Here’s a big development that has just been submitted. From the council planning application register:
Development and use for 38 dwellings and a shop in a five (5) storey building in a Design and Development Overlay (DDO12), reduction in the standard bicycle and car parking requirements and alteration to a Road Zone Category 1.
Documents are not yet available through the website, but keep an eye out for them. Further details here and here.
See this article in the progress leader about height controls in West Hawthorn. Areas including Power St, Glenferrie Rd and Lynch St were recently granted mandatory building heights of 16 metres to 18 metres until January 2013. See also the media release on the Boroondara website.
The Boroondara council now has documents associated with planning applications available to view on the council website. Users can search for planning applications and then download the pdf documents including plans that were submitted for that application.
This is a huge advance for residents who often cannot make it in to the council offices during business hours to view the plans of developments that may have a major impact on them. According to the council’s news release, the documentation will be available from the date advertising commences and removed once a decision is made.
To view the documents go to the council’s planning register.
One unfortunate side affect of the change to the website is that the harvester used by planningalerts.org.au appears to be broken. I’ll look into fixing this over the weekend.
This article appeared on the Boroondara Residents Action Group Website.
As a response to the Brumby government’s dictate to jam in another 20,000 people into Boroondara, The Boroondara Council’s Strategic Planning Department has issued a draft Activity Centres Strategy which identifies 48 neighbourhood activity centres plus three growth corridors for intensive development. These 48 centres are in addition to the principle activity centre at Camberwell Junction, and the two major activity centres at Glenferrie and KewJunction.
Link : http://boroondara.vic.gov.au/activity-centres/summary
As an attempt at consulatation, council has arranged to explain the strategy to the community at the Hawthorn Town Hall, in Burwood Road Hawthorn Saturday, 12th February 2011,10am to 1pm. Residents are required to register and attendees will be selected by ballot. Link : http://Boroondara.vic.gov.au/activity-centres/events
Along with leaders of other community groups, BRAG is concerned that council is continuing to implement this strategy. It was part of the previous government’s Melbourne @ 5 Million planning blueprint which was a response to Melbourne’s rapid population growth. Both Melbourne @ 5 Million and the previous Melbourne 2030 blueprints have been discredited and the Brumby government’s Housing Capacity Strategy, of which Boroondara’ s draft strategy is a part, have been scrapped by the Baillieu government.
We are pushing for a moratorium until the proposed changes to planning policies by the Baillieu government can be assessed.
westhawthorn.org is also supporting a moratorium on this planning measure until it is clear what the new State Government’s planning agenda will be.
Users of Grace Park will be well aware of the collapse of the pedestrian and cycling bridge over the Hawthorn main drain (which used to be called Hawthorn Creek by the way). The notice displayed talks about a new bridge happening in November (see below). For some reason the council is going to build a temporary bridge that will then be replaced when they provide funding to implement this part of the Grace Park management plan.
Grace Park Notice
It seems very strange that the council cannot bring forward their own plans to redevelop this part of the park and save themselves the cost of building a temporary bridge. We’ll await developments.
Amendment C69 – An amendment to the Boroondara planning scheme that implements the West Hawthorn Urban Design Framework will be considered by council in August 2010. You can see details on the Boroondara Council Website here. Please register your interest.
Wednesday night (14 April 2010) there will be a public meeting at 6pm upstairs at the Elgin Inn for anyone interested in being involved with helping set up a Bendigo Community Bank at West Hawthorn Village or just wanting to know how it works and how the Community benefits.
The site planningalerts.org.au now covers all planning applications lodged in Boroondara. Planningalerts.org.au is a site where you can enter your address and sign up to be emailed whenever an application occurs near your house. You can set how close the distance is. Below is a map of recent applications lodged within 2km of Hawthorn Station.
Westhawthorn.org helped out by writing some software called a scraper to automatically get the applications from the Boroondara website. I’d recommend checking out planningalerts.org.au. A really big thanks to planningalerts.org.au for producing such a useful service!
We’ve had word that the Monash IVF facility is relocating from East Melbourne and is considering an existing four storey building at 50 Burwood Road Hawthorn (opposite St James park). No external physical buildings, additions or works changes are proposed. The proposal will be for a 31 bed maternity ward, consulting suites, operating theatres and ancillary shops on the ground flour (chemist, pathology etc.).
The main concern would be the track record of hospitals that border residential areas expanding into those areas. Cabrini hospital is an example of this. Do we want a hospital precinct in this area? Comments please.
A new website that allows subscribers to be notified on new planning applications has been launched. This looks to be very promising. Once Boroondara is on line then this should provide an excellent service for West Hawthorn residents. From their blog:
PlanningAlerts.org.au is a free service which searches as many planning authority websites as it can find and emails you details of applications near you. The aim of this to enable shared scrutiny of what is being built (and knocked down) in peoples’ communities.
PlanningAlerts.org.au is brought to you by the OpenAustralia Foundation with financial assistance from the Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce. It was adapted for Australia by Matthew Landauer and Katherine Szuminska, and is based on the UK site PlanningAlerts.com, built by Richard Pope, Mikel Maron, Sam Smith, Duncan Parkes, Tom Hughes and Andy Armstrong.
@WestHawthorn