Animal management laws on Council Agenda

Is horse riding allowed in your local park?

Local laws dealing with horses, pigs, koalas and dogs are on the agenda for the Redland City Council Meeting to be held on Wednesday 22 April.

Other agenda items include a motion that a report on activities of the Industry Reference Group be presented to Council by June including details of meeting agendas, minutes and attendees (item 14.1.1).

Local laws

A proposal to adopt various changes to local laws (item 11.2.2) is the subject of a long report with many attachments. The following information, extracted from the report, appears to give a sense of some key changes that Council may decide to adopt on Wednesday. This information is taken from a section in the report titled: Public Consultation submission Review. The report includes more detailed discussion of the submissions received during the public consultation process.

Keeping of pigs

The first draft allowed the keeping of one de-sexed miniature pig on land greater than 4000m2. The second draft proposed to allow any type and number of pigs on land greater than 4000m2 (except in the Ridgewood Downs prohibition area) provided relevant conditions are met. The final draft has been amended to require a permit to keep one de-sexed pet pig on land greater than 4000m2 on the mainland (except in Ridgewood Downs) subject to relevant conditions. Pigs will be prohibited from all Redland City islands for environmental and cultural reasons.

Koala conservation

The first draft had omitted reference to koala areas (formerly Koala Management Areas). Koala areas have been added to the Local Law and Subordinate Local Law, including updated mapping based on the State Koala Habitat Area mapping for the Nature Conservation (Koala) Conservation Plan 2006 and Management Program 2006-2016. Submissions called for the mapping to be expanded (particularly around Ferntree Park and North Stradbroke Island)or to cover the whole City. They also called for conditions regarding the confinement of a dog in a koala area to be more stringent. Council will proceed to make the laws as drafted for the second consultation process (incorporating koala areas) and commit to reviewing the koala areas and their requirements as an immediate priority.

Animal noise nuisance

As an outcome of the General Meeting on 28 January 2015 and subsequent Notice of Motion on 11 February 2015, Councillors voted (for the second draft) to reduce the time that animal noise is considered a nuisance (3 minutes in 30 minutes at any time). As a result of the second community consultation and the Councillor workshop in March 2015 the animal noise nuisance provisions have been amended to reflect the first draft and maintain the current provisions (6 minutes in 60 minutes (7am-10pm) and 3 minutes in 30 minutes (10pm-7am) periods).

Horses in public places

Council consulted during the second round of consultation on whether horses should be allowed on and off trails throughout the City unless otherwise signed. As a result of the Councillor workshop in March 2015 Council has amended the laws to allow horses in all parks and reserves on and off trails except where it is specifically signposted that horses are prohibited. Council is also undertaking a project to better map and define horse friendly trails within the City.

Attending the meeting

Members of the public can attend the meeting to observe proceedings, except for seven items at the end of the meeting which the Council will discuss in closed session. The meeting is scheduled to start at 9:30 am.

Contact your councillor

If you are concerned about the proposed changes to local laws contact your local councillor

Here are Redland City Council contact details.

Redlands2030 – 19 April 2015

2 Comments

Toni, Apr 25, 2015

Again another dumb decision some Councillors, this time to allow horses in public parks. I am aware that council staff are opposed to this stupid decision. They know that the impact of hooves on parks leaves large ruts which are dangerous, not sure how the Capalaba Footy club using John Fredericks Park, or the Rugby Club at Judy Holt, or maybe the cricketers using some of our parks feel about large ruts in their parks. Dog owners are required to pick up droppings so is there a similar law that requires horse owners to pick up any dropping or do kids just walk over it. The weeds spread from dropping is another issue. I am aware from people who ride that being in areas where there are people scares the horse. Whilst I am informed by people in the Redlands Pony Club that this is a push by Talty, I feel confident that most horse owners, will see the lack of thought in this change and use the many kilometres of trails, in Redland Bay, Mt Cotton, Sheldon and Victoria Point.
I also believe there will be complaints from many who use the Mt Cotton Regional Park, dont think their families want to have to step around horse mature on their way to the BBQ or twist their ankle in ruts in the grass

Lynn, Apr 20, 2015

Thanks Penny for alerting us to this important meeting. The dog laws proposed are pretty useless as they do not cover the areas where most koalas are killed (in urban areas). The restrictions in the non-urban areas allow dogs to be out all night in a 2,000m2 area with nothing to stop koalas entering. How futile is that! Also we should be concerned about the increased maintenance costs of our conservation reserves with increased weed incursion and erosion caused by horses being allowed unless signed otherwise. Imagine the number of signs if we were to keep them out of all our sensitive areas. Besides there’s a safety aspect as walkers and horses using the same narrow tracks is not a good idea. Let your councillor know if you are concerned about any of these aspects of the local laws.

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