More dogs, more units, but still no public participation

Dog laws, a townhouse six pack for Wellington Point and the Weinam Creek Priority Development Area will be discussed at the next Council meeting but yet again there will be no public participation.

No public participation at Council meetings

Since the 2020 local government elections more than a year ago, only 14 people have addressed councillors at general meetings of Redland City Council. These speakers have all been clergy, providing religious guidance to councillors.

Other people who might wish to address councillors at a Redland City Council general meeting are banned. Meeting agendas for some time have stated: “There will be no Public Participation as this meeting is closed to the public, as a result of COVID-19 Pandemic social restrictions and regulation changes.”

State Government regulations implemented in April 2020 to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic have allowed council meetings to be closed to the community by decision of the meeting chair: Mayor Karen Williams.

Redlands2030 submission about public participation

Redlands2030’s submission to a Queensland Parliamentary committee’s inquiry into extension of these COVID-19 regulations says:

“If the Council can manage to have a clergy person join the meeting and speak to councillors, it should be able to have community members also join the meeting for a short period of time to speak to councillors about matters of community concern”.

Details of religious guidance (lots) and public participation (nil) at Redland City Council meetings over the past 12 months were provided to the Committee as a further submission.

Redland City council’s failure to implement live streaming of council meetings, while meetings are closed to the public, was also drawn to the Committee’s attention in Redlands2030’s submission.

Agenda items for Council meeting on 21 April

Agenda items listed for discussion at the Council meeting on Wednesday 21 April include:

• Local law changes so people living on very large properties can keep more dogs (Item 14.4)
• Development application for 6 units at Cooinda Street in Wellington Point (Item 14.3)
• Weinam Creek Priority Development Area project update (Item 13.4)
• Council’s Age-friendly Action Plan 2021-2026, revised very slightly after community consultation

Two notices of motion have been added to the agenda for this meeting:

• Cr Wendy Boglary proposes environmental corridors in the rural parts of Redlands (Item 17.1)
• Cr Paul Golle proposes that Council investigate protection of artificial water bodies (Item 17.2)

Three closed session items will be considered at this Council meeting:

• Redland Investment Corporation Financial Report for Period Ending 31 December 2020 (Item 19.1)
• P&E Court appeal about plans for development at 17-19 Honeygem Place, Birkdale (Item 19.2)
• P&E Court appeal about plans for a childcare centre at 13 & 15 Ziegenfusz Road, Thornlands (Item 19.3)

More dogs on large properties

Currently, Redlands residents can keep two dogs but a third dog can be kept with Council’s approval. A review of dog keeping limits was sought by Cr July Talty in a motion put to the Council meeting on 2 December 2020.

The resulting officers’ report proposes that up to four dogs be allowed on properties larger than 10,001 square metres.

For properties between 2,001 and 10,000 square metres, the officers report is proposing that residents be allowed to keep three dogs as of right, or four dogs with Council approval.

People living in townhouses, apartments and retirement homes would be limited to a maximum of two dogs with no provision for Council to approve keeping of an additional dog.

Any resident would be able to keep four dogs with Council approval if the dogs are ‘prescribed’. Prescribed dogs are those owned by a current member of a recognised association, Dogs Queensland (show dogs or agility
dogs), or a member of a recognised animal welfare or rescue organisation.

This table summarises proposed new limits on how many dogs can be kept on a property in the Redlands.

Community consultation is required before Council can amend local laws about animal management.

If you were wondering how the rule changes might impact on each of the Redland City councillors, the size of their residential properties (obtained from their publicly available registers of interests) are shown below.

Position	Councillor	Residential Property size
Division 1	Wendy Boglary	810 square metres
Division 2	Peter Mitchell	1,050 square metres
Division 3	Paul Golle	800 square metres
Division 4	Lance Hewlett	416 square metres
Division 5	Mark Edwards	1,399 square metres
Division 6	July Talty	100,000 square metres
Division 7	Rowanne McKenzie	700 square metres
Division 8	Tracey Huges	850 square metres
Division 9	Adelia Berridge	1,357 square metres
Division 10	Paul Bishop	2,017 square metres
Mayor	Karen Williams	109,265 square metres

6 units at Cooinda Street Wellington Point

Officers recommend that Council approve an application to develop six residential units on a 1,500 square metre property at 2 & 4 Cooinda Road in Birkdale.

This application MCU20/0069 was impact assessable and attracted 35 submissions.

The approval process for this development application was unusual in that it was impact assessable for reasons explained in the officers’ report.

Most applications for such developments under the developer friendly Redland City Plan are code assessable and can be approved under delegation.

This is what happened in the case of development application MCU20/0009 for 12 units at 180 Finucane Road, Alexandra Hills which was approved by a Council officer on 1 July 2020.

Weinam Creek Priority Development Area update

Councillors are getting an update on the Weinam Creek project which explains proposed changes to the Master Plan that will ultimately be submitted to the State Government for approval.

As well as asking Council to note the update, the officers recommend that Council resolve to “advocate to State and Federal Governments on the regional and intergenerational importance of the project as a coastal community on Moreton Bay and to the Southern Moreton Bay Islands (SMBI)”.

Is this code for saying that the project is not financially viable so a generous dollop of taxpayers’ money is required?

Age-friendly Action Plan 2021-2026

An ‘Age-friendly Action Plan’, revised slightly following community consultation, will be adopted by the Council at its meeting on Wednesday.

Dozens of ‘actions’ have been categorized under eight headings:

• Outdoor spaces and buildings
• Transport
• Housing
• Social participation
• Respect and social inclusion
• Civic participation and employment
• Communication and information
• Community support and health services

But as is the case with many of Redland City Council’s plans there are few measurable actions so it will be almost impossible to know whether or not the Council has done a good job of making the Redlands more age friendly.

It will be interesting to see if any specific actions are funded in the budget for next financial year:

• Will the Council restore operational funding support for the Donald Simpson Community Centre?
• Will the Council increase the general rates discount for pensioners to compensate for years of inflation?

The Council Budget for 2021/22 is scheduled to be discussed at a Special Meeting on Thursday 24 June 2021.

More information about the Council meeting

This meeting is closed to the public so yet again there will again be no public participation and people cannot attend the meeting in person..

You can access the ‘public’ version of the 21 April 2021 meeting agenda on the Council website.

The meeting will be video recorded (except for confidential discussions) and this video recording will be posted to the meeting video recordings webpage on the Council website. Videos usually appear within 48 hours of the meeting.

The Council usually publishes the meeting minutes about one week after the meeting. Meeting minutes include the wording of all resolutions adopted and details of which councillors voted for or against every resolution – including the confidential items. When published, the minutes will appear on this Council webpage.

Here are the contents of the agenda for Redland City Council’s general meeting on 21 April 2021.

• 

• 

Redlands2030 – 17 April 2021