Glen Eira Debates

The following recording features part of the ‘community participation’ segment from last night’s council meeting. Please listen carefully to wonderful address by the resident, the applause for his comments, and in particular the unbelievable claims made by Ron Torres.

Torres is part of the ‘old guard’ – a senior member of council having begun his career at Glen Eira in 1996. As Director in charge of Planning & Place, Torres  has been intimately involved with all aspects of planning in Glen Eira for just on 20 years. Yet he claims that a planning scheme review was carried out with full ‘community consultation’ four or four and a half years ago! That, dear readers, is a blatant lie!!!!

The last Planning Scheme review took place in 2010 and council repeatedly asked for extensions so that they would not have to fulfill their legal obligations and review the scheme every four years as required. They were granted these exemptions until Wynne put his foot down and refused the final request. Council in fact did everything it could to delay the inevitable!

More to the point, as recently as August 2016, council’s own report on the 2016 Planning Scheme Review, show Torres’ comments to be dead wrong. There can be no excuse for such incompetence at best, or as we believe, the attempt to deceive and mislead!

Here are the relevant extracts from the minutes of 9^th August 2016 – less than 2 years ago!

How much faith should residents therefore have in these so-called ‘professionals’ and ‘experts’ when pronouncement after pronouncement is designed to deceive we believe, and at best, to pretend that good process and proper governance is inherent in everything this council does!

Tonight’s council meeting represents nothing less than a complete betrayal of resident views. Each structure plan was voted in with arguments that are disingenuous and basically incompetent.

The central issue of officers employing Section 20(4) of the Planning & Environment Act and thereby bypassing the community was voted in with Delahunty’s motion that this apply only to Commercial zones, Mixed Use Zones, and tellingly, to all residential areas where the existing interim control is more restrictive than what is proposed in the new versions of the structure plans. In other words, Urban Renewal areas in Carnegie and Elsternwick will now be rezoned to 12 storeys and the Mixed Use zones in Elsternwick will get their 6 or 8 storeys. All without the opportunity for the community to formally object. Good luck we say in removing these ‘interim’ heights when the full amendment goes out for consultation!

It is really laughable that Delahunty admitted that the recently released shadow drawings for Elsternwick were ‘rudimentary’ and is now calling for more detailed shadow analysis and traffic analysis. Yet, these 9 individuals pass these structure plans BEFORE this research is put before them and the public. Surely this information is vital to informed and sound decision making. Not after! (Silver was the only councillor to vote against the Elsternwick plans – but he voted for the other two).

We are also dismayed at the repetition of all those old irrelevant and erroneous shibboleths that have been trotted out for years and years – ie

• Magee and Sztrajt blaming VCAT when a decade of a planning scheme that had more holes in it than a swiss cheese was, and is, the problem
• The setting up of false dichotomies again and again – ie Glen Eira can’t say no to development or structure planning. No one that we know of has argued against development or against structure planning. Residents have been opposed to inappropriate development and for a decade have desired a structure plan that achieves at least a modicum of residential protection. It is council that has refused to even entertain the idea of a structure plan until ordered to undertake the work by Wynne!
• Appalling arguments of ‘we can’t say 4 storeys because VCAT and the Minister will not give us this, so let’s go for 12’!!!! We simply ask – on what basis was 12 storeys plucked out of thin air? How many units is a 12 storey building likely to house and what does this do to dwelling projections? What of communal open space and doesn’t council’s Urban Design Guidelines therefore not meet recent legislation on this issue if there happens to be more than 40 units? Where is this factored in? Or has it been conveniently forgotten?

To put it bluntly, we are having a hard time in deciding whether these 9 councillors are merely incompetent, ignorant, or mere mouth pieces of Torres, Mullen, McKenzie and developers who have undoubtedly already come knocking. Also worth pointing out that Torres claimed that 4 and a half years ago there was a planning scheme review with community consultation. There wasn’t. Council claimed that it had undertaken an ‘internal review’ and of course nothing changed. In fact the last review really occurred in 2010 and if council had their way would not have happened in 2016. They had applied for several extensions which was finally refused by Wynne and he ordered them to undertake the 2016 review. Torres should be reprimanded (again) for providing both incorrect and misleading information!

We urge all residents to listen to the recordings of this meeting and to carefully consider what was said, by whom, and to remember this when it comes time to vote!

Apparently not all residents fully understand the significance of the officer recommendations for Tuesday night’s vote on the structure plans.

We reiterate: every single major planning issue has been done under Section 20(4) of the Planning & Environment Act, 1987 – thereby excluding residents from the right to have any input, plus practically removing the possibility of major change down the line!

Leopards clearly don’t change their spots, so here we are again – going down the same anti-democratic, anti-community pathway. Here’s the sad history of 20(4) –

• The introduction of the residential zones in August 2013 – in total secrecy, without consultation, and now acknowledged as a complete disaster
• The introduction of the ‘interim height’ amendments for Bentleigh & Carnegie in 2016. Again no consultation.
• Now the recommendation for a resolution that endorses the ‘built form measures’ etc. That means 12 storeys for Elsternwick & Carnegie and rezoning of heaps of other properties and doubling the size of activity centres! – all without an iota of strategic justification!

Only a fool would believe that if Wynne says ‘yes’ to 12 storeys in Carnegie & Elsternwick for these ‘interim controls’ that when council finally gets around to a full amendment (in a further couple of years at best) he is likely to reduce these heights and zonings.  Council knows this fully well. Plus they will be able to argue that 12 storeys is now an ‘established’ reality so no point in seeking to reduce height years down the track. This is just another example of sheer bastardry, sleight of hand, and the attempt to camouflage what is really going on. If it wasn’t, then the significance of 20(4) would be clearly explained and justified. It wouldn’t be buried in a wordy, vague, and ultimately reprehensible recommendation!

Council has released its structure plans for Bentleigh, Carnegie & Elsternwick. No sign of Virginia Estate. There is also the abysmal Urban Design Guidelines – replete again with pretty pictures and nothing beyond ResCode or what already exists for the NRZ.

However, residents need to be very, very concerned about one of the recommendations in particular. It is repeated verbatim for each of the structure plans. In case some readers don’t grasp the significance of what follows we want to make it absolutely clear –

• Section 20(4) of the Planning & Environment Act means NO OBJECTOR RIGHTS, NO INPUT BY THE COMMUNITY. Council simply sends off its proposals to the Minister and he then rubber stamps or doesn’t rubber stamp. If this is voted through, then we don’t even get to see the documentation!
• It is simply unconscionable that this council is recommending that controls be put into place (regardless of whether they are ‘interim’ or not) without any consultation and without providing residents the opportunity to object and go to a planning panel.

Then as if to provide the illusion that this council is totally committed to community consultation we find this recommendation from the Urban Design document.

Once something is gazetted (as with the first recommendation) the chances of it changing are Buckley’s. If council is so committed to listening to their residents then there is no reason to apply under Section 20(4) of the Planning & Environment Act. This is just more of the same dirty tactics that has become endemic in Glen Eira City Council. We also doubt that any councillor will have the guts to knock back these recommendations!

Whilst we have literally only scanned the hundreds and hundreds of pages released today, we urge residents to carefully consider the following:

• No mandatory height limits proposed
• Council considers it okay for 8 to 12 storeys abutting public open space
• No real changes from ResCode – when council has the right to change the schedules
• Not one iota of quantifiable data and justification for 12 storeys, nor for doubling the sizes of activity centres
• Persisting with high rise car parks that cost a fortune but with no figures or budgets provided
• No inkling of which neighbourhood centres are next in line!

We could go on and on, and will in the next few posts. But this is another example of rule by unelected bureaucrats and has nothing to do with community views and aspirations.!!!!

We’ve received another email from the Elsternwick residents. We concur completely with their, and other comments regarding the release of information to the public. It simply is not good enough that residents will only get to see the structure planning proposals anytime past 12 pm on Friday and councillors are to vote on the recommendations the following Tuesday night!

What this means is:

• residents will have limited time to digest the documents
• residents will have limited time to lobby their representatives

Please remember that in a recent ombudsman’s report there was the recommendation that councils publish their agendas at least 5 working days prior to any council meeting. Plenty of other councils such as Bayside, Stonnington, etc. seem able to do this, but not Glen Eira!

Here’s the email –

Dear residents,

We have been advised that Glen Eira Council has now developed and completed a third plan (Option 3) for the Urban Renewal Zone – but are not releasing it to residents until the papers are issued for next Tuesday 27 February council vote.

It is completely unacceptable not to socialise this new proposal with residents and it certainly makes us wonder what they are trying to hide.

FOR URGENT ACTION:

Please URGENTLY email the following list of councillors and key council staff to demand Option 3 be released immediately for residents to review.   We need as many people as possible to do this in the next 24 hours or so.

Please make it clear in your emails that the complete lack of transparency throughout this entire consultation process with people in and around the Urban Renewal Zone boarders on deceptive behaviour and will not be tolerated by our community.

List of council email addresses are below:

MDelahunty@gleneira.vic.gov.au; JSilver@gleneira.vic.gov.au; DSztrajt@gleneira.vic.gov.au; NTaylor@gleneira.vic.gov.au; JMagee@gleneira.vic.gov.au; JHyams@gleneira.vic.gov.au; TAthanasopoulos@gleneira.vic.gov.au; MEsakoff@gleneira.vic.gov.au; CDavey@gleneira.vic.gov.au; RMcKenzie@gleneira.vic.gov.au;  cityfutures@gleneira.vic.gov.au; RTorres@gleneira.vic.gov.au

Thank you in advance for your help and support.

Please bear with us for this long post which reveals the planning mayhem that is Glen Eira.

In October last year council released its second version of the various structure plans. This followed the July release of version one. Both the Elsternwick and Carnegie October versions maintained the 12 storey height proposals, but this time 2 options were provided for each centre. Our focus of attention is Elsternwick’s Horne Street and its relationship with Ross Street.

The following images depict the 2 current options for this area. Option One is for a complete rezoning of Horne and Ross Street to 12 storeys and the second option is to allow 12 storeys along Horne St., and 4 storeys along Ross Street. Please note that Ross Street is currently zoned RGZ (ie 4 storey maximum height limit of 13.5 metres). Council’s stated rationale for potentially rezoning Ross Street to 12 storeys is interesting to say the least – This option would allow for property owners to gain from the property uplift gained from a future rezoning (Page 56 of the ‘background report’!!!!!!!).

In December 2016 an application came in for a 9 storey development at 1-3 Horne St. We assume that prior to this formal application there would have been plenty of meetings between the developer and the planning department – as council’s own website even recommends! The development application was decided by council six month later on the 13^th of June 2017. The officer’s (Rocky Camera) recommendation was a refusal. Councillors voted unanimously to also refuse. Here is part of what the officer’s report stated –

The subject sites have a total area of 612 square metres. The application proposes a maximum building height of 28 metres. Building heights within the immediate area predominately comprise one, two, three and four storey buildings. Despite the policy direction for higher densities in this location, the proposed 9 storey building is likely to present as a jarring and imposing building when read in the context of surrounding lower scale buildings, in particular to the lower scale residential dwellings located to the rear at Ross Street. The design therefore does not appropriately respond or contribute positively to its context or provide an appropriate scale in terms of the bulk and height relative to the scale of the street and surrounding buildings. Development should be appropriate for the area and new buildings should respond to the scale of surrounding buildings. Although there is not always a need to break up the massing of a building based on its context, in this instance it is considered that a predominant lower scale building, characteristic of the immediate surrounding area necessitates a more thoughtful and sensitive design response. (agenda 13/6/2017)

The developer then marched off to VCAT for a review of the refusal. This hearing was held on the 4-5 December 2017. The VCAT member upheld council’s decision to refuse a permit. (See: http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VCAT//2018/172.html)

The decision and what it implies about council’s planning for the area is fascinating.  In June 2017 council thought that 9 storeys was too high. Yet structure planning was well and truly underway by this time. Barely one month later there was the release of the first draft of the Elsternwick structure plan containing the proposed 12 storeys. So we have the incredible situation where on the one hand council says that something is too high for the specific area and at the same time ignores its own arguments and comes up with 12 storeys instead. Ironic, or just plain incompetent, or have developers, itching to get their hands on some sites been knocking down the doors of council?

Ultimately what does this say about council’s and councillors’ entire planning approach? The VCAT member’s judgement focused quite specifically on overshadowing. Exactly the points that residents raised and which we revealed in our last post. Council of course was forced to admit that they were only now undertaking more ‘sophisticated’ analysis of the impacts. Yet it did not stop them from arguing about overshadowing at the VCAT hearing!

We will finish off with some quotes from the decision.

What is at issue is whether the extent of building intensification at nine storeys is too much for the particular constraints of the site. These constraints include the residential properties to the general south-west of the site, the continuity of development for adjoining commercial sites and the overall presentation of the building to the broader area.

From submissions made and the reasons identified in the council’s grounds for refusal we find there a number of questions we need to determine. These are:

1. Does the built form adequately respond to its site setting? This is the key matter of consideration and includes how the proposal responds to:

1. 1. It’s setting in the activity centre at the corner of Glen Huntly Road.

1. 1. It’s setting to the existing and possible future rear interface of Ross Street and the broader view from the south-west.

1. 1. Its setting as part of the commercial street of Horne Street, and in particular its immediate abuttal to sites directly south-east of the site.

1. Does the proposal need to include greater commercial use?

1. Doe the proposal provide adequate car parking, bicycle and pedestrian access?

The building has a direct interface to three single storey houses at 26A to 30 Ross Street. These sites are located in a Residential Growth Zone where the planning scheme anticipates that there will be redevelopment through consolidation of sites and new building likely to be up to four storeys.

• The proposed building will present as a nine storey building to these immediate abuttals and the generally lower building forms that exist in the wider area of Ross Street. This includes a three storey apartment building at 26 Ross Street and a 3-5 storey building under construction on the Nepean Highway that has an exposed façade to the court bowl, western end of Ross Street.
• A key question is what amenity expectation should be held for the immediate abuttals, particularly the secluded open space areas of the three houses at 26A to 30 Ross Street that orientate north-east directly toward the review site

There are two key issues that interlink in this consideration. There are the visual impacts associated with the building bulk and shadow impacts to windows and secluded open space areas. The three adjoining properties all have small secluded open space areas that already receive limited direct sunlight at the equinox.

The proposed building will extend shadow at 9am over the entire roof of the buildings at 28-30 Ross Street. A person standing in these rear yards would therefore be in full shadow. This remains the case generally until sometime between 10.30 and 11am. The western yard at 26A Ross Street is significantly impacted by the shadow by 10am until sometime between 11am and 12pm. By 12pm the shadow of the proposed building moves to the commercial properties at 4-6 Horne Street.

The extent of additional shadow in the morning to these properties is concerning, particularly the complete enclosing of the rear yards at 28 and 30 Ross Street with shadow between 9 and 10am. This emphasises to us not just a question of shadow but also visual bulk to all three of these rear neighbours.

In conclusion we are not satisfied the proposed building sufficiently addresses the amenity of the existing dwellings to its rear. The shadow diagrams indicate that not only will the building cast significant shadow to these sites, but will significantly ‘loom’ over the rear yards of these adjoining sites.

• Objective 5.1.2 of the Urban Design Guidelines for Victoria seeks to ensure that an activity centre provides a graduated transition between different building scales and uses. We are not satisfied the current proposal at nine storeys, against single storey, or even redevelopment up to four storeys to the south-west, achieves such appropriate graduation.
• The sharp contrast in heights results in a combination of shadow and bulk impacts to the existing dwellings. We find these impacts to be a key failing of this proposal. Even assuming that the sites are redeveloped we remain concerned that the proposal will create an unacceptable interface to which the adjoining sites would then need to compensate for. We consider this an inequitable outcome.

More important questions arise out of this judgement. Does it in fact mean that council’s proposals don’t even meet the relevant legislation and guidelines for activity centre development?

In the ‘public participation’ section of tonight’s council meeting, there were two excellent questions asked by residents on the draft structure plans for Elsternwick – especially the proposals to rezone large areas of the suburb to cater for buildings up to twelve storeys. We present below a direct transcript of the questions and the answers provided by officers and councillors. Please consider the responses carefully.

RESIDENT ONE

“Your worship and councillors thank you for the opportunity to speak to you on the Elsternwick structure plans. The area that I am particularly concerned about is the area between the railway and Nepean Highway north and south of Glen Huntly Road. So what is this area comprised of? …I’ll be quick. There are about 250 residences. I counted the letter boxes south of Glen Huntly Road. There’s about 48 to the north. And by Glen Eira’s statistics there’s 2.48 persons on average per household. So that adds up to 742 people that are affected by these structure plans.  The six main sites of commercial enterprise, they comprise by my rough estimate,  31% of the land. So 69% of the land is homes. It’s an ethnically diverse area – Greek, Polish, Dutch, Italian, – many of us have superb cultivated gardens. We have solar panels, we have extensions, we have rain water tanks and we are friendly. We visit each other and we visited each other before the structure plans as well. We are a village community. We are exactly what the Elsternwick survey feedback said was important.

The most frequently used phrase in that feedback was ‘maintain the village feel’. I think I counted it five or six times. Our homes are not aged as in your report. They are period homes and they are cheery apartments.  And as Mary, sorry Cr Delahunty said when discussing 10 St Georges Road, in this very forum, this is not a paddock. I ask that you consider the current rezone with the same scrutiny  as you did with 10 St Georges Road. Any my two questions are: Where are the economic, and the social, and the traffic and environmental studies,  on our particular area? I know the documents exist and they are very good,  but they don’t say a lot to our little area. And what makes west Elsternwick residents matter less with respect to rezoning than the rest of Elsternwick? I thank you for your time.” (applause)

ATHANASOPOLOUS – handed over to Ron Torres.

TORRES: …I must say that this little location of our municipality received very strong feedback on our structure plans. Very diverse feedback. And the challenge for officers now is to digest all the views we’ve  received and to form a recommendation to council to determine on the 27nd February. As you know we went out to community engagement on two options and I must say that those options polarised the community. Not just the residents but also the car yard owners as well and we received very diverse views. So officers are now considering how to respond to that. What final recommendation we may offer to council to try and balance all those views. So stay tuned. It’s not an easy task. Hopefully we can find a balance for this precinct.

DELAHUNTY: I do want to add that I obviously concur with the process that Mr Torres has outlined, but also from the council’s point of view, we wanted consultation. And so we are really pleased the feedback’s strong, but it’s true and I think you should know that our minds  are true to it as well. That this is a question that was asked and when we’re getting answers there was never any preconceived  ‘this is how it must be’. So I think you should all be congratulated on the way you’ve all entered into that discussion.

ATHANASOPOLOUS: I concur with everything that Cr Delahunty has said.  Look, it’s been a massive process. It really started before any of us were even in the chamber and all along the way we’ve kept communicating with the community. There’s been some changes, there’s been some positive change, some would say there’s been some negative change.  So, we’re not sure what the recommendation will be come the 27th  but we’ll wait and see, then discuss it in this chamber.

RESIDENT TWO

Thank you councillors. My question relates also to the structure plan for Elsternwick. Now, you will be aware that there was a public meeting here in this building some time ago when the first plan came out and there were hundreds of people in attendance and – all residents of course – the response was most negative. So I have two questions. The area that is going to be affected also impacts on abutting residents. I know there’s a railway line in between but you’re proposing twelve storey apartments on that particular site. The railway easement for that area is only about 20 metres in width. And on the other side of that easement from the railway there are residential properties, single dwelling covenants, of one and two storeys only. And I want to ask council, what consideration has been given to the overshadowing of twelve storey apartments only 20 metres away from the single dwellings on the other side? Further, I want to ask at the southern end, because I’ve had a close look at those plans, you’ll find that there is no access from those particular apartment blocks to the train area in Glen Huntly Road  other than under the railway viaduct and then up some very narrow residential streets. And I want to know what consideration has been given to the pressure of traffic from all those new residences trying to access the train area and Glen Huntly Road, the tram on Glen Huntly Road, the buses on Glen Huntly Road, and the train on Glen Huntly Road? And how do you intend to ameliorate the issues that we as residents in the abutting areas Have? Thank you for your attention. (applause)

ATHANASOPOLOUS: I think that one thing that needs to be understood is that …there’s no plans submitted on any of the sites yet, so any traffic management is not yet entirely decided upon. However, in saying that, if a structure plan was to be approved by this council, what will occur  those controls may be put in place upon that structure plan that may speak to some of the questions that you’re asking.

TORRES: ….the feed back that we received from both the residential and business community caused us to look more closely at this precinct in terms of traffic, vehicular access,  shadowing on the adjoining residential area to the east and looking at the shadowing actually doing more sophisticated modelling, taking into account the topography of the railway embankment to properly assess the impacts of shadowing. So that work is being conducted as we speak. In terms of traffic, we are very aware of the issues that have been raised but linking back to the mayor’s answer, these structure plans are really just the start. They set the broad framework for possible future development. Well they set the parameters. When a development is eventually lodged for this precinct, as for anywhere else in the municipality I might add, more detailed analysis of traffic impact occurs as well. So there’s a whole journey ahead of us in setting the vision, setting what sort of planning provisions match with that vision,and that will still involve the community and ultimately deciding on detailed applications still involves the community.

COMMENTS

The responses to the above questions reveal some important facts –

• Councillors have no real input into this entire process of structure planning. If they did have any influence, and were really listening to the feedback received, then we wouldn’t have had to go through the farce of consultation after consultation where residents have made it abundantly clear that 12 storey apartment blocks are anathema to the vast majority of the community. Yet this aspect of the structure planning for Elsternwick and Carnegie, has not changed one iota despite all the feedback!
• How is it possible that with the volume of ‘documentation’ released in one fell swoop, that traffic, overshadowing, is not fully researched? What then is the point of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ‘expert’ Urban Design, Traffic, (and currently a Integrated Traffic Plan that was supposed to be the backbone of the structure planning) when council hasn’t the foggiest about the impact of all this development? Surely any decent planning should have been ‘sophisticated’ right from the start and not a year down the track? And, may we suggest, that if residents hadn’t kicked up such a stink, would council even be considering more ‘sophisticated’ approaches to analysis? We doubt it!!!!!
• Torres’ comments on setting a ‘framework’ and ‘parameters’ are beguiling but misleading! Once a structure plan containing either preferred or mandatory height limits of 12 storeys is set, then developers have been given the go ahead to literally reach for the skies. And we all know the level of ‘analysis’ that goes into individual planning applications. The vast majority of officer reports note that an additional 100 or so apartments will not cause any negative impact on traffic, parking, etc!!!!!