Redland City Council will embark on a public consultation process around key aspects of city planning prior to a draft of the Redland Planning Scheme (RPS) becoming available for formal public comment later this year or early next year.
Redland City Mayor Karen Williams said while there was no revised RPS document currently available for public comment, Council intended to involve the community through pre-consultation on key studies and policy areas that will feed into the drafting of the RPS.
“Prior to the widespread community engagement already planned for when the RPS draft becomes available, Council will be encouraging the community to view and review key areas of policies that are supporting the drafting process.
“It is important for the community to know that the current review of the Redland Planning Scheme is already underpinned by extensive community engagement that has occurred on a wide range of policies and strategies in recent years.
“Additional pre-engagement on upcoming strategies and studies will involve community and stakeholder forums on important issues such as population and employment growth strategies and options for how to deal with this growth.
“A key focus for this engagement across the Redland community will be the study into Redlands land availability commissioned by Council and expected for release in May this year.
The proposed engagement strategy will inform both drafting of the planning scheme and also Council’s input into the draft South East Queensland Regional Plan 2014-2041 expected for release in the second half of year.
“Community and stakeholder forums will also be held around Council’s upcoming Economic Development Strategy and the current community-wide engagement under way on disaster management planning.
“Engagement activities in the lead-up to the draft RPS release will also provide ‘neighbourhood kitchen table talks’ where residents and organisations can talk with planners about the current planning scheme and how to feed into the review.”
Other planned activities include establishment of an interest register so interested residents can receive updated information; a mail-out to all residents involved in previous community engagements around aspects of the planning scheme; availability of fact sheets, e-newsletters, magazine stories, website and display materials, social media and videos.
Over the coming months Council will be making information available through its websites, publications and community forums so that the community has the opportunity to understand and comment on future planning for our city.
This will be followed by extensive consultation activities planned once the draft planning scheme becomes available in late 2014 early 2015. These engagements will include interactive online engagement tools, ‘Talk to the planner’ community forums, stakeholder briefings, shopping centre and library displays, online submission forms, survey activities, web and social media updates and roving meet the planner sessions.