As part of my research on local parking, I decided to read the City of Port Phillip info.  There was a lot that I didn’t know!!

This link has the details of types and costs.  Party ones, moving in/out ones, temporary one – even one for tradies.

It is worth knowing that residents can apply for a ‘tradie’ parking permit.  It costs $51 per week and are for a max of 4 weeks – but means your tradie doesn’t have to keep feeding a meter!!

BUT beware tradie permits have the same restrictions as visitor and residents permits – and you can’t park just anywhere…read the details and one big gotcha around here is you can only park in front of residential properties and the City of PP definition of residential is tough.

“Council defines a Residential property as being a property that is used 100% for residential purposes. Properties that have a mixed use (i.e. apartments on upper floors and a café/shop/business on ground floor) are not considered residential.”

Clearly that excludes most of St Kilda Rd and most of Bowen Cres!!  Be careful

I’ll query this definition of ‘residential properties’ to the agenda for my regular meeting with City of PP.  But for now I’d be very careful

There has been a lot of action in Bowen Cres in the last 18 months and people have frequently asked me ‘what can we do?’.

I am no expert, but there is a lot of good reading on the City of Port Phillip web site.

This one has details of the overall St Kilda Rd area and some general planning ‘rules’.  This one has information on Bowen Crescent particularly.

So my interpretation is that is someone wants to demolish and build in Bowen Cres, the first check is compliance with these documents.  They specify a maximum height and the setback from the road etc.  I think you would have very little room to argue if the developer meets these ‘rules’.

I’m sure that the Council also has some general rules about building new apartments that ‘look into’ existing apartments.

Each time that someone submits plans to the council, they place a notice out the front of the site.  This has a link to a website that has all the plan details.  You can also go to this site and search, in fact you can simply search on Bowen Crescent and there are numerous submissions (back many years).

When a submission is made public they also advertise the process for lodging complaints/comments.

With the recent move of our gas meter from the lower car park, it has been suggested that we use that cage to improve our recycling options.  It would be in addition to the current recycling next to the lift

Some suggestions include

• Clothes via a wheelie bin from Good Sammys or equiv
• Shoes via a wheelie bin from Good Sammys or equiv
• Nespresso – via a service they offer
• Electrical waste – via City of Port Phillip

Feedback welcome please