By Parker McKenzie
Knox City Council was questioned by the local community over future plans for Koolunga Native Reserve during its council meeting on Monday 30 January, after previous opposition to plans to turn the reserve into wetlands.
During public question time, the council fielded questions from the community about its values plan for the reserve, which was recently finished as a part of a wider Future Direction Plan.
A community member asked the council about the recently released Values Plan’s focus on water treatment and whether this was another attempt to develop the reserve into wetlands.
“Knox City Council has suffered a massive loss of trust of many residents over its failed community engagement regarding proposals for the Koolunga Native Reserve,” his question said.
“I applaud that the council has since made strong those slow efforts to improve this process, but questions arise from the latest values plan dated November 2022.
“Why does the council insist on pushing its stormwater quality agenda against the clear wishes of the community, as captured by your own engagement?”
Proposed wetland construction at Koolunga Native Reserve in early 2021, funded through a grant from Melbourne Water, saw community opposition resulting in the plans being put on the back burner and more consultation being undertaken. The plans would have seen wetlands built to filter stormwater runoff from surrounding urban areas in the latest area of open law and a strong negative reaction from those using the space for recreation was received by the council.
Knox City Director of Infrastructure Grant Thorne said he thanked the questioner for acknowledging the strong efforts that the council has made to improve engagement on future plans for the reserve.
“The community engagement undertaken as shown in the November 2022 report clearly shows as a strong response from the community to address litter within the stream, rehabilitation of the creek, inclusion of gross pollutant traps and enlargement of the pond east of the boardwalk and many other actions to improve the natural environment, flora and fauna which are all linked to stormwater quality,” he said.
“Given these results contrary to the question, there is strong support from the community. For improvements to water, stormwater quality within the reserve, in response to the question to the justification for improving water quality as is, as I’ve just outlined, is clearly in the responses from the community as part of the engagement process.”
He also noted that addressing stormwater quality does include more than a wetland, so assumptions that a stormwater quality plan is a wetland plan is “not a corrector assumption.”
Another question was asked by a community member regarding the wording of the stated focus on the council’s website.
“The Council on the have your say page recently released, just focuses on the two points relating to improving the water quality and retention of bushland and open spaces,” the question said.
“To try and alleviate some of the distrust from the community, would the council prose to consider allowing the stated focus on that webpage and where it will go in the future to also note and show the specific points listed within the values plan?”
Mr Thorne said the ultimate outcome is a future directions plan made up of three documents: a values plan, a bushland management plan and a stormwater quality study.
“As has been communicated to you and others within your group via emails, we are taking on board all that feedback and progressing to get to a future directions plan,” he said.
“The bushland management plan and the stormwater polling plan will be made available to create acquired comment on in around April. So you’ll get to see the stormwater holding plant at that time.”
Mr Thorne encouraged people to “trust the process” and comment on the documents when they are released in April.
