Council is updating its Sale of Minor Council Property Assets Policy 2021 which was last adopted in 2015. The Policy has been reviewed and updated to ensure it aligns to the Local Government Act 2020, is current to Council’s principles of fairness, equity and justice, and responds to the items raised at the Council meeting on 2021.
A draft Sale of Minor Council Property Assets Policy 2021 has been developed which community members are now invited to review and provide their feedback. This will help to ensure that Council is heading in the right direction with the proposed changes.
Thank you for your feedback! The feedback received is now being reviewed and considered.
What has happened so far?
Council (on behalf of the Darebin community) possesses and/or has responsibility for a diverse and extensive portfolio of property assets which includes parcels both large and small. Smaller parcels of land include roads, reserves, revenge strips, hiatus and other pieces of land of unusual shape and/or limited usefulness that are less than 200m² in area.
As Council has obtained ownership of these smaller parcels through various means over more than a hundred-year period, some of these property assets no longer provide benefit to the community and/or are not used or required for the purposes for which they were originally acquired. In these situations, such Minor Council Property Assets may be considered surplus and suitable for sale.
The Sale of Minor Council Property Assets Policy which was adopted by Council on 18 May 2015 was due for a review. Council has reviewed and updated the Sale of Minor Council Property Assets Policy to ensure the Policy aligns to the Local Government Act 2020, is current to Council’s principles of fairness, equity and justice and responds to the following considerations raised at a Council Meeting on 26 July 2021:
- Social justice considerations in regard to disused laneway transfers
- Consideration of adjustments to the broad approach to equity to provide different treatment for land parcels that have been cared for and maintained for over 12 years by residential owners
- Consideration of introducing an ‘environmental criteria’ in the ‘Sale of minor Council property assets policy’ to maximise the preservation of green private open space and private gardens when disused unmade laneways are transferred and to ensure there is ‘a net increase in green open space’ from the disposal of unmade discontinued’
Feedback was sought from the community from 12 November 2021 to 31 January 2022 about the proposed changes that Council would make as part of putting the Sale of Minor Council Property Assets Policy 2021 into practice, so we know whether we were heading in the right direction.
Council also sought feedback from the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation about how the Policy may reflect Council's commitment to Traditional Owners and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People.
What’s happening now?
The feedback received from the community is being reviewed and considered in the finalisation of the Policy.
You can still view the draft Sale of Minor Council Property Assets Policy 2021. Click on the image below.
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