Scrap call-in policy and restore say for community
Mr Clark (BOX HILL) – My matter is for the attention of the Minister of Planning and concerns the issue of planning application call-ins in my electorate. I ask the minister to scrap the government’s current call-in-everything policy so as to allow such applications to be decided through normal planning processes.
One example of the effects of the government’s policy is a proposal for an 11-unit development on a modest single housing block at 10 Koonung Street, North Balwyn. If approved, this will impose a massive overdevelopment on what is currently a quiet, peaceful suburban street. Neighbours say a proposal for a much smaller development has previously been rejected by the council.
It is hard to see how an 11-unit development could ever win approval at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), which the government constantly claims is the independent umpire whose decisions residents should accept, yet at the stroke of a pen, behind closed doors, the minister can change forever the nature of this neighbourhood for the worse.
The minister has already approved another massive overdevelopment in Mangan Street, Balwyn, which will put 30 units on two average-size housing blocks with only 13 car parking spaces and no provision for garbage bin collection. Another call-in is a proposed Aldi supermarket at the corner of Doncaster Road and Tannock Street, Greythorn, including the rezoning of a residential housing lot. This application was already being handled by Boroondara City Council. An application for authority to prepare a planning scheme amendment had been given to the minister by Boroondara council on 1 June last year. It apparently sat on the minister’s desk until it was rejected by him in March this year.
A supermarket in some form may well be appropriate for this site, but residents are concerned that the current proposal seeks to impose a standard Aldi design with inadequate modification to suit the site, including a visually dominating two-storey rooftop car park and, even then, seeking dispensation from normal car park numbers. This could lead to the current convenient kerbside angle parking in front of the strip shops along Doncaster Road, which is one of the greatest attractions of the Greythorn shopping centre, being filled by supermarket customers, with serious detrimental effects on local traders and the amenity of the centre.
All these are matters which could and should be resolved through normal open public planning processes including, if necessary, a public hearing at VCAT instead of the ultimate decision being made by the government, with no requirement for reasons based on evidence or good planning.
A third example is a call-in of the 38-storey tower proposal for Box Hill which raises crucial issues regarding traffic flow, parking, overshadowing, overlooking, pedestrian and public transport connections, wind effects, traffic congestion and the precedent for future building heights. Again, the minister has given no adequate justification for bypassing normal planning processes, with the case lined up to be heard by VCAT at the time he called it in.
Ministerial call-in should be a last resort for difficult and intractable projects of state importance. The state and federal Labor government should not be using claims about the global economic crisis as an excuse to trash normal processes and community protections, whether it be for roof insulation, for school building programs or for imposing high-rise, high-density or intensive developments across our suburbs.