This is an exceedingly long post but one which is arguably the most important we have ever put up. It features the events surrounding the planning application for an Ormond 3 storey, 11 dwelling development at the last council meeting. The officer’s recommendation was to grant a NOD for 10 dwellings.
We believe the ‘debate’ that occurred on this application epitomises all that is wrong with planning in Glen Eira. It reveals the usual bogus and contradictory claims made by all and sundry, as well as the full inadequacies of the current planning scheme and its total disregard for residents in Housing Diversity Areas. We also wonder if Pilling and Sounness in particular, have the foggiest idea about planning or they are just there to support whatever is dished up to them. We can only shake our heads at the naivety, if not straight out stupidity of various councillors.
This will become obvious upon reading. We remind residents that the Emmy Monash development mentioned throughout, involved the granting of a permit for a 4 storey development on Hawthorn Rd. Lipshutz moved the motion about removing setbacks and this was supported by the majority. It also came to light that the developer just happened to be the same individual who was handing out How To Vote cards for the gang! (No conflict of interest was declared!).
We urge all residents concerned about the future of their neighbourhoods to pay careful attention to what transpired last Tuesday night. Our ‘commentary’ on this fiasco will feature in a future post – this is just a blow by blow description of our councillors ‘at work’!
Esakoff moved to reject the application. Seconded by Okotel.
ESAKOFF: refusal based on on ‘visual bulk’, ‘excessive height’, doesn’t meet ResCode standards of the planning scheme and doesn’t respect ‘neighbourhood character’ and Housing Diversity policy. Said that there are ‘several factors’ that fail to meet requirements here and that couldn’t be addressed by merely adding conditions. Spoke about ‘amenity impact on neighbours’ and ‘intensity of development’ as well as ‘set backs’ – especially building right on a laneway where bedrooms would be overlooking the laneway. It’s an ‘overdevelopment’ and therefore not ‘appropriate’ or ‘fits into’ this position in Ormond.
OKOTEL: started by saying that everyone thinks that ‘appropriate development’ should happen in Glen Eira but that the ‘key word is appropriate’. The planning scheme she claimed ‘sets out for everyone’…..‘what is considered appropriate’ and that this application ‘doesn’t meet those standards’. It ‘falls outside the upper limits’ of height, site coverage, and neighbourhood character.
PILLING: whilst he ‘appreciated’ the arguments put up so far, he was supporting the recommendation. The property is in a neighbourhood centre and a retail centre, and ‘within a very short distance’ there’s the railway station. Policy is to ‘encourage development in these areas’ and therefore ‘not in minimal change areas’. Thought that council therefore ‘had to be consistent’ since they were ‘trying to get appropriate increased development in these areas’. The application shouldn’t be refused even though it is slightly over specifications and there are ‘some detrimental aspects’ but this still shouldn’t ‘sink’ an application ‘like this’. If the motion to refuse failed then he would be moving a motion to accept the recommendations.
DELAHUNTY: said she didn’t ‘like’ the setbacks of the proposal and ‘I’m confused by my fellow councillors’ by applying the criteria of setbacks to ‘knock back applications on the one hand’ and then ‘not in another’. Referred back to the Emmy Monash 4 storey application on Hawthorn Rd that was passed and ‘some councillors’ argued then that setbacks didn’t matter. Now they’re arguing that it does matter. Said she was ‘confused’ about the setbacks and the ‘different directions this is taking’.
MAGEE: admitted that he had ‘no idea which way I was going to vote tonight’ and was hoping ‘to get persuaded by some really good arguments’ but that ‘so far all speakers have failed to engage me’. The laneway ‘probably saves it’ and then it starts to ‘encroach’ into residential. Asked then ‘where to draw the line’? ‘If nothing else, we have to be consistent’. Was hoping that someone could convince him but he told councillors that they’d just have to wait to ‘see which way my hand goes up’.
SOUNNESS: said he’d try to be ‘inspirational’ but that Magee ‘was a hard act to follow’. From a single house ‘we’re going to stick 11 dwelling on there’..’that’s a lot’…’a big up’ in density. But he’d ‘rather have a bunch of people’ that are close to transport and shops than put ‘in the middle of minimal change areas’. Asked where all the ‘extra people’ can go and what can be protected. Here, ‘they’re next to shops, they’re next to public transport’. Further, ‘it’s not a beautiful place to live’ and he wouldn’t like to live there, but ‘it’s not meant to be a luxurious’ garden area. ‘This is a place for dense living’ and you put this where ‘services and facilities are’. This application ‘might have issues with design’ but that’s the job of council’s urban designer and there are conditions that will deal with trees and access. Said that the ‘issue’ that the application ‘fails on is height’ but the rise of the land makes this about landscaping. He supports the recommendation.
HYAMS: agreed with Sounness and Pilling that ‘this is the right place for increased development’. Overall he wouldn’t ‘have a problem’ but he doesn’t ‘particularly like’ this proposal. Said there’s a difference between saying that we can have increased development and that ‘this is the building that should go there’. Thought that ‘too many issues’ on this application ‘required rectification’. Mentioned site coverage and ‘up the road from a flood zone’. Said that ‘we have rules’ and these ‘rules say 60% site coverage’ so this should be ‘60% site coverage’. It’s also 9.6 metres high and should only be ‘9 metres maximum’. Also that it’s right on the laneway also ‘concerns’ him. Trucks use the laneway and he wouldn’t like to have trucks going ‘thundering’ down outside his bedroom window so that ‘also concerns me’. ‘Generally’ he doesn’t mind tinkering with application because individually all these things wouldn’t necessary occasion a refusal, but taken together ‘there are too many of these things’.
Said that Delahunty’s view of lack of consistency over the Emmy Monash decision but that the setbacks there were ‘the front setbacks’ and ‘still quite a few metres off Hawthorn Rd’ unlike this one which would be right ‘up against the laneway. Said that Pilling and Sounness’s foreshadowed motion doesn’t deal with the issues he’s outlined and ‘doesn’t make those adjustments’ so if councillors want ‘adjustments’ they should vote for the motion to refuse.
ESAKOFF: ‘an application either meets policy or it doesn’t. This clearly doesn’t’. Reiterated the argument about ‘too much’ site coverage and height and said that ‘if there was a way to address this via conditions that would have been done’ but here it would require a ‘total redesign’. No application like this would come in for a minimal change area. ‘It is in the right spot, housing diversity’ but ‘it has to meet policy’. ‘Increased development is right for this street’ but ‘it has to fit’. Urged councillors ‘not to look at the address’ but as an ‘application for anywhere in Glen Eira and vote with your conscience’.
HYAMS put the motion. Voting in favour of refusal were – HYAMS, ESAKOFF, OKOTEL. Voting against – MAGEE, DELAHUNTY, PILLING, SOUNNESS, LOBO. Motion lost.
Pilling then moved the motion to accept ‘as printed’ and Sounness seconded. Neither Pilling nor Sounness spoke to the motion.
OKOTEL: said that what worries her is that this suggests that ‘it is acceptable to push the limits of the Glen Eira Planning Scheme’ and also to ‘exceed them’. Said that there’s a policy in place because after consultation with residents that ‘was seen to be what was needed’ for the area and ‘if we don’t apply and uphold our planning policy’ then the question is whether ‘we can blame VCAT for not upholding our policy’? Said that it’s important for councillors to ‘stick to our policy’ and don’t allow applications that go beyond height and site coverage or set backs. Since these standards have been set they should be supported. This application just says that ‘it is acceptable to push those boundaries’ and that ‘anything goes’ in Glen Eira. Went on to say that the planning scheme developed in ‘consultation with residents’ is ‘what they want’ and councillors should stick to that. “I think it’s a sorry day when councillors cannot uphold their own scheme’ and then ‘look to vcat’ when it says that council doesn’t care about its own scheme.
DELAHUNTY: asked Akehurst a question. Since both Okotel and Esakoff had said that the application doesn’t meet ‘planning policy’ she wanted to know whether ‘this application meets planning policy or does not meet planning policy’?
AKEHURST: said he was caught in ‘crossfire’ here and that the application ‘demonstrated’ the problems with people not understanding town planning. Stated that there’s the government code called ResCode which is how the government thinks ‘Victorians should live’ and that has ‘prescriptive standards’ and in this application some have been met which Okotel and Esakoff pointed out and some haven’t such as the 9.6 height which should be 9 metres. ‘There have been other standards which have been breached in this application’ – ie site coverage. ‘But this is where it gets difficult’ since Rescode is ‘interpreted as a guide’ and councils are being asked to ‘have overall’ views on the ‘objectives’ of each of these standards. So, ‘it is possible to say that objectives of certain measures of ResCode have been met’…’even though the prescription has been clearly breached’.
DELAHUNTY: said that she is again ‘expressing my confusion’. Quoted Okotel in saying that it would be a sad day when council doesn’t apply its policy. ‘I stood here and I argued as hard as I could about the setbacks on Hawthorn Road’. Disagreed that ‘it doesn’t affect people’s amenity’ and that people complained ‘directly to the applicant’ and to council about the setbacks ‘and we didn’t enforce’ it. ‘That was a sorry day!’ ‘This is in line with policy’.
ESAKOFF: agreed that it is a ‘sorry day when we can’t uphold our policy’ and when they do what vcat is criticised for doing.‘ Our policy is supposed to be superior to all other municipalities’ and that ‘we protect our residents more than all other municipalities’. Said there’s policy and that ‘we need to be upholding those’.
MAGEE: said that policies ‘are not laws, policies are guidelines’ and it’s up to councillors to accept, reject or modify the proposal and that ‘we’ve had several weeks to do that’. If it’s all about just policy ‘then we might as well not be here’ since they’re superfluous. Asked why councillors who ‘do not have a 4 year degree in town planning’ are necessary if the policy should dictate everything. Said councillors are just ‘mums and dads’ who ‘live next door to developments’ and the decisions are based on asking oneself whether they’d like to live next door to something like this. ‘We will always interpret a guideline the way we need to interpret a guidelines’. Rescode and the planning scheme has to be looked at by officers and then councillors. Said that councillors have to make the decision based on what they think after digesting all the information and not just according to the guildelines or policy because there’s no need for councillors if that’s all they had to do.
HYAMS: said that in planning some things are ‘objective’ and some things ‘subjective’. Some things are ‘measures’ like site coverage and ‘easy to apply’ but other things like neighborhood character and front setbacks ‘are a bit harder to apply’. Setbacks are ‘measured by the average of other houses in the street’. Emmy Monash has got one nearby property right on the street and another one across the road, ‘right back’ ‘so there’s room for interpretation’. This is also true for neighbourhood character. What councillors should be doing is that ‘where it’s prescriptive you apply it’ and ‘where there’s room for interpretation you interpret it’. Referred back to last council meeting and the sign that was applied for the Kittens car wash. Here ‘policy was very clear’ in that there was ‘nothing in planning policy that said you couldn’t have that sign’ but some councillors were worried about the content of the sign and its influence on gender issues. These arguments he claimed ‘weren’t relevant’ but that some councillors ‘used their subjectivity on that’. And ‘a couple of those same councillors are saying that we should let this’ application go through. Mentioned another decision about alcohol for lawn bowls club and some councillors again voting against this but are ‘somehow managing to vote’ in favour of the application ‘tonight’. So he doesn’t want to hear ‘lectures on consistency’ from those councillors.
MAGEE then asked ‘which ones’?
DELAHUNTY: then said ‘I think Okotel because she also voted against the sign. Is that right?’
HYAMS: said that since Okotel is opposing the motion she’s being ‘consistent’
OKOTEL: asked Delahunty to withdraw her remarks.
HYAMS: said that Delahunty’s comment ‘was out of order’ since she ‘didn’t have the floor’ but didn’t say ‘anything that goes against the Local Law’. Went on to say that there are subjective elements and that ‘it’s up to each councillor to apply them as they see fit’. This application has some breaches which ‘are a lot less’ capable of involving ‘subjectivity’ and because ‘this breaches so many prescriptive measures we should refuse it’.
PILLING: thought that everyone’s got the ‘best intentions’ and that’s why these sorts of applications come to council since there are always ‘two sides’ to the issue. ‘On balance’ he’s recommending accepting the recommendation.
MOTION PUT: Esakoff called for a division. In favour: Delahunty, Sounness, Pilling, Magee, Lobo. Against: Esakoff, Okotel, Hyams. Motion carried.
