By Dominique Tassell
Careys Road residents have received a response from the Queensland Ombudsman, after submitting a 15-page complaint against Southern Downs Regional Council.
Conflict arose between the Emu Vale families and the Council over a dog breeding kennel application near their homes, lodged last year.
“The Ombudsman complaint relates to many issues, including deliberately failing to notify one family with three small children whose family room, back and front verandahs and main bedroom were just 160m from a proposed open reservoir of dog faeces and 20 barking Staffordshire bull terriers,” said spokesperson Amelia Willmer.
“Because of a small easement between the properties, the council said the family were not ‘adjoining neighbours’ and under the Planning Act did not have to be notified, consulted or considered.”
She said that was just one example.
“The office of the Ombudsman contacted us last week and advised that, under the Ombudsman’s Act, we needed to now submit our full complaint back to the council via the council’s formal complaints process.
“We have now done so and we have received a reply from the council’s Governance Officer who advised that the council will now conduct a Stage 2 Investigation and that we will be notified of the outcome within 45 business days.
Amelia said that the Ombudsman has advised the group that if they find the outcome of the Council’s investigation to be unsatisfactory, then the Ombudsman will step in and investigate.
The families represented themselves in the Planning and Environment Court earlier this year.
After going to mediation, the case was settled with the Cook family revising their plans for the kennels.
The new plans showed there would no longer be a dog faeces pit and that all animal waste would now be put into a bio-cycle septic system and would therefore not be composted onto grassed areas as originally planned.
Amelia said last month that she felt the issues which spurred their complaint go beyond their individual case and reflect issues affecting every citizen of this region.
“Our case shows how we are all disempowered, voiceless and vulnerable when we have an issue because none of us has our own local councillor to go to,” she said.
Due to there being no divisions in the region, Amelia said they were told they would have to email all nine councillors including the mayor when inquiring about the kennel.
“How ridiculous and inefficient is that?”
Amelia said all nine councillors replied that they were not allowed to be involved, and their email eventually got passed on to the Chief Executive.
“The CEO emailed us to advise that not only were the councillors not allowed to be involved but that council officers would not contact us either until after submissions about the kennels closed,” she said. “We had no one who would answer any of our questions about making a submission.”
“None of us, ever in our lives, have ever had anything to do with a material change of use application and we had no idea how to interpret the town planning scheme which is a whopping big document full of contradictions and clauses and dense bureaucratic wording.”
Amelia believes they deserved to have someone guide them through making a submission.
“We asked for help and got totally ignored,” she said.
Amelia said that their battle with the Council lasted nine months and during that time their emails and letters were ignored.
“Even though we reported 179 incidents of nuisance barking over a five-month period, they didn’t even acknowledge one single report let alone action them,” she said. “How rude, arrogant and passive-aggressive is that?”
Amelia said she believes people in smaller communities within our region need their own councillor.
“If only we had had our own local councillor for the Yangan-Emu Vale area, someone who knew us and our area and who actually wanted to actively listen to our concerns, someone who understood the town planning scheme and how our issues sat within it so we could make a good submission.
