Summary of a Council Meeting - Glen Eira, 09-Apr-19
Council Outline
The Council of the City of Glen Eira is situated at the edge of what might be considered Melbourne's inner ring of suburbs, having been formed in 1994 when the City of Caulfield's territory was expanded to cover the northern half of the City of Moorabbin (Glen Eira City Council). The expansion has generally been accommodated well, although some landmarks are still named for the former boundaries such as the Moorabbin Hospital on Centre Road, and small pockets of land around the boundaries which probably should be absorbed from adjacent councils, on grounds of community interaction.
As at 2016, the council had roughly 150,000 residents across nearly 40 square kilometres, giving an average density of around 40 residents per hectare. This made it the fifth-most densely populated local government area in the state, after the City of Port Phillip (above 50), and the Cities of Melbourne, Stonnington and Yarra (40-50) (ID Consulting 2017).
The statistical average resident of Glen Eira, c.2011-2016 (ID Consulting 2017) is likely to be:
Meeting Outline
The Ordinary Council Meeting of Tuesday 9 April 2019 was scheduled to begin at 7:30pm, with an agenda of more than three hundred pages to work through. Four councillors were on either side of the room, flanking Mayor Hyams, the CEO Rebecca McKenzie and a stenographer; and off to the side was Ron Torres, the Glen Eira director of Planning and Place. All items raised throughout the meeting were passed unanimously.
Meeting Content
The meeting opened with a range of procedural items, such as outlining privacy and other legal aspects, and so the first seven items of the agenda were dispatched with in under three minutes before proceeding with the key agenda items 8 through 10.
Items 8 and 9 of the agenda were concerned with development opportunities or progress within the area of Glen Eira, respectively based on reports from committees and presentation of officer reports, with a highly technocratic lean to both legal and physical metrics. Some questions in either of these categories were directed to either McKenzie or Torres as required.
Common themes across both items were the height, overshadowing and site coverage of developments and how Council's views differed from those of VCAT. In general, the Council and residents supported lower height limits (6-8, against 10-14 storeys) particularly around the borders of the General Residential Zone, and there seemed to be some resistance against the development of Activity Centres such as Elsternwick. The lack of adequate public transport was a common factor, raised in multiple items with a general theme that buses do not provide sufficient services and therefore should not be considered part of the Principal Public Transport Network (PPTN). Councillors generally accepted that buses could hypothetically provide a good level of service, but they were generally biased in favour of trams or heavy rail and this appears to match general Melburnian attitudes.
Item 9.5 in particular concerned the Council's upcoming Public Transport Gap Analysis Policy document, and tied in with earlier discussion of the PPTN maps imposed on the Council by the State which were apparently assembled without actually checking what sorts of services were being provided in practice. While councillors generally agreed with the content of the report, it was accepted that the Council's role was limited to advocacy for particular outcomes - in this case, improved frequency, and for Cr. Magee in particular, long term conversion of bus routes to trams - rather than actively managing projects and results. This is because the Council does not have the necessary governance authority over State-managed issues; the Department of Transport website, for instance, does not list local governments on their Governance page. This contrasts against pre-Neoliberal practice where, although limited, Local Governments did have some degree of authority via organisations like the M&MBW, M&MTB and so on, which often had representatives on their boards representing geographic groups of Local Governments.
Other relatively minor items were discussed including extension of a heritage overlay, to be submitted to the State Government for acceptance, provision of additional changing facilities adjacent to parks and sporting grounds, and the Council's graffiti and reference group policies.
Reflection
Overall the council meeting was fairly calm, with few contentious issues and all votes were carried unanimously. Common themes against perceived overdevelopment appear to be typical across Melbourne, but the constraints applied to the Council through lack of governance authority delegation from the State means that not much can be done against it. However, the Council does recognise that lack of sufficient public transport provision is a serious issue, and advocacy work to highlight that is being undertaken.
Further Reading
References
The Council of the City of Glen Eira is situated at the edge of what might be considered Melbourne's inner ring of suburbs, having been formed in 1994 when the City of Caulfield's territory was expanded to cover the northern half of the City of Moorabbin (Glen Eira City Council). The expansion has generally been accommodated well, although some landmarks are still named for the former boundaries such as the Moorabbin Hospital on Centre Road, and small pockets of land around the boundaries which probably should be absorbed from adjacent councils, on grounds of community interaction.
As at 2016, the council had roughly 150,000 residents across nearly 40 square kilometres, giving an average density of around 40 residents per hectare. This made it the fifth-most densely populated local government area in the state, after the City of Port Phillip (above 50), and the Cities of Melbourne, Stonnington and Yarra (40-50) (ID Consulting 2017).
The statistical average resident of Glen Eira, c.2011-2016 (ID Consulting 2017) is likely to be:
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A fluent English speaker (96%), and may speak additional languages (25-30%)
-
If multilingual, the additional language is likely to be Greek (7%), Mandarin (5%), Russian (4%), Hebrew or Italian (2%).
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Will follow a Judeo-Christian branch of religion (50-55%), though many Christians have transitioned to atheism in recent years
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Are likely to be in a household with at least two adults (75%), and a chance of children (50%)
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Will work outside of Glen Eira's boundaries (70%), and most likely works in the City of Melbourne or else within a 20km radius of Glen Eira.
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Will have qualifications beyond secondary school; most adult residents have completed secondary education and a half of those have proceeded to tertiary.
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Has a roughly equal chance of either owning their own property, having a mortgage, or renting.
Meeting Outline
The Ordinary Council Meeting of Tuesday 9 April 2019 was scheduled to begin at 7:30pm, with an agenda of more than three hundred pages to work through. Four councillors were on either side of the room, flanking Mayor Hyams, the CEO Rebecca McKenzie and a stenographer; and off to the side was Ron Torres, the Glen Eira director of Planning and Place. All items raised throughout the meeting were passed unanimously.
Meeting Content
The meeting opened with a range of procedural items, such as outlining privacy and other legal aspects, and so the first seven items of the agenda were dispatched with in under three minutes before proceeding with the key agenda items 8 through 10.
Items 8 and 9 of the agenda were concerned with development opportunities or progress within the area of Glen Eira, respectively based on reports from committees and presentation of officer reports, with a highly technocratic lean to both legal and physical metrics. Some questions in either of these categories were directed to either McKenzie or Torres as required.
Common themes across both items were the height, overshadowing and site coverage of developments and how Council's views differed from those of VCAT. In general, the Council and residents supported lower height limits (6-8, against 10-14 storeys) particularly around the borders of the General Residential Zone, and there seemed to be some resistance against the development of Activity Centres such as Elsternwick. The lack of adequate public transport was a common factor, raised in multiple items with a general theme that buses do not provide sufficient services and therefore should not be considered part of the Principal Public Transport Network (PPTN). Councillors generally accepted that buses could hypothetically provide a good level of service, but they were generally biased in favour of trams or heavy rail and this appears to match general Melburnian attitudes.
Item 9.5 in particular concerned the Council's upcoming Public Transport Gap Analysis Policy document, and tied in with earlier discussion of the PPTN maps imposed on the Council by the State which were apparently assembled without actually checking what sorts of services were being provided in practice. While councillors generally agreed with the content of the report, it was accepted that the Council's role was limited to advocacy for particular outcomes - in this case, improved frequency, and for Cr. Magee in particular, long term conversion of bus routes to trams - rather than actively managing projects and results. This is because the Council does not have the necessary governance authority over State-managed issues; the Department of Transport website, for instance, does not list local governments on their Governance page. This contrasts against pre-Neoliberal practice where, although limited, Local Governments did have some degree of authority via organisations like the M&MBW, M&MTB and so on, which often had representatives on their boards representing geographic groups of Local Governments.
Other relatively minor items were discussed including extension of a heritage overlay, to be submitted to the State Government for acceptance, provision of additional changing facilities adjacent to parks and sporting grounds, and the Council's graffiti and reference group policies.
Reflection
Overall the council meeting was fairly calm, with few contentious issues and all votes were carried unanimously. Common themes against perceived overdevelopment appear to be typical across Melbourne, but the constraints applied to the Council through lack of governance authority delegation from the State means that not much can be done against it. However, the Council does recognise that lack of sufficient public transport provision is a serious issue, and advocacy work to highlight that is being undertaken.
Further Reading
- Meeting agenda - https://www.gleneira.vic.gov.au/files/assets/public/document-resources/agenda-and-minutes/2019-agenda/copy-of-04092019-council-meeting-agenda-without-confidential.pdf
- Meeting minutes - https://www.gleneira.vic.gov.au/files/assets/public/document-resources/agenda-and-minutes/2019-minutes/04092019-9-april-2019-council-meeting-minutes.pdf
- Meeting livestream - http://webcast.gleneira.vic.gov.au/archive/video19-0409.php
References
Glen Eira City Council, History and Heritage, accessed 21 April 2019, <https://www.gleneira.vic.gov.au/Places-and-events/History>
ID
Consulting, Community profile of Glen Eira, ID Consulting,
accessed 30 October 2017,
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