Glen Eira Debates

Here is a very real scenario that has now descended onto residents as a result of Amendment C110. To illustrate our argument the picture below features the Bentleigh carving up of streets PRIOR to the current Amendment. Readers may well ask themselves:

1. Why the jagged lines everywhere? Why should a property that is 11 houses from Centre Rd be included in Housing Diversity and the house that is 12^th be designated as Minimal Change? What is the strategic justification for such demarcation?
2. Why should one side of a street be designated as Housing Diversity and the other side of the same street as Minimal Change? Again, questions about the efficacy of strategic planning and justification come into it. See map below taken from the OLD VERSION of the planning scheme.

With the new Amendment c110 ALL AREAS ARE NOW DESIGNATED AS worthy of 4 STOREY DEVELOPMENT (IE BROWN)

Almost by stealth, residents in these areas now face the real possibility of waking up to find that their residential streets have suddenly become fair game for 4 storey apartment blocks and heaven knows how many units. But that’s if you happen to live in the 11^th house along Mahvo for example and on a certain side of the street. If you reside in the 12^th house on that side of the street then you are technically in minimal change. However, you do face the prospect of having a 4 storey place smack bang next to you cutting out light, overlooking, and not a peep about traffic management plans anywhere within this amendment. There’s also the prospect of 8 or 10 or 12 storeys in the commercial centres just up the road, since this is open slather with no designated height limits, structure plans, or anything for the area.  Please remember that all of this has been achieved WITHOUT PUBLIC CONSULTATION AND WITHOUT ANY ADEQUATE  EXPLANATION TO RESIDENTS. It still remains to be seen how much of this amendment will stand up to the machinations of developers and the rulings of VCAT  – and last but not least – how well this council will actually enforce its own planning scheme. We are not very optimistic on this final point.

The infamous C110 is now available. We will be commenting on this amendment over the next few postings. This post concentrates on the Housing & Residential parameters as stated. All extracts are verbatim quotes from the document and uploaded here.

This amendment has been prepared by the Minister for Planning who is the planning authority for this amendment.The amendment has been made at the request of the Glen Eira City Council.

COMMENT: So much for the myth that Council did not know well and truly beforehand that community consultation would not be occurring. Nor does it excuse the fact that the date submitted to the department was well before the public questions on consultation were tabled at council meetings. The responses were thus untruthful and deceitful.

The amendment applies the NRZ to the Minimal Change areas, the RGZ to the Housing Diversity areas and the GRZ to the small areas around the periphery of the Housing Diversity areas and along transport routes.

COMMENT: Nothing could be clearer than that HOUSING DIVERSITY HAS EXPANDED! Yet Council, apart from admitting changes to the Alma Club site and one other, still maintain that nothing much has changed and that the amendment is simply a ‘translation’ of current zones.

Another objective of Council is to promote the integrated planning of the city. Integrated planning involves working with the community, residents, traders, service providers and other stakeholders to enhance the quality of Glen Eira’s suburbs and their environmental, economic and social sustainability. Integrated planning involves looking beyond traditional town planning solutions. It is important to encourage people to participate in the development of their city and to develop overall visions and plans for areas. It involves holistically looking at a wide range of issues in the local community including; infrastructure, social planning, economic development, recreation and capital works.

COMMENT: So much for the spin versus the reality! So much for ‘integrated planning’ that involves the community. To include such blatant propaganda in an official document that has no relationship to actual events is both insulting to residents and says much about the workings of council.

• Facilitate high quality urban design and architecture that will enhance neighbourhood character.

• Encourage the retention of existing vegetation, in particular vegetation and trees which contribute to the City’s tree canopy.

• Encourage energy efficient housing design, landscape design, construction materials and techniques that will minimise environmental impacts in residential developments.

• Encourage residents and developers to adopt more environmentally friendly practices such as reducing water usage, recycling and reducing energy use.

• Encourage rainwater retention and usage in larger developments.

• Ensure that the community is involved in decision making about their neighbourhood.
  

• Ensure that the traffic impacts are adequately addressed when considering new residential development.

• Ensure that where new development places an increased burden on infrastructure it contributes to the upgrading of infrastructure. 

COMMENT: All motherhood statements that have lacked and continue to lack strategies and policies to enforce these objectives. We have commented numerous times on council’s refusal to introduce Environmental Sustainable Design, water saving design, traffic management precinct plans into its planning scheme. These sentences merely continue the moratorium on action. They are intended to sound good, but are meaningless. How wonderful too that ‘infrastructure’ gets a mention when council REMOVED ITS DEVELOPMENT CONTRIBUTIONS LEVY. Ironically, they may now be forced to re-introduce it!

• Using the Commercial Centres Policy to strengthen the core of strip shopping centres, identify declining centres and identify new opportunities for non-retail functions. 

• Using the Monash Medical Centre Precinct Structure Using the Non Residential Uses in Residential Zones Policy to provide some certainty when planning to establish non residential uses in residential zones (eg medical centres, childcare centres).

• Using the Heritage Policy to manage new development (including additions, alterations and demolition of all or parts of a heritage place) in all areas covered by the Heritage Overlay.

COMMENT: These sentences are possibly the most damning in the entire document since they exhibit for all to see the sheer incompetence of council’s and the minister’s planning department(s). It simply reveals that Glen Eira council either does not check its work carefully enough, or that it does not even know what is in its own planning scheme. PLEASE NOTE: Council does not have a ‘commercial centres policy’ – that was removed over a year ago as was the Monash Medical centre (and it was never a structure plan!). Childcare centres are lumped together with medical centres. It seems that Glen Eira planners don’t know that they introduced a separate ‘childcare’ policy and removed it from the ‘non residential uses’ quite recently. Sloppy, inept, and totally unprofessional!

FUTURE STRATEGIC WORK

• For housing diversity areas, in conjunction with Melbourne Water, further investigating the capacity of drainage infrastructure to accommodate multi-unit development.
  

• Developing local structure plans / urban design frameworks to guide development in the neighbourhood centres.
  

• Investigating a vegetation management program which considers appropriate controlsand guidelines to ensure vegetation protection.
  

• Developing environmental sustainability guidelines for residential development bydrawing together the best practice in this area to ensure that new residential development is more environmentally sustainable
  

• Developing “suburb” plans for each suburb which integrate land use and developmentplanning, with planning for infrastructure, capital works, recreation, parks and gardens,street trees and business development.
  

• Developing local area traffic management plans and parking precinct plans to control the effects of parking and traffic intrusion in residential areas.

• Implementing local area traffic management changes in existing areas in consultation with communities to improve safety and amenity and discourage use by inappropriate traffic.
  

• Investigating mechanisms which require developers to undertake street tree planting.
  

COMMENT: Promises, promises which we believe will never be introduced or undertaken given the record of this council over the past decade and its abject failure to make a move on most of these aspirations. The 2010 Planning Scheme Review, plus the 2011 Planisphere report recommended reviewing Heritage Areas. This hasn’t been touched since 1996! Readers also need to note that the accompanying ‘policies’ in this document go as far back as 1999. The promises of years and years ago remain the unfulfilled promises of today. This does not fill us with confidence that any of these ‘future’ plans will be acted upon – but they sure as hell sound good for any resident who might decide to actually read the amendment and/or the planning scheme.

We take this opportunity to respond to the comments made by Cr Pilling featured above. It’s worth noting that this posting has now been removed!

GE Debates is labelled as ‘unfair’, ‘irrelevant’, consisting of ‘cowards’ and ‘untruths’ amongst other things.  It is also claimed that we do not ‘verify’ our data. All of these labels are symptomatic of a council and its councillors who believe that by attacking the messenger they can absolve themselves from having to deal with the countless issues we have raised over the past 3 years. On every vital aspect of governance this council has underperformed. Here is a list in case Cr Pilling has forgotten –

• Meeting procedures that stand in stark contrast to every other council in the state
• Consultation or lack thereof especially in relation to the residential zones, budgets and council plans
• Lack of transparency re countless decision making processes – especially planning and role of the DPC
• Acceptance of sub-standard reporting by officers
• Lack of commitment and action on numerous issues – carbon reduction targets; tree register, vegie gardens, cctv cameras; car sharing; ESD policies; WSUD policies; Urban Design Frameworks – and the list goes on and on.
• Repeated failures to provide comprehensive cost-benefit analysis within officer reports

For each of these issues we have taken the time and effort to contrast this council’s performance with that of its neighbours. We have supplied facts, figures, statistics, and we believe sound argument. Glen Eira Council, in contrast, has repeatedly come up short when it comes to these basic elements. Residents need to ask themselves just one thing – Why? Why is it that other councils can achieve all these things and Glen Eira is incapable, or even worse, unwilling? And, if we are so ‘irrelevant’ then why bother putting up such a post and why the repeated attempts in council meetings to answer our criticisms.

Pilling’s post is typical then of the modus operandi of this council. Ignore the issue and slay the messenger. If the issue just can’t be ignored then there is always spin or secrecy. The most self incriminating comment that Pilling can make and which exemplifies his own inadequacies is the sentence – In my view the authors of this blog are trapped in the bitterness and outdated practices of local government as conducted in the last century….. . It is certainly illuminating and sad, that a current councillor believes that the call for transparency, accountability, and sound financial management belongs in the last century! Our view is that times may have changed, but that Glen Eira Council remains marooned in a past where oligarchies ruled and their actions went unquestioned. In 2013 thanks to the internet and social media all is open to scrutiny. That is the foundation of good government – so sorely missing in Glen Eira thanks to the inability of its councillors to recognise and accept this simple fact.   As decision makers councillors should be called to account when their decisions so often fly in the face of community aspirations and their arguments lack all credibility and substance.

Finally it is worth pointing out that over 461,000 hits must be a sure sign of ‘irrelevance’!!!!!!