70% of respondents supported streamlining community garden requests through a two-stage application and assessment process.
About this project 🍏
The Community Garden Policy guides how decisions will be made regarding the establishment and management of community produce gardens. It aims to streamline the process to establish a community garden, defines how applications will be assessed and clarifies how Council will support community garden groups.
The current Policy was due to be reviewed as part of Council’s policy review and update program.
Proposed changes to the Policy included:
- Demonstrating Council’s commitment to encourage and assist community gardens throughout Bayside
- Introduction of a two-stage application and assessment process to streamline community garden requests
- Requirements for a Council-run community engagement process to be undertaken on all proposed community garden applications that progress to stage two of the assessment process.
What we asked 🥕
Between 30 March to 5 May 2023, we asked our community to provide feedback on our draft Community Garden Policy via an online survey, written submission, and interactive map.
We received a total of 79 contributions, including 54 online surveys and 25 social map contributions suggesting locations for community gardens completed via Have Your Say.
We’ve summarised feedback below, or you can read the complete report.
What you told us 🌽
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65% of respondents supported Council-run community engagement for new community garden proposals
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87% of respondents thought the Policy was easy to understand.
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83% of respondents thought the Policy explains the process clearly.
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88% of respondents thought the Policy sets out a consistent and fair approach.
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89% of respondents thought the Policy demonstrates Council’s commitment to encourage and assist community gardens.
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39% of respondents liked the overall Policy.
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41% of respondents thought the Policy was OK.
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15% of respondents had some concerns about the policy.
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Common concerns included the language of the policy being difficult to understand, the use of toxic weed killers and the closure of gardens if they become neglected.
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1 respondent did not like the policy at all.
What we did 👩🌾
Following community engagement, slight changes were made to the draft Community Garden Policy.
The Policy has been amended to reflect the community sentiment on the importance of community gardens being accessible to all, having a positive environmental impact and having a focus on produce or food growing.
The Policy will be presented to Council with a recommendation that the report and the outcomes of community engagement on the draft Community Engagement Policy 2023 are noted and that Council adopts the Community Garden Policy 2023.
Next steps 🍓
We will consider community feedback and the draft Community Garden Policy for adoption at the 18 July 2023 Council meeting.
Council meeting 6.30pm, 18 July
Request to be heard at the meeting
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Community engagement summary report
Read the complete report on community engagement and feedback
