GE Open Space

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April 10, 2013

The Show Goes On!

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

Local Laws Committee

LIPSHUTZ: said that of the ‘major issues’ discussed one was the ‘tree policy’. Reports should come back ‘sometime in May’ from corporate counsel. On ‘organised sport’ rather than ‘amend’ this in the Local Law the committee decided that ‘explanatory notes’ would be incorporated and that these would set ‘out what we see as organised sport’. Also stated that the tree register issue was ‘complex’. At first they were thinking about a ‘point system’ and then rejected it so other alternatives had to now be investigated. So ‘rather than rushing it’ and ‘getting it wrong’ it is wise to do it properly.

COMMENT : Requests for a Tree Register are now a decade old. This is certainly not ‘rushing it’! Also a decade old is the continuing farce over ‘organised sport’ and the laughing stock that this council has become statewide. Remember the ongoing Frisbee affair, the schleppers, the kids in the park, and last but not least, the zombies! And the $64 question – does Lipshutz son’s Frisbee group now have a permit? And why oh why can’t the community be privy to the rationale behind jettisoning the points system that countless other councils employ? Do other councillors even know the logic behind this decision?

Sport and Rec Committee

LIPSHUTZ: moved an amendment about ‘last paragraph of second page’ (WRONG he is referring to the sentence about BURKE) but wanted added that there would be an ‘update about policy’ at the next meeting. Magee seconded this amendment. Lipshutz continued saying that one of the main issues was sporting ground allocations. Said that ‘officers deal with that on the basis of policy’ . Said that Burke ‘went through that with us’ and that at the next meeting there would be an ‘update’ on policy. Stated that ground allocation is the domain of officers on ‘policy’ that council has approved. Burke at the next committee meeting will report back.

MAGEE: for a city with so little open space, sport ground allocation can ‘be divisive’ and ‘very disappointing for clubs’. A “clear policy can be put in place’ for allocations. This has ‘been done successfully’ for years and he ‘welcomes’ officers’ input into ‘putting the policy together’ and is ‘looking forward’ to seeing that policy.

COMMENT: Here we have it – despite Lipshutz’s attempts at obfuscation! There IS NO SPORTING GROUND ALLOCATIONS POLICY. There never has been! All has been left in the hands of Burke. From these comments councillors would appear to again be shying away from any attempt to pass a resolution on the authority to decide who gets what!

VCAT WATCH

Lipshutz provided the ‘commentary’ on the cited decision and claimed it again ‘comes down to what residents want’ as opposed to what the VCAT member wants. Said that the government wants more ‘denSity housing’ etc and that ‘we can’t do anything about that’. Also that ‘one member’ is pro-development’ and another member is opposed to development.

DELAHUNTY – when reading the article she noted that councillors argued ‘against setbacks’ on Hawthorn Rd (Emmy Monash decision and developer handing out How-to-vote cards) and that she argued for setbacks and now ‘another time those same councillors didn’t argue’ for setbacks. So it’s ‘no wonder’ that anyone, including VCAT is ‘confused….I’m confused’.

COMMENT: We’ve commented ad nauseum on the continual scapegoating of VCAT as the villain. Yes, they only need to ‘consider’ policy, but when a council such as Glen Eira has no structure plans, no height limits, no public realm policy, no parking precinct plans and after three years of the Planning Scheme Review has done practically nothing on what it stated it would do (ie Heritage reviews, open space levies etc.) then one must question how much ‘certainty’ this council gives to developers as opposed to residents and the protection of amenity.

CENTENARY PARK PAVILION

MAGEE moved the motion to accept the motion. It’s been needed for over ten years. His boys played for the teams and they ‘had to change’ under the trees because no changing rooms. Now it will be a change from the ‘dilapidated’ old building to the impressive ‘state of the art’ new pavilion. Said the report was ‘very in depth’ and the only ‘down side’ was that it was forecast to take 20 months to complete but the recommendation will let council ‘move onto detailed design phase’.

LIPSHUTZ: agreed that this has been ‘a long time coming’. Now they can with the $500,000 dollar grant from the government.

SOUNNESS moved the amendment that a landscaping plan be added to the recommendation and that the car parking plan be deferred until a ‘detailed landscape design assessment’ was done. Magee refused to accept the amendment. The amendment was then seconded by Pilling. Sounness went on to say that he felt there had to be discussion about ‘cost’ of car parks and he’s got questions about the use of the current land. Said that ‘more discussion’ is needed and that the information provided is ‘insufficient’ – that he wants ‘more information’.

PILLING: wasn’t opposed to the motion and the pavilion was a good idea and needed. But was concerned ‘about the process here’ in the car park design. Compared this to GESAC when ‘at the last moment’ there were 2 instances of extending the car parks and that ‘there seems to be a bit of a similar trend happening here’ . Said that he had asked if there was any loss of open space and that ‘I would like to see that information’ so that they could then ‘really discuss the merit’ . He was urging for a ‘cautionary approach’ and not to ‘just rush in’ and that council needs to ‘investigate all opportunities’.

DELAHUNTY: said that she’d asked a lot of questions and that as councillors they ‘do have an option to go back’ when the design is completed and look at the issue of car parking again and ‘whether or not’ this part ‘goes ahead’. Said that she’d like to see consultation with community and stakeholders about the design. Said she wasn’t so worried about loss of open space because council ‘gains’ in terms of safety and that the ‘new open space’ could be made into something ‘beautiful’.

LIPSHUTZ: said this was only about design and the building of the car park is ‘not what’s going to happen’. Yes, ‘we want it done properly’ and quickly. Once the design is done and ‘information that is brought to us by officers’ they can ‘have another look at it’. They can always say ‘no we’re not happy with that’ and order that the car park be redesigned. Said that the ‘analogy with GESAC is not valid’. GESAC did have a ‘car park planned’ but they were so ‘successful beyond our wildest dreams’.

HYAMS: ‘sympathised’ with Sounness and thought that they would be ‘better placed’ to look at issues of the car park and open space once the design was done because ‘then we’ll have a better idea’.

MAGEE: also ‘admired’ Sounness’ desire to protect the environment, but sometimes you have to be ‘selfish’ and say that he knows the area and the land and that no-one ever uses it. The two car parks date back to 1989 and the land was supposed to be for a kindergarten but with the amalgamation of councils nothing has been done with this. Didn’t think that there was anything on the land ‘worth protecting’ and that ‘the community does not venture into’ that space. Said that adding car park at building stage ‘makes good sense’ and brings ‘both car parks into one site’ and gives ‘extra car parking at no loss of open space’…’no net loss of open space’. Also removes a car park from the playground. It’s a ‘win-win’ and repeated that ‘there is no net loss of open space’.

AMENDMENT WAS PUT AND LOST. VOTING FOR – SOUNNES & PILLING. VOTING AGAINST: MAGEE, ESAKOFF, OKOTEL, LIPSHUTZ, HYAMS, DELAHUNTY.

COMMENT: We draw readers’ attention to several crucial points in the above:

1. the claim AGAIN, that officers’ reports are deficient in information

2. Whom to believe – Magee or Pilling. Pilling claims that he asked for information on loss of open space. Clearly that has not come back. Yet Magee is so adamant that there is no loss of current open space. What does he know that Pilling doesn’t know, or is this just another porkey that sounds good?

3. Given the history of this council, there has rarely if ever, been a change of mind, or even a review, of the original proposals once passed by council. There is, in our view, as much hope of saving this area of vegetation as there is of Melbourne winning the AFL premiership this year!

Return to original motion. DELAHUNTY said good to see funding from government even though this comes from slashing TAFE funding, and that the project itself ‘has merit’. Said that ‘we will consider the open space’ and what the ‘community feels’.

MAGEE: ‘long awaited’ ‘valuable addition’ and ‘welcomed the money from the state government’.

MOTION PUT – CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY

April 5, 2013

Done Deals?

Posted by gleneira under Caulfield Racecourse/C60, GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
[14] Comments

The items set down for Tuesday night’s council meeting are truly staggering, leaving us to ponder the very serious question of : how many done deals are we looking at? How much more spin will this community tolerate? Here are the lowlights:

CENTENARY PARK PAVILION DEVELOPMENT

More loss of public open space
More loss of mature trees
Another $600,000 for extended car parking
No traffic report or any statistics to justify these actions
No consultation with residents – just so called ‘stakeholders’ – ie ONLY SPORTSCLUBS
A ball park figure of $2.68 million

CENTRE OF RACECOURSE SPORTING FACILITIES

No mention of the independent consultant who was supposed to draft the report? Where is it?
From ‘no ball games’ the plan is now to have: 2 baseball diamonds, 5 soccer pitches, 1 footy oval, etc.
What secret discussions have been going on with the MRC, and Maccabi? Would council really propose something like this unless such discussions had already taken place?

LOCAL LAW & SPORT & RECREATION COMMITTEE MINUTES

Secret, closed meetings that continue with the useless navel gazing! Lipshutz promised the local law would be ready in February. There still is no Tree Register, nothing on Organised Sport, and a brief one sentence about ‘meeting procedures’. We are not privy to any of the ‘reports’.
Does the right hand really know what the left hand is doing? Why is the Sport & Rec committee suddenly discussing local laws? Why isn’t this done via full council meetings so that transparency is assured? When will the draft Local Law finally be ready or will it all be crammed into one meeting and thus hopefully rammed through like everything else this council does?

SELL OFF OF RESERVE

Is council really prepared to forego $40,000 because it might cost them $5000? Land has been valued at over $60,000 but council is willing to sell it for $20,000.
Is it mere coincidence that an adjacent property was sold last year and that the other neighbour is now about to acquire 130 sq metres for a song. Does he/she perhaps own the adjoining property and that we can expect an application to come in very soon for a huge development? Or are we merely being too cynical?

GESAC

More brilliant planning that has led to:

Another $120,000 to be spent on outfitting another ‘studio’
Another $125,000 spent on “better entrance and exit between the foyer and pool hall’
Still no word on costs for ‘liquidated damages’ and the Hansen & Yuncken legal battle

March 29, 2013

GESAC Car Park

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Open Space, GE Service Performance
[11] Comments

A reminder!

No councillor uttered the word ‘tree’, ‘open space’ when the decision was made
No mention by councillors or officers of the further loss of public open space
No consultation with residents
No mention of the destruction of huge gums
No mention that recently planted trees and shrubs would be ripped out
No preliminary traffic report or investigation
No clear and decipherable architect’s drawings revealing the extent of incursion into public open space
No upfront honesty from anyone!

We’ve visited the site again in recent days and found:

One huge gum is now dying because its roots have been torn to shreds. Certainly not a surprise when trenches are dug to at least 30 cm around it. That leaves the question as to whether or not a fully qualified arborist was called in to ensure that the excavations would not damage the few remaining trees left along Gardener’s Rd.
No change to the bus route to East Boundary Road. So much for years of ‘advocating’!
No costing on what the destruction of newly planted trees and shrubs will be and what it will cost to replace them

March 26, 2013

Booran Road Reservoir

Posted by gleneira under GE Consultation/Communication, GE Open Space
[22] Comments

COMMENT: We can of course only speculate as to the trigger for Southwick’s suggestion and what it really means. For starters, this would not have come out of thin air. There would have been countless ‘negotiations’ already going on behind the scenes with VicRoads, Council, bureaucrats, etc. From Council’s point of view we would think this is a ‘win-win’ situation in that restoring the reservoir to plain old open space is years off given council’s financial straits at this time. Remember, there is nothing budgeted for years to come. Dumping 100,000 cubic metres would become the perfect excuse for continuing not to do anything, yet appearing as the ‘savior’ of local sporting grounds!

Many, many questions need answering:

Why are parklands the focus? Why can’t the earth be transported to quarries, etc?
Is any of this dirt contaminated?
What access is there at Booran Reservoir?
How long will this go on given that planning on the ‘rail works’ is still in its infancy we’re told. We don’t even know whether this will be an under or over pass – so how will this affect the amount of dirt to be removed?
And why, oh why, does the public have to learn about such things from a newspaper and/or Hansard, and not directly from the well paid public relations department at Council?

February 16, 2013

GESAC: More Tales, Fibs & Spin

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Service Performance
[22] Comments

Here we go again! Officer reports that are incomplete, inaccurate and which deliberately neglect to mention, much less highlight, crucial factors that would impact on any decision making in a normal and transparent council. Add to this councillors who either haven’t been adequately briefed, or the more plausible explanation we believe, is that they quite willingly go along with this deception.

We are referring to the Council Meeting of 18^th December, 2012 when Council passed the resolution that another $600,000 (estimated) be spent on GESAC car parking. This is on top of the near $1,000,000 already spent in extending the existing Bailey Reserve car parking and to ‘relocate’ the playground. The motion that was passed in December read:

Crs Lipshutz/Lobo

That Council endorse Option A, additional car parking on the Bailey Reserve side of Gardeners Road, in order to provide additional car parking around Bailey Reserve. That Council continue to examine Option C, timed parking restrictions on the Bailey Reserve side of East Boundary Road, and Option D, East Boundary Road Median Strip parking.

Cr Sounness was the only councillor to vote against the motion. We also remind readers that the argument against the installation of an underground car park was the estimated cost of $1.5 million dollars. Now, when council has already spent this amount and it still hasn’t solved the problem, the argument switches to the laughable claim that underground parking was rejected primarily because women did not feel safe! No such excuse was proffered at the time of the original decision back in July 2011, yet it surfaces on this occasion. Some real scraping of the bottom of the ideas barrel here! Then there’s Lobo’s claim that ‘safety’ is an issue and therefore council is unable to ‘consult’. Quite ludicrous we think. From the architect’s drawing it would appear that cars will be parking perpendicular to the reserve. That means that they will have to either reverse into the spot, or more than likely, reverse back out into Gardiner’s Rd in order to exit. This street is also a bus route and it is extremely narrow. (So much for at least 2 years of”advocating’ that the bus route be switched to East Boundary Rd!) So we now will have cars reversing, buses passing, kids alighting, – all on a narrow residential street. Another great solution in averting ‘risk’.

The argument we love the best however is the one about councillors not wanting to see poor old cricketers and baseballers having to park in ‘residential streets’, or worse, Centre Rd. According to this logic, Gardiner’s Rd does not qualify as a ‘residential street’. Readers should go back to the December ‘debate’ and have a good laugh at the appalling level of argument, and plain old humbug. (See: https://gleneira.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/gesac-read-weep/)

But it gets even worse in terms of what happened on December 18^th and the total failure of this administration and its councillors to be transparent and accountable. There cannot be any excuse for failing to fully inform residents that more open space will be lost and that bitumen and car parking are the priorities in Glen Eira regardless of cost. Here’s what was not written or stated:

Throughout the entire officer’s report there is NOT A SINGLE MENTION of the fact that open space WITHIN BAILEY RESERVE will be diminished and turned into more car parking spots. The only sentence of any relevance on the issue is this feeble, and ultimately misleading one-liner – “A guiding principle has been to try to avoid any further reduction of public open space”.
Not one councillor in the ‘debate’ referred to the encroachment on Bailey Reserve itself. In fact, Magee proudly proclaimed: “WE’RE TAKING AWAY A BIT OF NATURE STRIP AND GETTING A MUCH NEEDED CAR PARK”. The photos below show that much, much more than a ‘bit of nature strip’ is going. Lipshutz in turn could only say that as ‘victims of our success’ that more car parks “won’t have any impact’ on the reserve. So much for accuracy, and so much for revealing all the facts.
Yet, the plan that was part of this item, makes it absolutely clear that Bailey reserve itself would be hacked to pieces and that more open space will be lost. Didn’t any councillor look at this? Didn’t the author of the item (unnamed of course!) look at the plan? Or was all this done in the hope that NO-ONE would bother looking at the detail so residents could once again be easily duped into believing the half-truths and mistruths that issue from this council?
Finally, what of the trees? The almost illegible table on the left hand side of the diagram states ‘No. of trees to be retained’ and ‘no. of trees to be removed’. The actual figures are impossible to read. Yet, no-one even uttered the word ‘trees’ and it does not appear anywhere in the officer’s written report. The plan certainly has no trees actually included in the diagram! The root systems have been badly mauled and it would not be any surprise to find council’s arborist in the very near future reporting that the tree is “unstable’ or “diseased” or “unsafe” and that it has to be removed! After all, this is Glen Eira so what are a few fine gum specimens, or other long established trees, or even recent landscaping that cost the earth no doubt, compared to a GESAC car-park extension?

We’ve visited the site in the past few days and below are some photos taken over several days of the ongoing works. We’ve decided to present them in their full glory, rather than as a slide show. Please note:

Photo 1 displays the area cordoned off WITHIN BAILEY RESERVE before work started
Photo 2 displays the original footpath/nature strip which is located to the LEFT of the gum and has now been removed
Other photos reveal the new ‘path’ that is well inside Bailey Reserve itself, plus the shredded roots of the gum.