Glen Eira Debates

Given what has been happening in Seymour Road, Elsternwick with the destruction of two period homes, and council’s failure to have up to date heritage overlays, we thought it worthwhile to revisit a post we made in October 2018.

The significance of the ‘action plan’ of 2018, is that council has watered down most of the promises given to residents in 2016 at the time of the Planning Scheme Review. We repeat what we wrote at the time and urge residents to note how much of what was promised no longer exists in its entirety, or has morphed into meaningless, discretionary controls only. More to the point, most of these promises have now been pushed back years and years. Heritage is the perfect case in point.

We have created a table below which features the promises from 2016 and put them alongside what is the plan today. One major difference between 2016 and 2018 that should be highlighted is the disappearance of any intention to introduce a Neighbourhood Character Policy. In 2016 we got these statements:

A Neighbourhood Character Policy is recommended to clarify when protection of existing character is required, and clarity on neighbourhood character design outcomes for ‘change areas’

AND

The work plan also recommends that the residential zones support the neighbourhood character policy by including additional neighbourhood character objectives and increased schedule standards to protect and enhance character.

In 2018, this has gone and with no explanation, justification, or further reference, is replaced with this single sentence – The implementation of the Quality Design Guidelines addresses the Planning Scheme Review 2016 Work Plan action to implement a Neighbourhood Character Policy. 

There are several things to note about these proposed changes:

• The Quality Design Guidelines only apply to the existing structure plans of Bentleigh, Elsternwick and Carnegie. They are not mandatory.
• Its status in the Planning Scheme is nothing more than a ‘reference document’ and hence is basically useless. At least a full blown POLICY, whilst also not mandatory, would at least have more weight at VCAT than an appended ‘reference’ document.
• The 2016 statements applied to ALL housing diversity, not just the 3 Activity Centres of Bentleigh, Carnegie & Elsternwick.  Yet even in these latter activity centres nothing has changed in terms of the schedules for permeability, site coverage, open space, etc.

There is much, much more which has been tossed out in the 2018 version -ie

• The major heritage ‘review’ is now set down for the Major Activity Centres with no time line as to when the entire municipality review will be completed.
• Tree registers and open space amendments are years down the track
• And poor old neighbourhood/local centres such as Ormond, McKinnon, East Bentleigh, etc.will not have any protection for years and years. Council is only committing to ‘one or two’ urban design frameworks starting in 2021/22!!!! PLUS no longer any talk of ‘structure plans’ for these centres just Urban Design Frameworks!!!!.
• Limiting the impact of car parking basements is also watered down so instead of definitive standards such as Bayside implemented years ago in its schedules to the zones (ie max of 75% site coverage) our council is happy with statements such as this in its so called QUALITY Design Guidelines – Buildings should minimise basement footprints within the front and rear setbacks to provide for deep planting. No ‘musts’, no numbers, no changes to the schedules throughout the municipality.

Here is the table which quotes verbatim the August 2016 report and the current 2018 report. We have only highlighted some of the most important issues. The dates in parenthesis for 2018 merely indicate the STARTING TIME AND NOT COMPLETION TIME.

Please read carefully and consider the consequences.­­­

This is anything BUT a Planning Scheme Review. Yes we acknowledge that after 15 years of doing nothing Glen Eira Council is certainly behind the eight ball. But this should not be the excuse for watering down what was promised in 2016 without consultation and most importantly, without any strategic justification. It is merely another example of why this council cannot be trusted!

A fabulous turnout at last night’s Save Glen Eira inaugural meeting with an audience of over 100 concerned residents. And, their concern, anger and distrust of Council was palpable.

The evening began with several presentations from 5 residents. Four of the presentations honed in on current planning applications, their impacts especially on neighbouring sites and how little Council has done to ensure that such outrageous applications are doomed to fail at VCAT. The final presenter queried council’s prognostications as to the required housing needed to cater for the expected population growth and showed that at current rates Glen Eira’s building boom is close to double what is needed. The question thus was: why double the size of activity centres? Why insist on 12 storeys across the board? Where is there any strategic justification for such a ‘vision’?

The evening was then thrown open to the audience for a Q & A session. The questions and statements covered a range of topics, including:

• Lack of genuine consultation and help from council
• The need for sustainable development (and please remember that Glen Eira has no tree protection on private land)
• The power of lobbying and lobbyists
• Unifying community voices everywhere
• Electing councilors who will truly represent the community

Much, much more was said. The overall feeling was that Save Glen Eira had taken a very positive step in uniting residents across all areas of Glen Eira. Planning incompetence touches everyone, especially when we have a council that refuses to listen to its residents. This was the real take home point from last night.

Also present were David Southwick and Kelvin Thompson.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

The above screen dump is from Thursday’s Age newspaper and as stated is in response to a previous article written by the CEO of the Victorian Planning Authority. Please remember that the VPA is all about ‘development’. They are the government’s (of both persuasions) agency designed to achieve more and more development.

Putting this aside, it is a great pity that Tim Smith is more concerned with the simplistic solution of ‘decentralisation’ and pushing the Liberal agenda, than in really attacking the Mosely (VPA) argument. There is so much more he might have written. For starters, how about:

• Reforming the planning system from a ‘performance based’ formula to one that contains prescriptive controls and parameters?
• Reining in the powers of VCAT and councils?
• Ensuring that residents do not subsidise developers, as in Glen Eira when we have no Development Contributions Levy and no Infrastructure Levy and this council is happy to exact pittance from its major developments for open space (ie Caulfield and East Villages)?
• Ensuring that delegations at compulsory conferences are accountable to residents and councillors and do not simply cave in to developers.
• Ensuring that the planning system is far more transparent and accountable to residents
• That the ministerial intervention powers also be tightened and that full disclosure of department recommendations become public.

There is much that needs to happen before we have a planning system that works for residents and not developers. It’s just a pity that both sides of politics are so entrenched in their views that Mosely may just be right ie things will get worse and developers will continue to rule.

The State government, via its recent Plan Melbourne Refresh, has reiterated that Glen Huntly is to be seen as a Major Activity Centre and not a Neighbourhood Centre as council has insisted upon for years and years. There are many pros and cons for either position. What concerns us here is the manner that council has gone about informing the community about its plans; its current ‘consultation’ methodology; and the ramifications for what this could all mean for residents.

INFORMING THE COMMUNITY

In documents dated May and July 2017, council nominated Glen Huntly as an ‘emerging Major Activity Centre’ with this ‘criterion’ for development: High focus for housing growth opportunities. A February 2017 document outlined the supposed ‘study area’ for Glen Huntly which increased dramatically from the borders that currently existed as shown below.

No mention was ever made of collaboration with the Victorian Planning Authority(VPA) and its work on the Caulfield Station Precinct until recently. In fact, at the time of writing the VPA website still includes its original borders. No mention is made of Glen Huntly as part of this development.  (see below). We’ve highlighted in red the borders to make them clearer.

What residents now face is another expansion of the land subject for major development, albeit that council continues to use the label of ‘study area’. We have already had examples of how ‘study areas’ morph into the expanded borders of activity centres in Bentleigh and Carnegie. We doubt this will be any different.

Thus, potentially the current ‘activity centre’ border for Glen Huntly has at least tripled in size. Why?

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

One thing is absolutely clear. Major Activity Centres are slated for intensive housing ‘growth’. They also include areas zoned Residential Growth Zone (ie 4 storeys or 13.5metre height limits). Commercial areas are also expected to carry much of the burden. Currently Glen Huntly does not have:

• Any areas zoned as RGZ. It contains approximately 35% of its area (minus parks, utilities, etc) as GRZ (ie 3 storeys and 10.5 metre height limit). As a Major Activity Centre this will undoubtedly change. We envisage that rezoning will see much of the current GRZ become RGZ. How much of the current Neighbourhood Residential Zoning becomes GRZ is unknown at this stage. Given what has happened in Bentleigh, Carnegie and Elsternwick we anticipate the worst.
• Currently there are no height limits for the Commercial and Mixed Use areas. Given what is happening in other Neighbourhood Centres not to mention Major Activity Centre, Glen Huntly will not be spared with a structure plan that allows a mere 4 storey height limit in these zones.

THE ‘CONSULTATION’ METHODOLOGY 

Once again council resorts to the pretext of undertaking genuine consultation. Once again there is an online survey that hides a multitude of sins, namely:

• Residents are asked to ‘prioritise’ up to 11 options several times that basically cover all the same ground as first ‘surveyed’ in early 2017 (ie what do you value about the precinct today?.)
• Development as such, especially height limits does not rate a mention. Instead we get the category of ‘Housing Options’ for two different questions (ie what do you value and what should be improved?) How do readers interpret the phrase ‘Housing Options’? Does this mean affordable housing? 3 and 4 bedroom apartments? Low rise dwellings? High rise dwellings? Etc. Without clear direction and definition whatever answers council garners, the answers are open to manipulation. Is that the intent here?

When other councils undergo structure planning or any important community consultation there is inevitably a Discussion Paper released. Such papers set out the facts: all the pros and cons; the current situation and the possibilities. Glen Eira has never done this with its structure planning. Instead residents have been drip fed vague, useless tidbits of information (that change continually and without sufficient justification) and surveys that are devoid of all validity. Residents aren’t even provided with the opportunity here to consider their fellow residents’ views/responses and to comment on them if they wish. This is not ‘consultation’.

The prodevelopment agenda is alive and well in Glen Eira City Council. Partnering with the VPA (the State Government’s development arm) is fitting for a council determined to facilitate as much development as it can.  The result will be that between 80 to 90% of Glen Eira will be turned into ‘activity centres’ if our fears are realised on ‘study areas’ becoming the final borders. Expansion has nothing to do with residential amenity but everything to do with packing in more and more development.

Council has released its draft budget for the next financial year together with its 10 year Strategic Resource Plan. The community is now being asked to put in their submissions.

Sounds good, but the reality is that year after year residents take the time and trouble to express their views and fundamentally nothing is changed. The submission process remains a smoke and mirror exercise needed to fulfil legislative requirements.

No one is ever asked:

• Should ratepayers’ money be spent on $280,000 for concrete plinths? (ie last year’s budget)
• How much money should be spent on ‘improvements’ to open space as opposed to the purchase of new open space?
• Is enough money being spent on hiring staff for the planning department as opposed to say ‘corporate services’ (ie the current figures reveal that staffing costs for the ‘corporate’ sector amount to $9m+ whilst ‘Planning and Place’ barely exceeds this figure at $10m+). When the community is screaming out for some speedy strategic planning, especially for our neighbourhood centres, does this represent the best use of our rates?

In short, Glen Eira City Council has never asked its residents the most basic of questions:

• What are your priorities?
• How should $xxxx amount of revenue be distributed and spent?

Thankfully other councils have started operating according to what is called ‘participatory budgeting’. Melbourne city council was the first to introduce this practice in 2015 we believe. This involves the establishment of a citizen jury who basically go through the available funds and determine their priorities as to short and long term expenditure.

Other councils have now instituted their own panels. Here are some examples. The last screen dump comes from a recent Monash resolution. Submissions in the end mean nothing unless residents have been provided with the opportunity to come in on the ground floor as it were and to determine what the priorities should be. That has never happened in Glen Eira!