16 September 2010
The Lord Mayor & Councillors
City of Melbourne
GPO Box 1603
Melbourne 3001
Dear Lord Mayor and Councillors,
On the 18th August 2010, a public meeting was held in West Melbourne regarding the Zagame Development at 559-577 King Street West Melbourne. On a cold winter’s night, the meeting was attended by 51 local people, who were advised of the meeting through a local letterbox drop. Although Association members were in attendance, most attendees were not Association members.
The following motions were passed unanimously by the group.
• THAT THIS MEETING SUPPORTS THE RE-DEVELOPMENT OF MIXED USE AREA SITES TO INCLUDE MEDIUM DENSITY RESIDENTIAL/MIXED USE DEVELOPMENT AS PROMOTED IN THE WEST MELBOURNE STRUCTURE PLAN.
• THAT THIS MEETING CONDEMNS THE PROPOSED HIGH-RISE DEVELOPMENTS IN THE AREA COVERED BY DDO 29 (including Zagame, 87-101 Roden Street, (Lost at VCAT with COM support for our position) and 141-149 Roden Street (just listed)THAT EXCEED THE RECOMMENDED HEIGHT LIMIT OF 14 METRES (4 STOREYS).)
• THAT THIS MEETING CONDEMNS ABSOLUTELY THE FACT THAT THIS HEIGHT LEVEL IS “DISCRETIONARY” WHERE THAT TERM HAS NO CONSTRAINTS AND IS AT THE WHIM OF THE ‘RESPONSIBLE’ AUTHORITY, whether that be the Council or the Minister of Planning or VCAT.
Of prime concern to the Association, an issue related to Motion 1, is the question of the status of the West Melbourne Structure Plan in the Planning Scheme. We have been led to believe that the WMSP is an ‘associated’ document in the scheme but has not been ‘incorporated’ into the Scheme. We raise the issue that in the VCAT appeal on 87-101 Roden St, the Council barrister did not make any mention of the WMSP in his case, focussed on the review of the six storey development at the rear of the site. The WMSP is available on the Council website, so it must have some status. We are aware of the extraordinary effort that members of our Association went to, to support the development of the WMSP. Many hours were spent in consultations and in reviewing and providing comment on documentation.
We would appreciate some clarification about what all this means. We now find that this document appears to be peripheral to major developments affecting this area. We are uncertain of the actual status of the Plan in the planning scheme and the extent that we can trust the council to be relied on
to do the things that need to be done to ensure that our joint vision for the future of the area can be effectively implemented.
In regard to Motion 2, we are concerned that height limit specified in DDO29 appears to have no meaning in terms of what is permitted to be considered for a planning permit.
The third issue is about ‘discretion’. We see from your experience in Southbank that VCAT have a similar view that ‘discretion’ is totally open ended. In Southbank it was 2.2 times the height limit. Zagame is 2.5 – although on a base of 14m, the outcome is a little different from the base of 100m in Southbank. The principle is still the same. What is the scope of ‘discretion’? How can it be brought within reasonable limits? Should ‘discretion’ be discarded altogether?
We would respectfully suggest that these items needs to be very carefully worded in any new DDOs and Structure Plans in order to ensure that this uncertainty is removed and that the planning scheme actually determines the outcomes that are intended.
We would appreciate clarification about the status of the WMSP and whether it is not too late to do anything to formalise its status in the planning scheme. Why cannot the WMSP be immediately incorporated into the planning scheme, by Ministerial power, in order to provide us with some protection from excessive development? Are there other planning documents prepared for incorporation into the planning scheme that have, similarly, been placed in the ‘bottom drawer’?
We also appreciate that some of these questions contain political implications that are probably outside yours and our direct control. We can only live in hope that the ballot box may lead to a system that is less able to be manipulated at a State political level.
We look forward to your response.
Yours sincerely
Kevin Chamberlin
Deputy Chairperson