A project which included 10s of thousands of discussions, phone calls, managing drop-in sessions and monitoring website visits has earned MidCoast Council a highly commended award in this year's Local Government Awards.
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The community engagement project, Know Your Zone, involved developing land use strategies for urban areas and rural landscapes in the Mid Coast LGA (local government area).
Entered in the planning awards category in a competitive field that included Campbelltown City, Central Coast, City of Parramatta, City of Sydney, Lake Macquarie and Penrith councils, the accolade was presented at the awards dinner last Thursday night, August 4.
The project was extensive with more than 1200 individual discussions about the strategies at 31 drop-in sessions, more than 700 phone calls, and involving around 20,000 visits to the website, general manager, Adrian Panuccio said.
"This is an outstanding achievement as the smallest council in the category in terms of population size.
"It's a great achievement for the staff involved, particularly in the land use planning team, with the support of our engagement, communication and education, and customer service teams."
The project demonstrates that council is listening to the community, with 75 per cent of the urban submissions resulting in a change to the draft plans, Mr Panuccio said.
The team is currently working through the submissions received on the rural strategy, he said.
"The outcomes from the Know Your Zone program provides a great foundation for developing the new MidCoast Local Environmental Plan and Development Control Plan."