What Council can consider

Council can only act on certain grounds. Knowing which ones will make your submission harder to set aside.

Council can only act on certain kinds of objection. This is a summary of Council’s own published guidance and of the decision guidelines in the planning scheme. If a point matters to you, say it — but knowing which points carry statutory weight will make your submission much harder to set aside.

What Council must weigh when deciding this application

These are not optional. Clause 32.09-14 of the planning scheme lists the matters Council must consider before deciding an application like this one in a Neighbourhood Residential Zone. Any of them is fair ground for a submission:

• The safety, efficiency and amenity effects of the traffic the proposal would generate. Queuing, turning movements, the new driveway, conflict with people on foot. This is the one with no assessment behind it.
• Whether the use is compatible with the residential neighbourhood it sits in.
• Whether the proposal meets a local community need in a suitable location. Not whether a childcare centre is needed in general — whether this location suits it.
• The scale and intensity of the use — how big, how many, how busy.
• The design, height, setback and appearance of the buildings, and how they sit against neighbouring homes.
• The layout and quality of landscaping.
• The provision of car and bicycle parking, and of accessways.
• Loading and refuse arrangements — where delivery and waste vehicles go, and when.
• Hours of operation and the amenity effects of the use, including noise, on nearby homes.

Clause 65 adds a general test that runs across every application: whether the proposal represents orderly and proper planning, and whether it would have an unreasonable effect on the amenity of the surrounding area. Several of the Council refusals on the Who decides page turned on exactly that.

Sources: Greater Geelong Planning Scheme, Clause 32.09-14, as reproduced in the applicant’s planning report, p.21; Clause 65.01.

Grounds Council specifically names as relevant

Council’s own submission guide singles out three that come up often. These sit alongside the list above, not instead of it:

• Overlooking — where a proposal would look into your private open space or habitable room windows.
• Overshadowing — where a proposal would cast unreasonable shadow over your property.
• Lack of car parking — but only where the application seeks to reduce the statutory parking requirement.

Source: Council, Making an effective planning application submission.

What makes a submission effective

Council’s guidance asks you to explain clearly how the proposal would affect you, to highlight the part of the proposal that affects you if only part of it does, and to use dot points for separate issues. It says Council welcomes suggested solutions that would address your concerns. It also notes that Council cannot help you write your submission.

• Write about yourself. Council receives the general arguments from everyone. What it does not have is your account of this street — which route you walk, what time, what you can see and hear from your own windows.
• Anchor each point to something on the list above. A concern about queuing is a traffic-effects point. A concern about a twelve-hour operating day is an amenity and intensity point.
• Dot points, not paragraphs. One issue per point.
• Suggest a fix if you have one. Council’s guidance explicitly welcomes it, and a submission proposing a condition is harder to dismiss than one proposing nothing.
• Short is fine. A focused half-page in your own words carries more weight than three pages copied from someone else.

You must give your name, address and contact details for a submission to be complete. If you object, your name, address and the substance of your objection are made available as part of the planning process. Your phone number and email are not.

Source: Council, Making an effective planning application submission.

Grounds Council says it cannot consider

• Loss of property value. Outside the scope of the Planning and Environment Act 1987.
• Boundary fencing between two private properties. Dealt with under the Fences Act, between neighbours.
• Disruption during construction — dust, noise, damage from building work. Handled at the building permit stage.
• Availability of street parking, where the application does not seek to reduce the statutory car parking requirement.

That last one applies here. The applicant’s report calculates the scheme requirement at 27 spaces and proposes 27, so no reduction is sought. An objection resting only on street parking may not get far. Concerns about traffic — queuing, turning movements, the new crossover, pedestrian conflict — are an entirely different matter and sit squarely within the list Council must weigh.

Sources: Council, Making an effective planning application submission; FI – Planning Report, Table 3, p.26.