Glen Eira Debates

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield)

My question is to the Minister for Planning. Minister, many residents in Elsternwick have expressed concern over the impact of overdevelopment on their local amenity and liveability. The Elsternwick structure plan projects a 20 per cent increase in population and responds to the expectation in your government’s Plan Melbourne  Refresh that will require 22000 residents to be accommodated in Glen Eira in the next 15 years.

The plan, which has been approved by the council, will now go to a planning panel and ultimately you as the minister will be responsible for any changes in the Elsternwick precinct. As the structure plan outlines no measures to cope with this densification and will lead to the loss of established houses in the area, Minister, what is the government doing and what are you doing  to prevent local families losing their homes and to protect the liveability of Elsternwick and the surrounds?

Council is gearing up to erect at least 5 multi-level car parks throughout Glen Eira – with the possibility of more. Bentleigh alone is to cop 2 according to the recent response to a public question. Yet, the published draft structure plan only admits to ONE multi level car park. We therefore have the ridiculous situation where a response to a public question can state:

The structure plan proposes to increase the parking throughout the centre by 264 public spaces. To increase the parking numbers Council will need to construct two multi deck car parks. (Page 9 of the minutes) 

Whilst the ‘endorsed’ draft structure plan only focuses on the Horsely Street recommendation: 

Development of a new multi-level car park with provision of retail activity at ground floor. (Page 41 of Structure Plan) 

No mention is made of the possibility of two multi-level car parks! 

The table below summarises council’s car parking proposals.

• How can the Bleazby site suddenly provide an additional 143 spots – unless the intent of course is to erect a multi level car park? Wouldn’t it be lovely if for once council was honest and informed residents clearly and precisely what it had in mind!

Thus we have to ask:

• Is council deliberately obfuscating and hiding its intentions?
• How much will all this cost and when will it be completed?
• How much public land will be flogged off to developers or leased to them?
• What Parking Precinct amendments will be introduced and will the levy be miniscule?
• Can you really cram 480 car parking spots into 3 levels or will this end up being more like 5 or 6 levels?

The following recording features part of the ‘community participation’ segment from last night’s council meeting. Please listen carefully to wonderful address by the resident, the applause for his comments, and in particular the unbelievable claims made by Ron Torres.

Torres is part of the ‘old guard’ – a senior member of council having begun his career at Glen Eira in 1996. As Director in charge of Planning & Place, Torres  has been intimately involved with all aspects of planning in Glen Eira for just on 20 years. Yet he claims that a planning scheme review was carried out with full ‘community consultation’ four or four and a half years ago! That, dear readers, is a blatant lie!!!!

The last Planning Scheme review took place in 2010 and council repeatedly asked for extensions so that they would not have to fulfill their legal obligations and review the scheme every four years as required. They were granted these exemptions until Wynne put his foot down and refused the final request. Council in fact did everything it could to delay the inevitable!

More to the point, as recently as August 2016, council’s own report on the 2016 Planning Scheme Review, show Torres’ comments to be dead wrong. There can be no excuse for such incompetence at best, or as we believe, the attempt to deceive and mislead!

Here are the relevant extracts from the minutes of 9^th August 2016 – less than 2 years ago!

How much faith should residents therefore have in these so-called ‘professionals’ and ‘experts’ when pronouncement after pronouncement is designed to deceive we believe, and at best, to pretend that good process and proper governance is inherent in everything this council does!

Tonight’s council meeting represents nothing less than a complete betrayal of resident views. Each structure plan was voted in with arguments that are disingenuous and basically incompetent.

The central issue of officers employing Section 20(4) of the Planning & Environment Act and thereby bypassing the community was voted in with Delahunty’s motion that this apply only to Commercial zones, Mixed Use Zones, and tellingly, to all residential areas where the existing interim control is more restrictive than what is proposed in the new versions of the structure plans. In other words, Urban Renewal areas in Carnegie and Elsternwick will now be rezoned to 12 storeys and the Mixed Use zones in Elsternwick will get their 6 or 8 storeys. All without the opportunity for the community to formally object. Good luck we say in removing these ‘interim’ heights when the full amendment goes out for consultation!

It is really laughable that Delahunty admitted that the recently released shadow drawings for Elsternwick were ‘rudimentary’ and is now calling for more detailed shadow analysis and traffic analysis. Yet, these 9 individuals pass these structure plans BEFORE this research is put before them and the public. Surely this information is vital to informed and sound decision making. Not after! (Silver was the only councillor to vote against the Elsternwick plans – but he voted for the other two).

We are also dismayed at the repetition of all those old irrelevant and erroneous shibboleths that have been trotted out for years and years – ie

• Magee and Sztrajt blaming VCAT when a decade of a planning scheme that had more holes in it than a swiss cheese was, and is, the problem
• The setting up of false dichotomies again and again – ie Glen Eira can’t say no to development or structure planning. No one that we know of has argued against development or against structure planning. Residents have been opposed to inappropriate development and for a decade have desired a structure plan that achieves at least a modicum of residential protection. It is council that has refused to even entertain the idea of a structure plan until ordered to undertake the work by Wynne!
• Appalling arguments of ‘we can’t say 4 storeys because VCAT and the Minister will not give us this, so let’s go for 12’!!!! We simply ask – on what basis was 12 storeys plucked out of thin air? How many units is a 12 storey building likely to house and what does this do to dwelling projections? What of communal open space and doesn’t council’s Urban Design Guidelines therefore not meet recent legislation on this issue if there happens to be more than 40 units? Where is this factored in? Or has it been conveniently forgotten?

To put it bluntly, we are having a hard time in deciding whether these 9 councillors are merely incompetent, ignorant, or mere mouth pieces of Torres, Mullen, McKenzie and developers who have undoubtedly already come knocking. Also worth pointing out that Torres claimed that 4 and a half years ago there was a planning scheme review with community consultation. There wasn’t. Council claimed that it had undertaken an ‘internal review’ and of course nothing changed. In fact the last review really occurred in 2010 and if council had their way would not have happened in 2016. They had applied for several extensions which was finally refused by Wynne and he ordered them to undertake the 2016 review. Torres should be reprimanded (again) for providing both incorrect and misleading information!

We urge all residents to listen to the recordings of this meeting and to carefully consider what was said, by whom, and to remember this when it comes time to vote!

Apparently not all residents fully understand the significance of the officer recommendations for Tuesday night’s vote on the structure plans.

We reiterate: every single major planning issue has been done under Section 20(4) of the Planning & Environment Act, 1987 – thereby excluding residents from the right to have any input, plus practically removing the possibility of major change down the line!

Leopards clearly don’t change their spots, so here we are again – going down the same anti-democratic, anti-community pathway. Here’s the sad history of 20(4) –

• The introduction of the residential zones in August 2013 – in total secrecy, without consultation, and now acknowledged as a complete disaster
• The introduction of the ‘interim height’ amendments for Bentleigh & Carnegie in 2016. Again no consultation.
• Now the recommendation for a resolution that endorses the ‘built form measures’ etc. That means 12 storeys for Elsternwick & Carnegie and rezoning of heaps of other properties and doubling the size of activity centres! – all without an iota of strategic justification!

Only a fool would believe that if Wynne says ‘yes’ to 12 storeys in Carnegie & Elsternwick for these ‘interim controls’ that when council finally gets around to a full amendment (in a further couple of years at best) he is likely to reduce these heights and zonings.  Council knows this fully well. Plus they will be able to argue that 12 storeys is now an ‘established’ reality so no point in seeking to reduce height years down the track. This is just another example of sheer bastardry, sleight of hand, and the attempt to camouflage what is really going on. If it wasn’t, then the significance of 20(4) would be clearly explained and justified. It wouldn’t be buried in a wordy, vague, and ultimately reprehensible recommendation!

Council has released its structure plans for Bentleigh, Carnegie & Elsternwick. No sign of Virginia Estate. There is also the abysmal Urban Design Guidelines – replete again with pretty pictures and nothing beyond ResCode or what already exists for the NRZ.

However, residents need to be very, very concerned about one of the recommendations in particular. It is repeated verbatim for each of the structure plans. In case some readers don’t grasp the significance of what follows we want to make it absolutely clear –

• Section 20(4) of the Planning & Environment Act means NO OBJECTOR RIGHTS, NO INPUT BY THE COMMUNITY. Council simply sends off its proposals to the Minister and he then rubber stamps or doesn’t rubber stamp. If this is voted through, then we don’t even get to see the documentation!
• It is simply unconscionable that this council is recommending that controls be put into place (regardless of whether they are ‘interim’ or not) without any consultation and without providing residents the opportunity to object and go to a planning panel.

Then as if to provide the illusion that this council is totally committed to community consultation we find this recommendation from the Urban Design document.

Once something is gazetted (as with the first recommendation) the chances of it changing are Buckley’s. If council is so committed to listening to their residents then there is no reason to apply under Section 20(4) of the Planning & Environment Act. This is just more of the same dirty tactics that has become endemic in Glen Eira City Council. We also doubt that any councillor will have the guts to knock back these recommendations!

Whilst we have literally only scanned the hundreds and hundreds of pages released today, we urge residents to carefully consider the following:

• No mandatory height limits proposed
• Council considers it okay for 8 to 12 storeys abutting public open space
• No real changes from ResCode – when council has the right to change the schedules
• Not one iota of quantifiable data and justification for 12 storeys, nor for doubling the sizes of activity centres
• Persisting with high rise car parks that cost a fortune but with no figures or budgets provided
• No inkling of which neighbourhood centres are next in line!

We could go on and on, and will in the next few posts. But this is another example of rule by unelected bureaucrats and has nothing to do with community views and aspirations.!!!!