Wednesday, 31 August 2022

Caulfield electorate planning

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (19:05): (6518) My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Planning, and the action I ask for from the minister is to look at providing appropriate development guidelines and laws for constituents throughout my electorate, particularly in the areas of Elsternwick, Caulfield East, Ormond and Glen Huntly. I have raised a number of times that 70 per cent of development in the state is going to areas such as mine—developed areas. We do not mind taking our fair share, but when you look at areas like Elsternwick we do not have the infrastructure to support the development that is happening there.

We have a Woolworths tower that is currently before VCAT. We have had a number of residents raise concerns about that overdevelopment. We have no problems with a supermarket, but when a supermarket becomes a property developer and we do not have the amenity to support that development, then of course it really does affect livability for many of those people that live around it. If you contrast that—and it is an ABC site—with the old ABC Countdown studios just up the road in Gordon Street, that is going through a comprehensive plan of development, and that developer has had extensive consultation with the community. They are looking at six storeys, which contrasts with the 12 storeys that the Woolworths development site is currently proposing.

We need to have consistency. I know the anxiety that this has caused many of the residents throughout Elsternwick—the overdevelopment that has taken place. I have raised this numerous times with a previous Minister for Planning. I thought tonight I would try again as we have a new Minister for Planning to see if we can get finally some action, some sensible laws going forward, some consistency and some certainty for many of those residents. We had in Seymour Road a beautiful heritage home that three years ago had a bulldozer through the front door. This heritage home was over 100 years old. It was bulldozed. We tried to stop it. Residents and I wrote to council to prevent it from happening. Council did not have the laws and the regulations to protect that beautiful home from being destroyed. That home stayed, completely. After the front door and the porch and everything was bulldozed, the rest of it stayed there for six months with nothing being done. It was deliberately done by the developer, to have this heritage home bulldozed. We need to ensure livability is protected in all neighbourhoods, especially when I see in my electorate of Caulfield that it has taken far more than its fair share if I compare it to other parts of Glen Eira that have been protected. We want the same. We want the minister to act now to have height limits, to have apartment sizes and to have quality and livability in our neighbourhood.