Glen Eira Debates

Council’s 2021/22 Annual Report claims to have held 27 community consultations. Of these only ONE in 2021 and ONE in 2022 published IN FULL all of the community feedback. Budget and financial plans are excluded from this calculation since they are required by law to be available.

What is clear is that over the past few years, on all the important issues such as structure planning, urban design frameworks, quality design guidelines, etc. this council has deliberately with-held the complete feedback that residents submitted. Instead the community has been provided with ‘summaries’ that we allege are far from representative of what residents stated. If it were otherwise, then why is access to these submissions denied?

We have had a litany of excuses – that the issue is ‘operational’ and therefore beyond councillors’ domain; that privacy and confidentiality are important; that the Engagement Strategy mandates that privacy be protected, etc. All of these are spurious and last ditch attempts to hide the truth. Even more galling is the fact that planning issues that will establish what happens in Glen Eira for the next 20 years are seen as needing only the ‘consult’ level of participation rather than ‘involve’ or ‘collaborate’ which other councils have implemented.

The past two years have seen some incredibly important decisions being made and residents being denied the full results of the accompanying consultations. We have mickey-mouse reporting instead. All of the following decision included mere ‘summaries’:

Glen Huntly Structure Plan

Carnegie Structure Plan

Housing Strategy (Stage 1 and Stage 2 Consultation)

Caulfield Station Structure Plan

Amendment C184 for Bentleigh and Carnegie structure plans

When 110 people show up in the middle of winter and in the midst of covid, and voice their views as they did at the Town Hall Forum, and this doesn’t even warrant a single word of feedback in the consultation summary, then we are in deep trouble. Readers might be interested to know that our recording of this evening has been downloaded 1,596 times already. Other recordings of important planning issues have also been downloaded hundreds and hundreds of times. Planning is definitely on people’s minds and there are certainly more than 150 people (according to Magee) who have concerns with what is happening. Check out these figures –

Finally, it beggars belief, as to why feedback on less important issues have in the past been published but not on the above list of issues. We maintain that this administration is determined to bulldoze through its plans regardless of what residents say they want. If it were otherwise, and consultation was indeed a genuine attempt to gather feedback and where possible act on this feedback then all results would be published. Instead we have an administration determined to censor contrary views, and determined to limit the role of residents and councillors. That is unconscionable.

By way of comparison, we gone through all the agendas from 2016-22 (the start of the McKenzie reign) and listed all those consultation feedbacks which were published in full. We’ve omitted budget, local law, etc reports. Please compare the importance of the following to the significance of these later planning issues.

One caveat to the above. When council first began their work on the various structure plans in 2017, and held their misleading online surveys such as ‘what do you like about your shopping strip’, the full results were published – including facebook comments. But this was well before residents were made aware of the repercussions of these ‘consultations’ and what it would mean for the final draft structure plans. Interestingly, privacy, confidentiality was not an issue back then and neither was this regarded as strictly ‘operational’. You can access these reports via this link –

https://www.gleneira.vic.gov.au/our-city/planning-for-the-future/the-future-of-bentleigh/bentleigh-community-consultation

PROPOSED NEW PARK, FOSBERY AVENUE AND ST AUBINS AVENUE, CAULFIELD

NORTH – 19^th September 2016. Feedback – Emails, Phone and Letters; 2 Have Your Say – Forum Comments;3 Traffic Volume Analysis

JOYCE PARK – OPEN SPACE CONVERSION  – 13^th June 2017 – Attachment 3: Feedback Received – Email Attachment 4: Feedback Received – Have Your Say Forum

ACTIVITY CENTRE, HOUSING AND LOCAL ECONOMY STRATEGY 25^th July 2017 – all online survey responses and formal submissions

HARLESTON PARK OPEN SPACE AND PLAY SPACE UPGRADE CONSULTATION – 5^th September 2017 – 2. Feedback – Email, mail and phone

3. Feedback – ‘Have Your Say’ Forum comments

EE GUNN RESERVE LANDSCAPE MASTERPLAN –5^th September 2017 – . Feedback – Email and Phone; 3. Feedback – ‘Have Your Say’ Online Comments

TRANSFORMING MURRUMBEENA CONSULTATION REPORT – 17^th October 2017 – Comments in full from “Have your say” discussion board

3 – Feedback received by email, phone and other channels

4 – Summary written feedback from information session

5 – Local Area Traffic Management Plan

HARLESTON PARK SMALL BASKETBALL COURT– 28^th November 2017 – 2. Feedback – Email comments; 3. Feedback – ‘Have Your Say’ Forum comments;4. Feedback – Letter received with signatures

CAULFIELD WEDGE DOG PARK– 6^th February 2018 – 3. Feedback – Email and phone comments;4. Feedback – ‘Have Your Say’ forum comments

COMMUNITY FEEDBACK ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A CLASSIFIED TREE REGISTER – 26^th September 2018 – survey responses & submissions

PROPOSED NEW PARK – AILEEN AVENUE, CAULFIELD SOUTH – 5^th February 2019 – 2. Have Your Say Feedback; Email Feedback; Phone Call Feedback ⇩

CAULFIELD PARK MASTERPLAN – 5^th February 2019 –Have Your Say Forum Discussion  Email Feedback; 4. Community Meeting Feedback

GLEN EIRA ROOMING HOUSE STRATEGY – 21^st May 2019 – 2019 – Consultation feedback

ROSANNA STREET RESERVE UPGRADE – STAGE TWO – 2^nd July 2019 – Have Your Say Feedback ; Email Feedback;Phone Calls Feedback

DRAFT MURRUMBEENA PARK MASTERPLAN REFRESH – 3^rd September 2019 – Survey feedback;5. Email feedback

BENTLEIGH EAT STREET – PROPOSED ONE-WAY TRAFFIC CHANGES

(NORTHBOUND) TO VICKERY STREET – 24^th September 2019 – email, survey responses

HOPETOUN GARDENS LANDSCAPE MASTERPLAN – 16^th October 2019 – Have Your Say feedback;Email feedback;Phone call feedback

FUTURE OF SPORT AND ACTIVE RECREATION – CONSULTATION OUTCOMES – 16^th October, 2019 – Have your say comments

WALKING AND ACCESSIBILITY ACTION PLAN, CYCLING ACTION PLAN AND

PUBLIC TRANSPORT ADVOCACY PLAN – 17^th December 2019 – emails, comments (but not on previous item for Inkerman Road cycle path)

CARNEGIE SWIM CENTRE REDEVELOPMENT OPTIONS – COMMUNITY

CONSULTATION OUTCOMES – Community Consultation responses’Community Voice’ survey results

 25^th February 2020

PARKING POLICY – 17^th March 2020 – Draft Parking Policy Engagement Report

OPEN SPACE STRATEGY REFRESH – 9^th June 2020 – Feedback – Email and Letter; Have Your Say Forum

MULTIDECK CARPARKS COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND CONSULTATION – 14^th December 2021 – HYS Individual Comments; CV Individual Comments; WSP Report – Online Community Workshop; Chat – Online Community Workshop;;Social Media; Written Correspondence

MULTIDECK COMMUTER CARPARKS PROJECT – OUTCOMES OF COMMUNITY CONSULTATION – 30^th August 2022 – MDCP – Social Media Feedback;. MDCP – Written Correspondence Feedback;MDCP – HYS Survey Responses