Being the introspectively cynical type, I sometimes have cause to wonder what I might be missing when I suspect that the Planning Department at the City of Stirling might actually be doing the right thing.
So when a Council planning and development committee decides to approve a recommended refusal, there must surely be a fine reason given that Councillors at the City of Stirling are beholden under their governance framework to do what is in the best interests of the City regardless of if that might be contrary to the wishes of an individual Councillor, ratepayer or group of ratepayers. (Governance might properly add `or regardless of Celebrity or Political clout` but perhaps that might be in the best interests of the City?)
So, on Tuesday 18th June 2019 , the Council planning committee approved with less onerous conditions the application, the Planning department must therefore have been up to its usual shenanigans, order is restored, time for bed and don’t forget to say your prayers… but if you do… and decide to go to Church as penance, best walk, or take a trackless tram because parking is going to be a bit tight.
Goalposts and Precedent
Score Victory Life 2 : Living Faith 0 ;
(in reality relegation given they lost in the replay at the State Administrative Tribunal as well)
2 Churches, 2 significant parking shortfalls; 1 approved !twice! by Council (so far just the Committee) , the other refused by all-comers, there were several issues with both applications but the substantive matter in both was the significant parking shortfall, and if you look at the applications themselves, Victory Life, had far more hurdles to overcome.
So Living Faith lost mainly on the issue of the parking shortfall and their application’s refusal was confirmed at a full Council meeting.
Victory Life, with a much larger parking shortfall…. was however granted approval with some unlikely conditions attached by Council. Those being that the Church would secure parking rights from neighboring businesses in perpetuity. Think about that for say a second or 2 and you will realise how ridiculous and unlikely such a state of affairs this would be, businesses and landowners come and go so the Church would have required landowners to grant a parking easement (or some other such legal instrument) until the end of days, to satisfy Councils reciprocal parking conditions, short of the miraculous it was never going to happen.
Nor did it. Victory Life was back in Council on Tuesday 18th (after much private lobbying) for another go. Praise be the Planning departments who reaffirmed its previous report and position from the first recommended refusal and for good measure noted the SAT loss and reasons given for that loss for the Victory Life Church. some expected the SAT to overturn that decision, something the SAT does a lot of but clearly parking on a Sunday in an industrial area is one step too far even for the SAT*.
The SAT noted,
“The notion of a single land use effectively being granted approval to monopolise the available public car parking space in a locality is contrary to orderly and proper planning as such an approach would undermine the potential for other sites in the locality to avail themselves of the same opportunity to access a public resource.”
The officers report warned,
“The SAT’s determination is highly relevant to the assessment of this proposal. The development proposed is contrary to orderly and proper planning as adequate parking provision cannot be provided onsite or through permanent reciprocal parking arrangements.”
Even the applicant agrees~
“As expected and understandable, the neighbouring businesses are not prepared to
enter into legal agreement/easements/caveats to provide permanent parking for the
benefit of VLC. This is a commercially unviable planning condition that would serious
prejudice any future development plans that the said businesses may have”
So what exactly does the Planning Committee do ? no prizes for guessing approval at this point but not only does it approve the application, it drops the unachievable parking arrangements from the original Council approval and adds instead includes the following less onerous conditions..
g. The proposed parking in the verge outside the lot boundary does not form part of this approval and is subject to a further approval from the City’s Engineering Design Business Unit;
k. A Parking Management Plan shall be submitted to, and approved by, the City prior to the commencement of development. The Parking Management Plan shall demonstrate how on-site car parking will be managed and what measures will be taken to ensure car parking is contained on site. The Parking Management Plan shall include detail to the satisfaction of the City of how patrons are to be directed to, and transported to and from, appropriate public car parking areas in the locality; and
l. That pursuant to Clause 5.8.1 of the City’s Local Planning Scheme No.3, a
cash-in-lieu contribution for 230 car parking bays be waived for this
application (DA19/0354).
Condition g can essentially be ignored, if the verge parking does not form part of the approval then that does not stop the development from proceeding, k is a bit more onerous and looks a bit scary but like the good book itself is wide open to interpretation and as such requires neither the second coming nor even a minor miracle to overcome…. as is clearly the intent of these conditions…., l is just rubbing it in as far as Living Faith is concerned and of course a dent in the budget for ratepayers.
So unless the full Council at its next meeting wakes up and smells …whatever it is this approval smells of…. its a done deal.
As it happens, and as disclaimer, I do not think a bit of god-party parking on a Sunday in an industrial area is likely to initiate imminent armageddon, however, if I were Living Faith, I might be asking why my deity albeit the same one as Victory Life’s, did not `privately reveal` his or her intentions to the Council for their Church in the same way it clearly did for Margaret Courts, in fact I might even consider asking my Lawyer.
As a ratepayer however I am wondering what the Matthew 12:36 is going on at Stirling?, how can 2, essentially the same applications (to the substantive issues), have 2 so very different outcomes ? especially given that the Planning Department showed no such preferential treatment.
The final scores
…noting there is a penalty shootout at the next regular Council meeting;
Victory Life: 2
Living Faith: 0
`orderly and proper planning`: “did not attend”
……….
NOTES:
Councillor Elizabeth Re did raise a procedural motion in Council on 20th Feb 2018 when Living Faith’s refusal was confirmed in regard to the application for Living Faith that
“the Item relating to Lot 7, House Number 14, Mumford Place, Balcatta – Place Worship – State Administrative Tribunal Request for Reconsideration Under Section 31 the State Administrative Tribunal Act 2005 be REFERRED to the Ordinary Meeting Council to be held 6 March 2018 to allow the applicant to provide information relating reciprocal parking”
The minutes (as so often at Stirling) are unclear in as much that they do not note why this motion was withdrawn, my guess is for lack of a seconder, the point however is that Living Faith was not even afforded the opportunity to discuss reciprocal parking whist Victory Life , were, for all the good it did them.
This is not only not `orderly and proper planning` (to the letter of the planning instruments both should have been refused) it is patently unfair.
…………………………….
Community News reported on both applications.
Stirling council approves Osborne Park church despite ‘major parking problem’
Stirling councillors have reservations about Balcatta church proposal
