Councils may adopt local laws to protect public health, safety, or amenity in a municipality.

They are designed to ensure that the actions of an individual or group do not have a negative or undesirable impact on the rest of the community. What’s covered in local laws may vary from one municipality to another.

A council must advertise any local law that it intends to make, and must consider any public submissions it receives about the local law before implementing it. Councils must make copies of all local laws available for people to read or buy at the council offices.

For example, as part of a Community Amenity Local Law, a council may make it a requirement that no tree, plant, sign or other object is located in a way that interferes with pedestrian or car traffic. The council can require a landowner to fix the problem and can also impose a fine.

Apart from roads, councils also manage footpaths, public toilets, seating, lighting, shade and street trees and so on.

 

You may also find it helpful to look at some other council documents such as their Municipal Strategic Statement, Corporate Plan and Municipal Public Health Plan. All councils must update their Municipal Strategic Statement (MSS) every three years. The MSS is a short strategic policy statement that outlines the main planning, land use and development objectives for the municipality. The MMS must link with related strategies (e.g. the corporate plan) and actions. The MSS enables community involvement in its ongoing review.

 

All councils have websites and some have good A-Z indexes on their home page. It can be a good idea to search the contents, particularly for things like walking,  liveability, sustainable transport, public transport, sustainability, community design, health and well being, public space etc (unfortunately different documents may have different names in each council).

 

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