By Mikayla van Loon
A subdivision application for Mount Evelyn has divided the council at the last meeting of the year, seeing a deferral motion put forward and approved with a split vote.
The planning application for a single dwelling subdivision of 14 East Avenue was highly debated by councillors on Tuesday 14 December.
Many concerns related to a nearby stormwater drain that has a history of flooding and the position of a crossover on Centre Avenue which would require the building of a culvert.
David Schmidtke has lived on Centre Avenue for over 25 years and spoke on behalf of the residents and objectors.
“I don’t think anybody is objecting to the actual subdivision of the property, it’s over 4000 square metres, so that’s a non-issue,” he said.
“I guess the key thing is the location of the dwelling and the impacts it’s going to have in regards to water runoff.”
Mr Schmidtke said after a lot of rain, the amount of water in the stormwater channel is substantial and it’s not something that is cleared after a couple of days but rather multiple weeks.
“To put another dwelling on there and to have the stormwater running into that water system is going to make the flooding issues we are already having worse and worse.”
Mr Schmidtke said the proposed solution of installing a 10,000 litre water tank would only be sufficient until it is full and then excess water would run into stormwater.
“From our perspective, if the dwelling was to move further down the property, more central, all these issues would be alleviated and access from South Avenue would make a lot more rational sense,” Mr Schmidtke said.
The applicant Shelley Starrenburg was emotional as she said she is not a developer and instead is trying to build her forever home for her young family.
“It has been a really difficult process and we want to build in Mount Evelyn and we want to raise our family here,” she said.
Ms Starrenburg said she felt the application complied with all planning requirements and the design of the house suited the neighbourhood.
“We openly want to work with the council’s stormwater team to ensure the appropriate solution is implemented to make sure that the impacts to that culvert and waterway are managed,” she said.
A number of questions were raised by Councillor Tim Heenan about the traffic access off Centre Avenue where the crossover would be positioned, while Councillor Richard Higgins and Councillor Eastham questioned the building of the crossover in a road reserve of trees.
Cr Heenan retracted an original alternative motion with a number of conditions on the approval of the permit to submit a deferral motion of the application until next year.
“I can’t remember the last time I asked for this particular aspect of a deferral to a motion but I feel very serious in this nature,” he said.
In the 13 years Cr Heenan has been on the council, he said he has never questioned the position of a crossover and he didn’t want to refuse the application completely but wanted time to investigate further.
“I believe the existence and position of this crossover is in the wrong place. I’m concerned that in doing so, we’re going to add to more of the issues that exist in Centre Avenue in relation to the safety and movement of traffic.”
Cr Higgins seconded the deferral motion and said he was surprised by the location of the crossover when he saw it in person.
“It’s a huge issue that I think we actually need to sit down and do some more work on before we say ‘yes we’re going to allow a driveway to go across there’. Because at the moment I really really struggle to say hand on heart, ‘we can achieve that safely’,” he said.
Councillor Fiona McAllister and Councillor Jim Child said they could not support the deferral motion because they believed the conditions placed on the permit would suffice if approved.
“We do have quite a number of internal experts that have been consulted as part of this process and of course external experts,” Cr McAllister said.
“I think what concerns me most about deferring…and I completely understand Cr Heenan and Cr Higgins’ intent but we have to take into account the impact on applicants.
“We’re at the end of the year and we’ll be looking at a delay, I would imagine, of months which incurs not only cost but as we already saw from the applicant who spoke tonight, the ongoing stress on the family and we can’t underestimate that.”
Cr McAllister said if the conditions of Centre Avenue are as terrible as described then that is an issue for the council to address at a later date, alongside the drainage infrastructure.
Councillors Child, McAllister and Skelton opposed the deferral motion but were outnumbered five votes to three.
