Council meeting motion scraps Alice Springs Town Council’s proposal to sell public parks
A Alice Springs council’s plan to sell public parks in the Red Centre capital has been scrapped by a vote – which come right down to the wire. Find out more
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A motion which passed by a knife’s edge has scrapped two years of work by the Alice Springs Town Council, sending staff back to the drawing board to create a new plan for the community.
The motion, which passed at the Tuesday ordinary council meeting, turfed the Council’s recently released parks and playground implementation plan, which was proposing to sell 10 of the 69 parks currently under council control.
The plan was released for public consultation at the beginning of May, and cited a council conducted survey of about 300 people which said 66 per cent of respondents supported the council selling parks “to fund the development of others to a higher quality”.
But the three part motion, put forward by councillor Eli Melky and seconded by councillor Marli Banks, sought to withdraw the plan in its current form.
The motion also wanted to restart and split the consultation process and update the consultation documentation by council officers to reflect “that plans to fund park improvements can either come from proposed divestments or will need to be considered as part of the overall council budget”.
However, through discussion, the motion was amended at the meeting, removing the current list of proposed parks from the motion.
In the May plan, the council listed four parks in Gillen, Braitling for possible “divestment”, alongside a single park in Eastside and Sadadeen.
Mayor Matt Paterson, deputy mayor Mark Coffey, and councillor Alison Bitar voted against the motion, while councillors Michael Liddle and Kim Hopper were in support.
It passed with a three against, four in favour vote, with Mr Melky and Ms Banks voting in support of the motion too.
Mr Paterson said the plan did not mean all the nine parks listed as potentially being sold, hence why the plan was out for public consultation.
“We’re not saying all these nine are going to be divested, but there may be two or three in those parks, and there could possible be another we go to later,” he said.
Last November, Madigan Park in Braitling was rezoned from public open space to low-density residential to facilitate three lots on the block by the Alice Springs Development Consent Authority.
An application to rezone the park was filed by the council, with a report on the rezoning stating the council wanted “to undertake similar proposals across their under-utilised and over supplied park lands to minimise maintenance costs while contributing to more residential potential for the community”.
Once the motion passed, Mr Paterson told council chief executive Andrew Wilsmore and technical service director Joel Andrew to “halt any things (on the parks plan) we’ve got underway”.
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Originally published as Council meeting motion scraps Alice Springs Town Council’s proposal to sell public parks
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