Meeting – GCC Community Meeting 10 May 2017

GCC Community Meeting 10 May 2017 Gungahlin Library (6:30 – 8:30 pm)

Chair: Peter Elford (president).

Attendees:

Live streaming views:

Apologies: Nil

Agenda item 1: Rod Anderson Australian Federal Police – ACT Policing

Rod Anderson presented on means that community can engage with ACT Police and highlighted crime stoppers as the primary means to report crime.

Crime rates in Gungahlin no different to other areas of ACT.  Have seen increase in property and cyber crime.  Seen reduction of car theft, and certain types of property crimes. Advised to putting car keys somewhere less obvious when at home. ACT police have a website that shows crime types by suburb. Have re-energised school liaison program.

Questions raised include:

• Relations and cooperation with other parts of Canberra and NSW regions – Yass and Queanbeyan.  Relations are good. Police based in Gungahlin tend to live locally.
• There are points of contact for particular suburbs.
• Response performance measure, Priority 1 is within 10 minutes for life threatening, priority 2 within 20 minutes and priority 3 within 24-48 hours
• Police volunteers – usually in front office, are JPs and provide general advice. But also provide other assistance as required.

Agenda item 2:  Donella Johnston, SEE-Change Canberra

Donella Johnston presented on SEE-Change which is about creating more sustainable communities through reducing ecological footprint. Earth is able to support 1.7 global hectares per person, Canberra’s use is 8.9 global hectares.  SEE-Change is a community based not for profit organisation. SEE-Change Gungahlin established 2015 and has multiple programs (including transition streets) available to develop social and environmental outcomes for neighbourhoods.

Questions raised include

• Clarification on the global hectares and why Canberra’s figures were so high.  Canberra is an affluent city so hence consumes more, drives more etc.
• Extensive relationships with other environmental groups and Sustainable planning an environment directorate

Agenda item 3: Emma Davidson, Deputy CEO Womens Centre for Health Matters ACT

Community organisation that receives ACT funding.Wish to talk about safety mapping initiative where residents are invited to provide feedback on where people feel safe and unsafe. Emma presented some results including

• To date 32 results for Gungahlin which is about half as that received from Haigh park.
• 50% of reports are for Town centre – vast majority were about public parks or where people may congregate
• 2 reports of where they were feeling safe which is a normal ratio of reporting. Do encourage people to report where they do feel safe as this is a useful comparison.
• Majority of reports are from women.If action taken to make women feel safe that will tend to make all sections of the community feel safe
• Main themes of comments are dodgy and dark.  Graffiti and litter also make people feel unsafe.
• Some of the areas people felt unsafe – around Yerrabi Pond (due to poor lighting), near Gungahlin Lakes (poor lighting), cyclists reported particular areas on or near ramps.

Questions raised include:

• Would the government usually light an area at popular walking paths such as around Yerrabi Pond? Not sure at policy but people are reporting this.  If the space is attractive then positive cycle and space used even more.
• Visibility is important for feelings of safety. Existing and planned noise barriers may have an impact on safety (as they also block visibility) – need more data to confirm.
• Very little relationship between where people feel unsafe versus where crime is occurring. Just because there are no crime statistics doesn’t mean people don’t feel safe.

Initiative is ongoing and will feed back to community regularly.

Agenda item 4: other Business

• My Gungahlin provided a brief on the success of the Celebrate Gungahlin.
• Questions about large residential towers in precinct 2b.  GCC raised with ACT Government which is now undertaking town centre planning refresh. Reality is 3 projects of over 10 stories have been approved which can’t be anything further done. One currently in process and 2 more proposed. The air towers is of greatest concern given its proximity to two story residential areas and may be overly optimistic.

Minutes taken by Andrew Braddock