June 22, 2021

Planning Transparency – Does It Exist In Glen Eira?

Posted by gleneira under GE Consultation/Communication, GE Governance, GE Planning, GE Service Performance
[6] Comments 

Whatever the outcome of Mr Wylie’s Supreme Court Challenge, the issues are crucial in terms of the planning system itself, and especially how the planning department at Glen Eira Council operates. Part of Mr Wylie’s concerns appear to be the lack of sufficient notification to residents that an application has been submitted to council. According to the legislation, it is council which has the power to decide who and how many properties will be alerted to the fact that an application has come in. Hence, if only a handful of notification letters are sent out, then it is not surprising that there are none, or very few objections. Mr Wylie claims that in his case, only those adjoining sites zoned Commercial 1 were notified and that neighbouring residents were left in the dark – hence the claim that there were zero objections in this matter. It is very plausible to suggest that had neighbours living in surrounding NRZ zoned sites been aware, then the chances of objections to a 5 storey development would have brought in at least a few objections.

But that’s only part of the problem. Not so long ago, officer reports in Glen Eira regularly noted the number of notifications sent out, and the number of ensuing objections. For the past few years this has now ceased. We have absolutely no idea as to how many letters council ordered the developer to send out, nor to which properties. Nor do we know where the objectors lived. Other councils such as Boroondara, feature maps of where the letters went and where objectors lived in relation to the application. (See image below). Other councils (Monash, Port Phillip to name a few) also include maps showing the number of objectors and their residences. In Glen Eira we are left in the dark on both of these important matters.

Also of major concern is the secrecy surrounding council’s DPC (delegated planning committee). We have commented numerous times over the years that this committee lacks all transparency and accountability. Meetings are held during the day, where both the developer and objectors can appear to state their views. The three officers then leave the room and come back in about 20 minutes with their decision to grant, refuse, or impose conditions. No agendas are ever published and certainly no minutes. Hence, residents have no idea  why a permit may have been granted or refused.  Plus, for years our council operated under Section 86 of the legislation meaning that agendas, and minutes, had to be published. An ombudsman’s report in 2016 cited us, and forced Glen Eira to amend its delegation so that it no longer was constituted under the Special Committee requirements. The committee still operates as before – no councillors present, no agendas, no minutes, and no accountability!

Making matters even worse, is that in December 2018, councillors voted to change the delegation authority for this committee. There now has to be at least 16 objections before an application can be brought to council. Anything less becomes the purview of this committee.

We are not suggesting that there is no place for such a committee. Clearly councillors can’t be expected to ‘adjudicate’ on all planning applications. What we do expect, is that there be far more transparency and accountability when it comes to planning.  Other councils have ALL councillors as part of their planning committees – whether or not these are seen as Special Committees. In Glen Eira, councillors are, we believe seen as nothing more than unnecessary appendages that will only hinder the work of the bureaucrats, so let’s sideline them as much as possible. Such an ethos is the antithesis of good planning and full transparency and accountability.

 

June 18, 2021

Planning Held To Account

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

It’s with great interest that residents need to follow the following Supreme Court Case –

This raises innumerable questions:

  1. How much of ratepayers’ money will council expend in fighting this case?
  2. Were councillors apprised of what was happening and if so, when?
  3. How many more times will this planning department overlook their own planning scheme and recommend permits that are highly questionable?

PS: Today’s (Saturday’s Age) –

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/well-connected-ex-banker-takes-on-council-over-elsternwick-tower-plan-20210618-p5826q.html

 

June 17, 2021

Only In Glen Eira!

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

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/melbourne/programs/breakfast/snakes-and-ladders-bentleigh-jumbled/13390280

 

June 14, 2021

Budget Submissions: Telling It Like It Is

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance, GE Kindergartens/Childcare, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
[2] Comments 

Public submissions for the draft budget and Strategic Resource Plan, have one consistent theme running through nearly all of the presentations. This is best summed up with this sentence from one such submission –

It is one thing to have a strategy and action plan in place, it is quite another to implement them. As Councillors would well know, implementation requires funded projects. It is here that Council is lacking.

Time and again throughout all of these well documented and thoughtful submissions we find similar statements. Council has policies, plans, strategies but implementation is either non-existent, or years behind schedule, and simply underfunded and/or forgotten about. This applies across all departments – from Caulfield Park implementation of the Master Plan, to bike paths, open space, the Urban Forest Strategy or the Climate Emergency. Nothing seems to have been done or certainly not funded enough to ensure real progress on any of these issues.

Then we also have the penny pinching that is so common in Glen Eira. Child care fees go up another $3 per day. Council’s persistent claims about such repeated rises is that they are on a par with the private providers. Only now the differences are made clear thanks to these submissions – ie whilst the fee per day might be equitable, council does not provide lunches or nappies. As for the car share options, that has remained static, yet for all the talk about reducing the number of cars on our roads, very little has been done to expand this option for residents. Instead fees are through the roof! Glen Eira’s car share policy first came to notice in 2016. Its subsequent policy is dated 2017-20 – hence defunct and out of date. We currently have 12 car share spaces in comparison to: Yarra – aiming for 231 in the next 5 years; port Phillip in 2018 had 181; and as far back as 2015 Moreland had 40. The rhetoric and the reality are simply miles apart on so many issues.

Council can ratify as many policies/strategies as it likes, but until there is a genuine commitment to fund such projects adequately nothing will change. Policies become nothing more than another worthless piece of public relations providing the illusion that council does give a damn about the lack of open space, the destruction of our tree canopy, and the failure to progress the bicycle strategy or provide sufficient car share opportunities. Residents should really start asking themselves whether this council’s priorities are in line with ratepayers’ thinking. Of course, ratepayers have never been provided with the opportunity to have a say in what these priorities should be before they are presented with the draft budget. In Glen Eira it would be fair to say that residents are nothing more than cash cows!

 

June 10, 2021

Our Planning Department & Residents

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

If any resident still has doubts as to the planning department’s priorities then listening to Item 8.1 from Tuesday’s council meeting will resolve any doubts still held. (See: http://webcast.gleneira.vic.gov.au/archive/video21-0608.php#placeholder)

Item 8.1 was for an application at 646-66 Glen Huntly Road, Caulfield South – a 5 storey mixed use development including 18 apartments, a shop and an office.  There were 16 objections including one from an adjoining  resident who asked that council include in its conditions screening for the balcony on one of the units since this directly overlooked his back yard’s private open space. No such condition appeared in the officer’s recommendation.

We therefore congratulate the 8 councillors who finally determined that such a condition be imposed within the ensuing permit – especially councillor Zyngier who first brought the issue up and moved the amendment for the inclusion of the condition. The only councillor who saw fit to reject such a proposal was Athanasopolous. His arguments revived the nonsense that was the modus operandi of Hyams, Lipshutz and others from the past – that VCAT would not uphold this condition since all the ResCode guidelines on this issue had been met. After 5 years as a councillor one would hope that Athanasopolous should know by now that future decisions by VCAT are irrelevant to council’s decision making. Planning Schemes make no mention of VCAT. What they do say is that each application must be evaluated on its individual merits – ie according to zoning, urban design, decision guidelines, etc. What VCAT may or may not decide is irrelevant. Furthermore, since the additional condition of screening is certainly minor, the developer would do his sums, consider the inevitable time lag, and in all probability decide that going to VCAT was not in his best interests.

But it gets worse when Torres was asked two questions. We include both of his responses below.

COMMENTS:

  • The reliance on Rescode as an argument against imposing the condition is nothing more than a furphy. First of all, there is nothing MANDATORY about ResCode. Secondly, ResCode does NOT APPLY to building of 5 or more storeys!
  • Council has on numerous occasions imposed conditions that far exceed the ResCode requirements. The perfect examples are previous applications along Neerim Road, Belsize, etc. These were all for 4 storeys where ResCode did apply.
  • It is very sad indeed that in Torres’ second response his emphases was entirely on the amenity of the apartment, rather than the amenity of the neighbouring resident!  Also the response is quite frankly ridiculous given that other apartments in this development all required screening! So much for ‘avoiding screening’!

Again, we congratulate those 8 councillors for showing common sense, and a concern for residents. Something this planning department appears incapable of doing!

 

June 3, 2021

Mandatory Heights: ‘We Will Give It A Red Hot Crack’!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
[5] Comments 

At last night’s Zoom forum on the Built Form Frameworks for Caulfield South, we had Kate Jewell (Co-ordinator City Strategy) make the pronouncement that’s in the header to this post. This statement followed resident after resident complaining vigorously about council’s reluctance to impose mandatory heights.

Here is the audio of this interchange:

Jewell’s statement tosses the ball straight back into councillors’ court. They have the power to oversee policy direction. They also have the power to pass resolutions which officers are mandated to follow. We have already had some examples of this – namely the abandonment of Amendments for Glen Huntly and for Bentleigh & Carnegie. This is no different. The question thus becomes:

  • Will councillors have the courage to insist on mandatory heights for all neighbourhood centres?
  • Will councillors, as representatives of their constituents, act in accordance with the community’s wishes?
  • Will councillors finally see the folly of this planning department and insist that the foundation for all strategic planning must derive from a comprehensive Housing Strategy that should be prioritised immediately and certainly before any decisions are made on structure plans or built form frameworks.

We also have to wonder whether Mr Slavin’s quick intervention in the above audio, cutting off the Jewell response, was that he perceived she was heading into ‘dangerous waters’ for the bureaucrats?

 

May 30, 2021

Hopeless!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
[4] Comments 

Save Glen Eira has published the following media release that we believe is well worth a read and consideration. Professor Michael Buxton’s comments are spot on and call into question Council’s track record on planning.

 

May 20, 2021

Time To Stand Up Councillors!

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance, GE Service Performance
[5] Comments 

Year after year we have witnessed the farce that is called ‘public question’ time in Glen Eira. In the vast majority of cases no ‘answer’ is provided to the questioner. At best they receive a ‘response’. The question remains unanswered.

Residents have every right to expect that when a reasonable and relevant question is asked, council provides a clear and complete answer. Such occurrences are extremely rare.

This raises several fundamental issues of governance and the role of councillors. Given that the often carefully crafted and obtuse responses are delivered in councillors’ names, and signed off by the Mayor, then surely it is incumbent on these nine individuals to stand up and insist that questions are not simply fobbed off, but answered respectfully and truthfully. Only once in living memory has a councillor taken such a stance where he stated that he did not agree with the response.

One must therefore wonder:

  • Who writes the responses? And who finally authorises each response?
  • Do councillors actually get to see the questions before they are read out at the council meeting? If they do see the questions, when do they receive them?
  • Do councillors have any say, or contribute in any manner to the responses? If not, why not?
  • Why do councillors sit in chamber and never proffer any opinion/reaction to the response – even if they strongly disagree with what has been written?
  • How does such councillor silence engender greater ‘community involvement’ and/or faith in open and transparent government, or does this achieve the direct opposite?

Wednesday night’s council meeting provided the perfect example of this farce. We will focus on one question in particular. In this instance, a resident asked the simple and basic question about the budget – what projects had been abandoned, deferred or delayed over the past 2 financial years and what savings had accrued as a result of such delays? Here is the audio of the question and the ‘response’.  Interestingly, the sound quality of this recording is woeful. Given the millions that council has spent on technology, one should expect that public recordings provide decent audio versions.

Apart from the simple fact that this question remained unanswered, referring a resident to the budget and SRP (Strategic Resource) documents only compounds the problem of council’s lack of clear reporting. For anyone to try and make sense of what is proposed takes great effort and at the very least some modicum of accounting knowledge. Even more difficult is to remember what was contained in the previous year’s budget and to reconcile this with what is in the current budget. It should be council’s role to explain and expand on any variations. One example should suffice:  In the 2020/21 SRP we find on page 8 the following sentence: Town Hall Refurbishment – total of $8M ($2M per annum from 2021/22 to 2024/25). In the current SRP (page 12) this has changed to: Town Hall Refurbishment and Essential Safety Measures: $4M from 2021/22 to 2023/24. What does this actually mean? Is this a ‘saving’ of $4M or $2M given the different years stated?

We then have the latest Quarterly Report which does state that the Carnegie Market development has been ‘deferred’ and that both the Bleazby and Stanley Street proposed multi-storey car parks are ‘under review’. Whilst it is true that no specific funding was allocated to these projects in the current budget, and hence no real ‘savings’ per se, council could have highlighted these decisions in both its response to the public question and in its budget papers.

More importantly, given that there are frequent mentions of ‘efficiencies’ in council’s budget papers, a simple table that itemises ‘savings’ in each department would not go astray. Residents might also be interested to know which departments have had their budgets cut and by how much! Until all the information is out there in a simple, straight forward manner, residents will remain confused, befuddled, and ignorant of what is really happening to their money and how it is being spent and/or wasted.

Nor does it help create a climate of transparency when all councillors simply sit there like silent statues and accept the tripe that parades as ‘answers’ to public questions!

 

May 19, 2021

Informed Decision Making?

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance, GE Service Performance
[7] Comments 

Council’s latest decision regarding waste collection changes has spurred much controversy on social media. Council has decided that the green bin collection will now become weekly instead of fortnightly and the red bin collection will change over to fortnightly. Food waste is now meant to go into the green bin.

This decision is supposedly based on a trial run of 1000 residences in the McKinnon/Ormond area. On the basis of this trial we now have the decision to forge ahead with this changeover.

Our understanding is that by diverting food waste into green bin collections this will reduce the amount of garbage going to landfill and also have environmental benefit in terms of reducing carbon emissions from this food waste  – as claimed in the letter dated 3rd May that was sent out to households.

We are not advocating in favour or against this decision. What we are fully cognisant of is the lack of process that has informed this decision making. When council decides something that will have an immediate and huge impact on residents’ lives, then they had better make sure that all the data is accurate, that it has majority community support, and is economically viable.

To the best of our knowledge, no formal consultation was undertaken by council for the trial and certainly none for this final decision. In other words, what is the real level of community support for this change? Nor do we know the cost of the green tidies that council has produced for distribution. We also don’t know how much the garbage ‘police’ surveillance is likely to cost. Or the cost of providing extra bins for those families that deal with nappies.

All we have to go on to determine whether the trial is in fact working and worthy of being implemented across the entire municipality is to be found in the small print of the current Quarterly Report. Here is the screen dump (page 31) from this report.

If the objective is to increase the amount of food scraps being diverted into the green bin, then the above results clearly show that this isn’t happening. So, what does this really mean? That residents aren’t embracing the change? If so, then what guarantee does council have that this will improve – unless of course they introduce a fine system to ‘encourage’ compliance! Nor do we accept the pathetic reasoning that seeks to blame COVID for the lack of improvement. Surely people still continued eating and creating food scraps regardless of whether they were in COVID lockdown or not. We could even argue that with lockdown more people would be cooking and eating at home rather than going out, so the production of food scraps should have increased! We also find it hard to buy the argument about seasons. Does this mean that winter produces more food scraps than summer? Where is the evidence for any of this?

Summing up we do not appear to have necessary pre-requisite data, or community support, that justifies the decision that has been made. Instead we are forging ahead with a project that cannot guarantee ‘success’, and has the potential to impact dramatically on countless residents. Perhaps we should simply say that this is another example of pre-determined decision making by council that ignores process and thorough testing, monitoring, and analyses.

 

May 12, 2021

Is This Fair Dinkum Consultation?

Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Consultation/Communication, GE Council Meeting(s), GE Governance, GE Open Space, GE Planning, GE Service Performance, GE Transport
[11] Comments 

Consultations are literally coming out of our ears over the past few years. Council’s repeated mantra is that they want to hear from residents. That residents should provide meaningful comments so that their views may be taken into account in any subsequent decision making. Sounds wonderful. But the reality is vastly different.

Time and again we are presented with surveys that deliberately avoid the central issues or are framed in such a way as to elicit the desired response(s). This approach is anything but genuine consultation!

The latest example is the Have Your Say survey on the draft Built Form Frameworks for Bentleigh East, Caulfield South and Caulfield North. Each centre has its own survey, but the questions are identical.

Here are some examples of what is presented and why this cannot be viewed as a fair, unbiased, and revealing ‘consultation’ designed to elicit real community feedback.

EXAMPLE 1

The question asked was: Thinking about the Centre as a ‘vibrant’ place, how important are the following to you? Readers were then provided with the following:

We allege that not only are these options meaningless but that they have no relevance whatsoever to what is actually proposed in the draft document. Nor do any of these objectives come close to justifying what the actual recommendations are! For the above options, clearly 99% of respondents would say that buildings should be ‘visually interesting’ and ‘attractive’. And not too many people would object to catering to the wide range of housing needed for the elderly or the young. Nor would many be opposed to supporting local businesses.  Thus we get a series of questions that literally lead most respondents to answer  in the ‘very important’ to ‘important’ range.

But how are these questions related to what is recommended in the drafts, or even within council’s current planning scheme? Will the implementation of a 5 metre setback from the street be of great assistance in encouraging ‘attractive and visually interesting buildings’? Will a discretionary 6 storey height limit, also assist in this objective? Or is this nothing more than gobbledy-gook parading as if any of these objectives can be achieved with what is currently in the planning scheme and what is proposed.

More importantly there remains the question of how council will choose to ‘interpret’ the results of this survey. Will we get statements such as 95% of respondents answered ‘very important’ and thus they are endorsing the draft BFFs?

EXAMPLE 2

The focus then turns to ‘design objectives’ with the following options:

It should be pointed out that council’s definition of ‘mid-rise’ for Caulfield South is stated to be: A mid-rise character is about building height (between 4 and 7 storeys). This idea reflects the role of Caulfield South as a Neighbourhood Activity Centre, with a moderate role to play in meeting future housing needs as well as employment, transport and services. Unless readers have bothered to plough through all the verbage prior to this point, then they would have no idea of what is proposed for this centre. Furthermore, the language used here is questionable at best and at worst deliberately evasive. What does ‘cohesive’ really mean – especially since the order of the survey has not as yet clearly depicted the proposed height limits along the various streets. Do readers really have a grasp on the fact that according to the recommendations hundreds and hundreds of metres of buildings could all be at this maximum height – and that is called ‘cohesive’?   

Also amiss is that unless readers have gone through the full documents, they would have no idea that council is proposing that sunlight only matters on the most ‘active’ part of the day. This is then defined as 10-12pm for certain streets and 12-2pm for some other streets. The above image does not relay this information. Of course, residents would respond that sunlight is vital. But this certainly doesn’t mean that they are ‘happy’ with a meagre 2 hours of sunlight because of the proposed building heights!

EXAMPLE 3

The following example if the best of the lot –

Of course height, setbacks, street walls and public realm areas are ‘important’ and should be the most important element in any planning document of this nature. But does selecting ‘very important’ indicate that residents are accepting of the recommendations in the draft document? Do residents really believe that a 6 storey discretionary height limit is what they want? Or that 2 hours of sunlight is sufficient?

CONCLUSIONS

There is much more that could be said about this style of ‘consultation’ and in particular, this survey. Until council is prepared to ask the questions that must be asked; to provide succinct and accurate summaries; to justify every single planning recommendation, then we are engaging in another sham consultation. All that is happening is that council is fulfilling its legislative requirement to undertake ‘consultation’, but nothing more. Until such a time that genuine evaluation of such processes is undertaken and reported upon we will continue to waste tens of thousands of dollars on consultations that are reverse engineered and designed to achieve predetermined outcomes.

 

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