Redland City Council’s draft Corporate Plan

UPDATE: Submissions deadline extended until Friday 13 November 2020

Today is the final day of the community consultation period for Redland City Council’s draft corporate plan which was published under the title “Our Future Redlands – A Corporate Plan to 2026 and Beyond”.

Information about the draft corporate plan and the Council’s consultation process was published by Redland City Council on its Have Your Say website.

Redlands2030 comments on the draft corporate plan

Redlands2030 has reviewed the draft corporate plan and prepared the following submission to Council.

Consultation about the draft Corporate Plan

If the Council’s intent is to undertake genuine community engagement about its draft Corporate Plan, then additional time (several more weeks) should be allowed for the consultation period.

Community groups and individuals need time to find out that a matter is being put out for consultation, to understand what is being proposed (and not proposed) and consider issues which should be the subject of any submission to Council.

Public health directions in response to COVID-19 mean that there have been some restrictions on large community gatherings.

Overlapping the time period for public consultation about the draft Corporate Plan are the Council’s public consultation processes for four other matters:

• Southern Thornlands Potential Future Growth Area (28 September to 20 November 2020)
• City Plan Major Amendment – Local Heritage Places (12 October to 4 December 2020)
• Temporary commercial use of parks (30 October to 20 November 2020)
• Proposed changes to where animals can go (9 November to 6 December 2020).

The Community Plan and the Corporate Plan

Redland City has a Community Plan which sets out clearly the City’s shared values and vision outcomes. This long term community plan was adopted by the Council in April 2010.

The Council should accept and acknowledge that the Community Plan’s shared vision and values are as relevant today as they were when the Plan was prepared by the Redlands community, with involvement of more than 3,000 residents.

The Redlands 2030 Community Plan should be retained as the lead document in Council’s strategic planning framework.

The Council should redraft its Draft Corporate Plan to 2026 to acknowledge and comprehensively reflect this by remaining focused on achieving ALL of the Community Plan’s vision outcomes:

• Healthy natural environment
• Green living
• Embracing the bay
• Quandamooka Country
• Wise planning and design
• Supportive and vibrant economy
• Strong and connected communities
• Inclusive and ethical governance.

Statutory requirements for a corporate plan

A local council’s obligations regarding the preparation of its corporate plan are set out in the Local Government Regulation 2012, as shown below:

“165 Preparation of 5-year corporate plan

(1) A local government must prepare a 5-year corporate plan for each period of 5 financial years.

(2) A local government must adopt its 5-year corporate plan in sufficient time to allow a budget and annual operational plan, consistent with the corporate plan, to be adopted for the first financial year that is covered by the plan.

(3) A local government may, by resolution, amend its 5-year corporate plan at any time.

(4) A local government must discharge its responsibilities in a way that is consistent with its 5-year corporate plan.

166 5-year corporate plan contents

A local government’s 5-year corporate plan must —

(a) outline the strategic direction of the local government; and

(b) state the performance indicators for measuring the local government’s progress in achieving its vision for the future of the local government area; and

(c) include the following information for each commercial business unit—

(i) an outline of the objectives of the commercial business unit;

(ii) an outline of the nature and extent of the significant business activity the commercial business unit will conduct.”

The draft corporate plan published by Council for public consultation does not adequately comply with these statutory requirements.

The document does not set out a strategic direction for Redland City Council.

The document does not include performance indicators for measuring Redland City Council’s progress in achieving its vision for the future of the Redlands.

The document does not include details of objectives and significant business activities for the Council’s commercial business units (such as Redlands Water and Redland Investment Corporation).

The document purports to span 20 years (to 2041), when five years is the mandated specified period.

Projects and improvement of business processes

The Council could usefully improve its Corporate Plan by classifying Council activities into business processes, and major projects.

Business processes are routine Council activities which may need to be undertaken more efficiently or effectively e.g. enforcing animal management laws, maintaining canals or collecting rubbish.

Any plans to improve business process should include the indicators by which improved performance can be measured.

Projects are activities undertaken to achieve a defined purpose over a specific time period e.g. providing sewerage to residents in currently unsewered areas, developing a new park or restoring a heritage listed asset such as Willard’s Farm.

The Corporate Plan should be rewritten to show clearly:

• Council business processes which are to be the subject of significant effort to achieve improved delivery of services (value for money) to ratepayers; and
• Projects which will require significant Council resources and/or be of major benefit to the community or which may expose ratepayers and residents to significant risk.

In the draft corporate plan published for consultation it is difficult to differentiate between serious projects that are likely to be funded and delivered (e.g. upgrade to Panorama Drive) and ‘thought bubble’ notions which have little likelihood of being funded (e.g. Heinemann Road sports precinct) or have not been properly discussed with the community (e.g. developing a white water sports facility on the Birkdale Community Lands).

The Corporate Plan should be based on a consistent and rigorous methodology for assessment and delivery of projects. This would ensure that there is clear understanding within the community (and the Council) as to the status of projects and the level of certainty which should apply to these projects being delivered.

This might reduce the risk that Council pursues poorly conceived projects which have little prospect of success.

Recent examples of poorly thought out Council activities include the failed Chefs Inc food market and the proposed then abandoned Surf Lifesaving Centre of Excellence.

Specific responses to sections in the Draft Corporate plan

The ‘2041 vision” should be replaced with the eight vision outcomes of the Redlands 2030 Community Plan:

• Healthy natural environment
• Green living
• Embracing the bay
• Quandamooka Country
• Wise planning and design
• Supportive and vibrant economy
• Strong and connected communities
• Inclusive and ethical governance.

For each of the six ‘initiatives’ in the draft corporate plan, the heading “Our 2041 Goal” should be replaced with a heading that reflects the term of this corporate plan e.g. goals for 2021 to 2026.

Draft initiative 1 of 6 – “City Leadership”

The words drafted as the proposed goal do not deal with the City’s need for improved leadership.

The espoused objectives don’t appear to be targeting improved civic leadership.

The draft objectives 1 and 2 discuss transparency and meaningful community engagement.

But Section 4 of the Local Government Act 2009 already stipulates that local government should be consistent with the local government principals which are:

(a) transparent and effective processes, and decision-making in the public interest; and

(b) sustainable development and management of assets and infrastructure, and delivery of effective services; and

(c) democratic representation, social inclusion and meaningful community engagement; and

(d) good governance of, and by, local government; and

(e) ethical and legal behaviour of councillors, local government employees and councillor advisors.

Instead of stating an objective which is largely about general compliance with legal requirements, it would be more appropriate to have specific objectives to improve transparency and to ensure that the council’s community engagement is more meaningful.

Draft objective 3 appears to be a vaguely worded euphemism for outsourcing activities to the private sector, privatisation, or so-called public private partnerships (PPP).

Draft objective 4 appears to be restating the very normal and mainstream job of local government which is to advocate for sufficient funding to undertake necessary activities.

The proposed ‘catalyst project’ of participating in a city deal for south east Queensland should be explained more clearly in the corporate plan. Is this just a buzz word for getting additional funding from the Federal Government? If not, please explain what benefits might accrue to the Redlands.

The specific initiatives proposed in this section are not specific and do not appear to be suitable for inclusion in a corporate plan. Instead, we suggest that Council consider including initiatives such as:

• Implement on-line petitions and re-introduce regular public participation and attendance at Council meetings.
• Improve the transparency of council decision making by having most council decision making take place in public council meetings.
• Initiate regular town hall meetings about the controversial issues such as material change of use applications, Toondah Harbour, Weinam Creek and the Birkdale Community Lands.
• Implement good decision making processes to ensure that Council decisions about budget allocations are made in the public interest and not done for pork barrelling purposes.
• Published detailed information about the contents of the Council’s budget and the list of candidate projects (with ranking scores) on the Council’s website
• Use the Council’s social media to publicize issues of public interest including matters to be discussed at Council meetings and development applications likely to be of public interest.

Draft initiative 2 of 6 – “Strong Communities”

The ‘catalyst projects’ proposed for ‘Strong Communities’ don’t appear to properly align with the public interest.

An obvious candidate for inclusion as a catalyst project or key initiative is to restore the Council’s traditional funding support for the Donald Simpson Community Centre.

Regarding the need for new sports facilities, the Council appears to have made a poor decision in purchasing the Heinemann Road land for more than $7 million when it is obvious that this site cannot accommodate many sports facilities. Instead of pressing on regardless, the Council should thoroughly review its strategy for meeting the community’s requirements for sports facilities.

This review should be done openly with genuine community engagement.

This might be an excellent issue for engagement of a citizen jury.

Why has Council done nothing to restore the Willards Farm which was purchased by the Council in February 2016?  Funds earmarked for this purpose were re-allocated to the relocation and restoration of the Station Masters cottage which has minimal heritage value.

Since then funding has been allocated to other projects which appear to have little obvious merit such as the development of trails and facilities for horse riders and mountain bikers in Mount Cotton at the Eastern Escarpment Conservation Area.

It would certainly be a good idea to plan properly for the conservation of the ‘Birkdale Community Land’. This important asset should not be used for thought bubble projects such the notion of an Olympic standard white water sports facility.

Draft initiative 3 of 6 – “Natural Environment”

The ‘objectives’ for this issue don’t offer much hope that Redlands natural environment will be in a better state at the end of the period covered by the new corporate plan.

This whole section in the draft plan is flavoured with a mindset that the natural environment is to be exploited instead of conserved and appreciated.

Proposed activities such as building a jetty at Cleveland Point and a coastal walk on Minjerribah should be moved to another section i.e. ‘Thriving economy’.

What should be included in this section is a very clear ‘objective’, ‘catalyst project’ and/or ‘specific initiative’ to protect environmental corridors in both urban and rural parts of the Redlands.

The Council should also adopt objectives to achieve increases in the local populations of species which are critically endangered or vulnerable to extinction.

The corporate plan should include the key initiative to prepare a State of the Redlands Environment Report. As well as commenting on key habitat areas, the report should include estimated number of koalas and other endangered species (e.g. Greater gliders, Eastern curlews, Glossy black cockatoos, Dugongs, marine turtles) living in Redland City together with an estimation of the trend for these populations.

The Council should plan for the State of the Redlands Environment Report to be done on a regular basis. Once each term of council would seem about right, with reports to be published not less than six months prior to each local council election so that voters can see how well councillors have been looking after the natural environment.

Draft initiative 4 of 6 – “Liveable Neighbourhoods”

Some improvements to the Redland City Plan are long overdue to target improved liveability.

We need less emphasis on small lot housing and slum-like medium density developments.

People want some water play areas for their kids. Other councils in south east Queensland provide such facilities. Why can’t Redland City Council do this too?

The Cleveland Aquatic Centre needs to be refurbished and upgraded. This project should be specifically identified in the Corporate Plan.

The Council should ensure that any development at Shoreline is delivered with infrastructure funded 100% by the developer as per the preliminary development approvals from Council in 2015.

The Council’s 2019 community satisfaction survey found that residents are not happy with the way that Redland City Council is managing development.

The corporate plan should include specific measures to realign the way Council manages growth development and housing choice to be more in tune with community expectations.

The corporate plan should include as a performance measure that the Council get a 60% or better positive rating from its 2021 and 2023 community satisfaction surveys on the same questions that were included in the 2019 community satisfaction survey.

Draft initiative 5 of 6 – “Thriving Economy”

The Council should put some serious thought into identifying initiatives to increase opportunities local employment instead of facilitating seemingly endless residential development which has turned Redlands into poorly serviced dormitory suburbs for people who work in parts of south east Queensland which have thriving economies.

Preparation of a proper economic development strategy for Redland City is long overdue. The new economic development strategy should address key issues such as climate change, long term implications of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, and  emerging technologies.

Is there any interest in eco-tourism at the MacArthur Street Land? If not perhaps it’s time to have a re-think about what this land is to be used for. Perhaps this could be done with some meaningful community engagement instead of by councillors in a non-public workshop.

The Council should review Shoreline’s current development plans to ascertain if the thousands of local new jobs identified in the 2015 application for development approval are likely to eventuate.

Plans for development of 3,600 apartments on Ramsar wetlands next to Toondah Harbour are extremely unpopular. Has any politician won office by actively promoting support for these environmentally destructive plans? It is now more than seven years since the community was told that development would be fast tracked. The Council should be working on an exit strategy.

Has the Council done a cost benefit analysis and risk analysis for its planned developments at Weinam Creek?

Draft initiative 6 of 6 – “Efficient and Effective Organisation”

Close down the Redland Investment Corporation which has a demonstrated track record of poor financial performance.

Put in place rigorous procedures to ensure that ratepayers’ funds are not wasted on pork barrel projects which are conceived primarily to promote the political interests (re-election) of councillors.

Increase the transparency of the planning phase of council projects so that the community has greater opportunity to advise Council that proposed projects are destined to fail e.g. Chefs Inc.

Redland City rates are now at the high end of the range among local councils in south east Queensland. The Council should identify an objective to get Redland City’s rates close to the median level in south east Queensland over the term of this corporate plan.

Specific initiatives to reduce costs of providing Council services or increase value for money should be detailed in the corporate plan.

The Council should identify some routine high value council activities for review of processes to target cost savings.

For example, Council could examine thoroughly the cost of rubbish collection in Redland City since a comparison of rates across south east Queensland shows that Redland City’s charges for rubbish collection appear to be well above average.

Redlands2030 – 11 November 2020