Petition bid to ensure adequate consultation
COMMUNITY CALL TO BOOST LOCAL GOVERNMENT POWERS
A PETITION has been tabled at council calling for the local government to have more powers to ensure the community is consulted when an organisation wants to open a residential care home in a Townsville community.
The petition was tabled after the organisation Caspa had a run-in with Annandale community members over a potential care home opening in the suburb.
While the organisation ultimately opted not to set up a care home in Annandale, the community is taking steps to make sure it, or other areas, are consulted properly before a decision is made in the future.
Division 6 councillor Suzy Batkovic tabled the petition at council, and called for a review of the process for a material change of use (MCU) for a property or when one was not required, to ensure organisations had the responsibility to consult the community about their intentions.
“Because there was no consultation in this particular case, by the time the organisation announced their plans for the property, the rumour mill had already gone into overdrive,” she said.
“This could all have been avoided if the community was consulted in the first place.
“This isn’t about not wanting to help vulnerable children or not wanting to help people with disabilities, it is about having respect for the neighbours and the community in general.”
Mayor Jenny Hill said as she understood it, the council’s planning scheme was not the issue, but the state government’s planning act.
She asked chief executive Prins Ralston to call on staff to complete a report with advice on the issues raised in the petition.
She said the report would show what the council could, and could not do, in relation to the petition.
Deputy Mayor Mark Molachino said the council was often the first port of call for people concerned about community and residential care moving into suburbs.
Mr Molachino said it was often out of the council’s control.
He said the council needed the state government to work with it, and the organisations, to find appropriate allocations in the region for homes similar to this.
The mayor said in many cases, the council did not know where the organisations were setting up.
“It is one of the questions I am going to raise with our chief planning officer because the state act itself … talks about residential care with one employee,” Ms Hill said.
“With these services, having more than one employee on site for an eight-hour shift, then we can, by rights, in my opinion, I think it should be coming back to council for an MCU.
“That doesn’t seem to be happening, these groups are working in a secretive manner because they don’t want to be confronted by council.”
THIS COULD ALL HAVE BEEN AVOIDED IF THE COMMUNITY WAS CONSULTED IN THE FIRST PLACE
SUZY BATKOVIC