By Violet Li
Casey Mayor says the Council have received over 1000 submissions on its Local Law Review, hailing the community consultation process as “thoroughly designed”.
He also addressed the community’s concerns about the way the online survey was designed.
City of Casey Mayor Councillor Stefan Koomen said he attended about half of the 12 community pop-ups and observed that different parts of Casey have different needs and focuses.
“Some areas have really large properties. They engage in industrial activity and business, and farming. And at the other end, you’ve got very small, more densely populated areas,” he said.
“Our team will be pulling together the feedback to give us a really good cross-section of what people’s interests were. But there was certainly interest, particularly around vehicles, which is understandable given the interest in that topic, which really led to this review.
“And then also around unsightly properties. There was a lot of discussion on both sides about the importance of having presentable and well-presented places in our community, but also respecting the rights of private landholders.”
He said for areas with a denser population, locals’ concerns were around presentable properties.
“Things like hoarding, things like noise and neighbour disputes, because they’re living close to other people. There can be impacts on neighbouring properties from activities that occur on residential land,” he said.
“It (review) has taken us to all parts of Casey, and that’s been a really valuable exercise for us as a new council. It will help us make decisions not only on the local laws, but on all the work that we do as a council.”
Mayor Cr Koomen believed that the community consultation had been a very “thoroughly designed process”.
“This has been a comprehensive engagement,” he said.
But he also noted that the engagement outcome would be complemented by benchmarking against other councils as well as a review of Casey’s Local Law itself.
Back when the Council just launched the online survey in late April, Star News reported that locals were concerned that the online survey was worded in a “preemptive” way that might direct responders to answer in a certain way.
In sessions about the Council’s private land management, respondents are asked whether they think it’s reasonable for the Council to manage issues such as temporary structures, vehicle movement and storage, fire and smoke nuisance, and waste on private land.
They can choose from five options ranging from “very unreasonable” to “very reasonable,” and a written comment box is also available alongside.
Such a format was also adapted into a billboard for visual demonstration at the community pop-ups. Residents can place a red dot on the board for “unreasonable”, a green dot for “reasonable”, and an orange dot for “unsure” beside each part of the Local Law.
In response to the residents’ concerns about the way the questionnaire was designed, Mayor Cr Koomen said there’s a lot of science behind the way of these consultations.
“I’m very comfortable that it’s gathered the information that we need to help us make decisions, and that will be presented to us by a report for the Council with recommendations,” he said.
He also said that the billboard presented at the pop-ups was designed as an entry point to discussion.
“But the real things that matter to us are the experiences of residents and the actual concerns, so within the survey, there are text boxes where people have put down the specific things they want us to address,” he said.
“That was also done at the pop-ups, where they would have seen the post-it notes, where residents could just say an issue, and that’ll be collected and then looked in with greater detail about where we might need to make changes.
“There are people who said that they thought it wasn’t reasonable, but I think you’ve got to look at it in the context of all of what is being done, and we’ve captured a lot of information.”
The Local Law Review consultation, starting from 21 April, includes an online survey and 12 in-person pop-ups (one in each ward).
The pop-ups wrapped up on 18 May, but the online survey is still open until Sunday 1 June.
Mayor Cr Koomen encouraged residents to take the online survey or contact the Council with any thoughts they have about our local law.
To complete the survey, visit: conversations.casey.vic.gov.au/llreview_25
