means.

Compare the above with what the census reveals below:

38% compared to the reports 57%!!!!!!! We can only assume that the 38% has been added to the 19.3% to come anywhere near the stated 57%. If this is the case, then it is entirely misleading – especially since the consultants provide no definitions or explanations.

Another aspect of the above page is the claim that 12% of HOUSEHOLDS don’t own a car. The resorting to ‘households’ instead of dwellings is interesting. When we look at the car ownership per dwelling we get a completely different result (see below).

The Bentleigh transport report doesn’t follow the Elsternwick version. Instead we now get comparisons on page 128/9 to Windsor!!!! Readers should remember that we have been repeatedly told that we CANNOT compare one municipality to another. Yet, this is exactly what this supposed traffic analyses has done. And it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny when we find that Windsor compared to Bentleigh is an entirely different proposition!

For starters, we now are looking exclusively at PERCENTAGES and not NUMBERS in the attempt to prove how similar these two suburbs are. What is not stated are the following that completely change the conclusions. The table below is derived from the ABS 2021 census data.

Please note:

  • Bentleigh’s population is close to 3 times that of Windsor
  • The number of dwellings in Bentleigh is double that of Windsor
  • The number of dwellings without cars in Bentleigh is 446 and Windsor is 344. When these numbers are calculated as a PERCENTAGE of dwellings without cars, then of course Windsor will have a higher percentage given it has half of the dwellings in Bentleigh.

There is much, much more that could be written about these traffic reports and the invalidity of what is presented. Yet these documents are supposed to form the ‘evidence’ for structure plan recommendations. They fail dismally and are there simply to fulfill all legal requirements instead of providing an analyses that does hold up to scrutiny. We can only wonder how much these reports have cost ratepayers!!!!!! Undoubtedly money well spent when the objective is to facilitate more and more development with increased deterioration of residential amenity!

 

September 8, 2023

The Elsternwick Debacle!

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

The above image of the August 15th pre-council assembly meeting reveals everything about the lack of governance and the manipulation that occurred. Here are the important things to note:

  • Cr Pennicuik DID NOT declare a conflict of interest at this meeting nor at any of the previous 9 assembly meetings where the Elsternwick Structure Plan was listed for discussion.
  • This pre-meeting lasted exactly 54 minutes and we have to wonder when in this 54 minutes was the Cade amendment discussed by councillors? – ie at 7’oclock? 7.20?
  • Responses to public questions at the last council meeting declare that In the case of the Amended Motion on item 8.2 passed at the Ordinary Council Meeting of 15 August, Councillors received written notification of all of its component parts at 5.10pm that afternoon. We assume that this was via email. Thus, did all councillors manage to access their emails prior to the assembly meeting?  And when were councillors forwarded all the other proposed amendments – especially the Zyngier one? Were these discussed on the August 15th pre-meeting, or any of the earlier ones?And how much time (if any) was devoted to each proposal?
  • As cited in some of the public questions on Tuesday night, council’s governance rules include the following: Members have sufficient information available to them to make good and informed decisions. Good decision making requires time – this was clearly not available pre-meeting and certainly not available to Cr Pennicuik to seek independent legal advice to confirm or deny that she had a potential conflict of interest.
  • In another response to a public question we get: There is no requirement under Council’s Governance Rules or the Local Government Act 2020 for a proposed Amendment to a Motion to be provided to other Councillors in advance of an Ordinary Council meeting, although it is encouraged as good practice. Correct that there is nothing specific in either the governance rules or the Local Government Act to determine WHEN amendments should be available to councillors. But this has not stopped Magee from ruling out of order a proposed amendment on the Bentleigh Structure Plan by Zyngier on the July 4th council meeting when he said:
  • Not only was the Zyngier attempted amendment disallowed on the claim of a non-existent ‘no surprises policy’ but that it also was not discussed at the pre-meeting. But in several responses to public questions we have the above council quote – no ‘in advance’ notification is required. Thus Magee basically gagged Zyngier!

For all the mumbo-jumbo, and claims of sound governance, what occurred on August 15th can only be seen as deliberate manipulation to ensure that only 8 councillors voted and that the casting vote was left in the hands of our compliant Mayor.

 

September 6, 2023

Elsternwick: Screwed Again

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
[8] Comments 

Last night’s council meeting included a Glen Eira first – a Notice of Motion presented by Cr Zyngier. This was permitted since council’s governance rules were once again shown to include a monumental stuff up and hence the denial of a real Notice of Motion was not possible. Admittedly we had not picked this up previously but can now conclude that the following was the reason why the governance rules (as intended) would not hold up to legal scrutiny. The crucial section is contained in this dialogue box taken directly from the governance rules –

We then get this caveat which basically undermines and rules useless the attempted Clayton’s Notice of Motion.

Thus we get a first in Glen Eira – a genuine Notice of Motion!

Please listen very carefully to the following audio of this motion. It failed once again on the casting vote of Magee after Penniciuk declared a conflict of interest and left the chamber.

What however is quite staggering in this item, needs to be highlighted and seriously questioned!

  • Why are councillors denied access to essential consultant/officer reports that would substantiate the ensuing recommendations and claims made?
  • How does this equate with informed decision making, when councillors are not privy to the evidence?
  • Why are potential inaccuracies in officer/consultant reports not open to scrutiny or review?
  • How many more times are councillors forced to vote on something of major significance without the benefit of the full data?

Transparency, and accountability, plus informed decision making by this council is clearly non-existent!

 

September 4, 2023

How It Should Be Done!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
1 Comment 

We have for ages bemoaned the fact that in Glen Eira residents are confronted with an uphill battle to fully comprehend what council proposes in its structure planning – unless they are willing to spend hours upon hours in deciphering hundreds of pages of documents. There has never been a simple, single page document which itemises proposed controls and/or changes, that are easily accessed and read. Luckily, not all councils operate on the principle of obfuscation like Glen Eira does!

Here is an example from Monash and involves their structure plan for the Glen Waverley Major Activity Centre. The following images come from https://shape.monash.vic.gov.au/amendment-c167/detailed-changes

Please note:

  • The clear summaries for the various types of sites – ie commercial, residential, etc.
  • Interestingly, Monash sees fit to assign a 29 metre preferred height for its 8 storey development(s), whilst Glen Eira wants 31 metres!
  • Note the increase in private open space requirements. Readers will remember that in Glen Eira, the housing strategy recommends the removal of the mandatory garden requirement in all areas zoned GRZ!
  • Lastly, it beggars belief why Monash is allowed to include so many residential properties in their structure planning area and in Glen Eira, the proposed DDO’s for Bentleigh, Carnegie, and Elsternwick only apply to the commercial and mixed use zones for the major part.

We are not commenting on how ‘good’ or ‘bad’, the Monash plan is. All we wish to highlight is the manner in which Monash informs their community in a simple and clear fashion and how it conducts its consultation programs. In Glen Eira we get nothing like this!

 

September 3, 2023

From A Bentleigh Resident

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

We’ve received the following email from a Bentleigh resident. It was sent to councillors, the CEO, and to the Minister.

“Good morning Mr Mayor.

I am writing in regard to your recent correspondence about a petition which was submitted to Council around the proposed inappropriate structure plan. We dedicated a good deal of time to get to the residents and to obtain 221 signatures from 221 very angry residents who deserve to have their feelings included in the process of Community consultation.

Your advice to us is that the 221 residents will be considered as one submission. Your words in your email are;

“The petition will be included as a submission on the draft structure plan, but in accordance with Council practices, it will be considered as a single submission”.

So if I understand you correctly, we might as well have saved a considerable amount of time and effort and submitted just one resident. It would carry the same weight as the 221 names we provided. 

I request clarification as to my interpretation of your comments, and if I am correct, I want to know the reason behind ignoring the remaining 220 residents who have provided their details. 

This seems to me and to a number of those who took the time to provide their details to be simply wrong and against any fair inclusion of their wishes. I said that there was anger by the residents we contacted with the petition, but that pales into insignificance when compared to the anger shown by those who I have already advised of the Councils position regarding their involvement.

I wonder if this council and its planning department is really interested in Residents issues and wishes or is this process of Community Consultation again just for show.

This, if my interpretation of your comment is correct, is a disgusting situation. 

I look forward to your clarification in this matter.

Thank you,”

COMMENT

Not for the first time has Council ignored community feedback, arguing that forums were either ‘information sessions’, and hence don’t ‘qualify’ for official ‘consultation’ events. What bunkum! Readers will remember that:

  • Over 100 residents came out on a cold winter’s night to present their views on the Housing Strategy. The resulting reports on that evening revealed that the anger was ‘palpable’, especially when officers attempted to close down the meeting instead of continuing to listen to what residents had to say.
  • Way back over 200 people attended another ‘information forum’ on the draft Elsternwick structure plan. Again ignored. Bentleigh structure planning was another instance of down playing feedback.
  • The very fact that in the vast majority of council reports outlining community feedback,  there is a failure to include honestly and comprehensively what residents had to say. Legitimate concerns about ‘overdevelopment’ are simply swept under the carpet and barely rate a mention. Council even fights tooth and nail to prevent the verbatim publication of  such feedback when previously this was seen as proper process when strategic planning first began.
  • We have now had structure planning endorsed for Glen Huntly, Bentleigh, Elsternwick, Carnegie, and Caulfield accompanied by bogus surveys, ‘information sessions’, and spin. Not once have these surveys been road tested with the community consultation committee, and councillors barely get a look in. Repeatedly, councillors  have been forced to vote without all the relevant documents available to them, or without sufficient time to critically analyse and digest what it is they are being asked to vote on. This planning department and administration has much to answer for!
 

September 1, 2023

Pathetic Engagement & ‘Consultation”

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

Structure planning is vitally important to the residents of Glen Eira. Council continually espouses how vital it is to hear back from the community and to engage as many constituents as possible. Yet, their methods of achieving this goal are deliberately circumscribed and inadequate. One would surely think that when submissions are called for Bentleigh & Carnegie these would achieve major prominence in the Glen Eira News. Furthermore, that the actual proposals are listed. Not so. What we get in the latest Glen Eira News is the following – and buried at page 8. It consists of the usual spin – ie ‘land use, heritage’, etc. but without a single word actually describing what is proposed. Definitely deliberate because if residents were told that the drafts contain plans to permit 12 storey discretionary, and that heritage listed places can be 5 and 6 storeys, then there would probably be plenty of submissions forwarded to council. The plan is clear: keep residents as ignorant as possible unless they are prepared to plough through hundreds upon hundreds of pages in order to decipher the true vision. This is unconscionable and contrasts sharply with other councils’ approaches.

Simply ask yourselves – would any reader of the following image have any real idea of what lies in store?

 

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