Cat control ‘aboutturn’ query
BACKING away from cat control rules could open the Waitaki District Council to criticism it ‘‘flipflopped’’ on its view of public consultation, an Oamaru councillor says.
Cr Colin Wollstein this week questioned how the council would be viewed after an ‘‘aboutturn’’ on its draft Waitaki District General Bylaw 2017 if a wellsupported set of rules on cat ownership was dropped from the bylaw.
On another issue, the status quo on Easter Sunday trading was retained this month largely because an ‘‘overwhelming majority’’ of submissions on the council’s Easter trading policy favoured the status quo.
At the time the council said it showed it was openminded and listened to the public, he said. But now, despite the majority of submitters on the draft general bylaw focusing on the cat issue — and calling for the council to take a role in regulating cat ownership in the district — at this week’s customer services committee meeting the committee sent the council’s draft general bylaw to the full council for approval without four clauses that would have limited pet owners to keeping three cats on a property.
The draft bylaw now only allows council officers to ‘‘reduce the number of companion cats’’ at a property if the cats are ‘‘likely to become a nuisance, injurious, or hazardous’’.
Cr Wollstein was the only committee member to vote against a recommendation that asked councillors to agree that the changes to the draft bylaw ‘‘do not represent a significant departure’’ from the bylaw consulted on in July.
However, Crs Jan Wheeler and Jim Hopkins, who do not sit on the committee but were present for the meeting, also voiced their concerns with the new draft bylaw.
At last month’s committee meeting, following the submissions process Cr Melanie Tavendale, who chairs the committee, said she believed there were ‘‘a few holes’’ in the bylaw and alternative ‘‘potentially more effective’’ nonregulatory means to achieve council’s goals.
At the time, the committee agreed to consider Cr Tavendale’s proposal during a workshop and let the matter lie on the table.
Cr Hopkins argued this week the new draft bylaw produced by council staff ‘‘did not reflect the workshop’’ councillors attended and he urged councillors to vote against endorsing it. He, too, said the change to the draft bylaw did not reflect the submissions — the number of those calling for the council to impose controls on cats in the district ‘‘staggered’’ him — but further without a specified allowable number of cats on a property ‘‘any malicious person’’ could make a complaint about ‘‘any cat owner on any grounds’’.
During the submissions process Local Government New Zealand voted to adopt a policy to lobby the Government to adopt the final New Zealand National Cat Management Strategy, which could mean nationwide mandatory microchipping and registration of cats; it was important to get people ‘‘prepared for what’s going to happen at a national level’’.
And those cat owners who were not responsible pet owners would be equally likely to flout a bylaw as ignore an education campaign.
The committee recommended the council set aside $10,000 a year for two years to pay for its education campaign.