City Plan approved with 'surprise' amendment

Consultation about the Draft City Plan resulted in Redland City Council having to consider thousands of submissions

A raft of changes to the draft Redland City Plan were approved at a special meeting of Redland City Council on Tuesday 28 February.

During the meeting Mayor Karen Williams talked often about the eighty twenty rule without ever explaining what it meant.

Following a significant amendment which ensured that tree clearing in rural areas would be regulated more rigorously, the Mayor expressed disappointment that important matters were actually resolved at a vote in a public meeting, rather than being agreed beforehand.

It seems that the Mayor’s tactic of calling a surpise special meeting may have backfired on her and her team.

If you are interested in Redland City’s local politics the video recording of the three hour special meeting is highly recommended as it provides residents with a rare opportunity to see all of the councillors participating in a public meeting, discussing and debating issues of importance.

Cr Paul Bishop’s alternative motion

Before councillors discussed the proposed package of changes to the Draft City Plan, Cr Paul Bishop moved an alternative motion which would have required Council to have a second go at making changes to the current planning scheme with improved community input and inclusion of a transport strategy and heritage strategy. His motions was:

That Council resolves as follows:
1. That council acknowledge the matters raised in the City Plan drafting process to date, yet do not move to endorse this Draft City plan;
2. That council retain relevant information and consider inclusion of certain aspects in a major amendment package to the 2006 Redlands Planning Scheme;
3. That council undertake to update and integrate a comprehensive Transport Strategy, as well as a Heritage Strategy to guide and shape our future development patterns;
4. That council commence a phase of community consultation to determine the issues and values of importance to local residents; and
5. That council resolves to strengthen and prioritise the existing corridors and linkages within our rural areas; and that we consider local area planning as a way to manage the unique characteristics within our region.

The alternative motion was lost.

Crs Gollé, Hewlett and Bishop voted FOR the motion.
Crs Boglary, Mitchell, Edwards, Elliott, Huges, Talty, Gleeson and Williams voted AGAINST the motion.

Afterwards, Cr Bishop explained his views on the City Plan in a video recording.

236-246 Queen Street, Cleveland

A minor amendment to the draft City Plan discussed at the council meeting related to the zoning of a property at 236-246 Queen Street.

This property is currently the subject of two legal disputes between Redland City Council and the property owner Michelle Maree Webb, as noted in item 11.2.2 of the agenda for the Council’s general meeting on 8 March 2017.

Making it harder to fell trees

Before the package of Draft City Plan amendments was voted on, it was significantly amended to tighten restrictions on tree clearing in rural areas.

The 11th hour amendment, to decrease the rural tree clearing threshold was moved by Cr Murray Elliott and seconded by Cr Wendy Boglary.

Voting on this amendment saw the Williams team defeated by the six other councillors.

Crs Boglary, Gollé, Hewlett, Elliott, Huges, Bishop voted FOR the motion.
Crs Mitchell, Edwards, Talty, Gleeson and Williams voted AGAINST the motion.

Cr Julie Talty appeared to be particularly upset by the decision to have more rigorous regulation of tree clearing in rural areas; so upset that she didn’t vote for the final motion.

Councillors Wendy Boglary, Paul Golle, Lance Hewlett, Murray Elliott, Tracy Huges and Paul Bishop voting for the amendment to regulate tree clearing more rigorously.

Voting on the amended City Plan changes

Finally, after nearly three hours of discussion, councillors moved to a final vote, but not before Cr Boglary vented some steam about the process of resolving differences of opinion about city plan issues (170:40 on the video recording).

Crs Boglary, Mitchell, Hewlett, Edwards, Elliott, Huges, Gleeson and Williams voted FOR the motion.
Crs Gollé, Talty and Bishop voted AGAINST the motion.

Divisional councillors voting on the final decision to endorse amendments to the Draft City Plan.

Tree ropes facility approved on 22 February

The main item of non-routine business discussed at the 22 February general meeting was approval of an outdoor recreation facility in Victoria Point.

The proposed development on 4 hectares of land owned by The Scout Association of Australia will involve high ropes, flying foxes, bridges and nets.

The development application was approved unanimously by Council.

More information is available in a Bulletin Report.

Agenda for the General Meeting on 8 March

The agenda for Council’s general meeting on 8 March appears to comprise mostly routine review of routine reports including a report to Council on the fifth formal meeting of the Redland City Economic Development Advisory Board.

Here is a link to the meeting agenda.

What about the Ombudsmans report?

On 5 January the Queensland Ombudsman published an investigative report dealing with Redland City Council’s response to “relatively minor criticism of council’s decisions”.

In his Redland City Council defamation report the Ombudsman raises questions about the integrity of decision-making by Redland City Council.

Redland City councillors have not yet discussed the Ombudsman’s report at a general meeting.

It appears that the Council is in denial about the issues raised by the Ombudsman.

Redlands2030 – 5 March 2017

3 Comments

Stephen, Mar 11, 2017

I was at the Sunday meeting prior to the Special Council meeting where 5 Councillors stood up in front of the group in unison protesting the plan and the process. They were Crs Gollé, Hewlett, Bishop, Boglary, and Huges.
Why is it that Boglary and Huges, who stood next to Cr Paul Bishop on the Sunday, did not support his motion however the others did? then, both Boglary and Huges voted to support the proposed town plan, the others didnt ? how quickly the work does turn.
Congratulations to Crs Bishop, Gollé and Hewlett for honestly standing by their convictions with integrity.

Adelia Berridge, Mar 06, 2017

Thank you Team Redlands 2030 for the Council meeting information summary. I need to acknowledge my gratitude as you give up your time to attend these meetings and bring the information to the public with no out of pocket compensation or any form of income. People have contacted me as far as Perth asking how does a community get such a dedicated team of unpaid workers. It’s almost unheard of and we are extremely lucky is all I can say.

Dave, Mar 05, 2017

Still the question remains…why did the Councillors not support the community and move to defer the whole agenda for the City Plan. That was the unanimous decision moved at the information session last Sunday.

Because at the heart of the Councils arrogance was the way the community given less than two working days to even consider the agenda. How could the community read 200 pages in the time available, evaluate what was proposed and then make their views known to local Councillors???

The principles of local government decision making seem unknown to the elected officials of Redlands. Compliance is more than hours of formal notice it has an ethical dimension.

The hype about consultation, number of submissions and the number of secret meetings (workshops) does nothing to mitigate the flawed and arrogant process. As much as anything the 15 month delay just highlights the dismissive nature of the calling of the Special meeting…which had a date in the official papers of 28 March….a Freudian slip perhaps?

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City Plan approved with ‘surprise’ amendment