Pomona Place Plan - Draft Plan For Community Consultation

Thank you Councillors. This report presents the draft Pomona Place Plan for its final round of community consultation, which will happen from October 18 until the 17th of November for a period of four weeks. The draft Pomona Place Plan has been prepared in partnership with the community and is a result of two previous rounds of community engagement. The first round was undertaken from August to October last year and was to determine the vision and values of the community. Well as asking the community what made Pomona a great place to live and how we could make it even better. It also allowed the community to identify a diverse range of ideas that could potentially be made into actions in the Pomona Place Plan. To help prioritise ideas into actions for the draft Pomona Place Plan, a second round of community engagement was undertaken from the 13th of May to the 23rd of June this year, where the community were asked to prioritise these actions from Round 1 engagement and to confirm the vision statement. This has resulted in the draft plan before you today which we would like to present the plan consists of three parts with an introduction and background and the engagement findings. Part B includes a vision statement and a round of actions and part C includes some implementation plan and ongoing Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. Thank you.

Brian Stockwell78:29

Excellent, thank you. I might move my amendment now. Just so I don't have a single moment here. Okay, so I would like to move the following, that the item A be amended to read 'endorse the draft for moment of placement, plan and attachment 1 for its third and final round of community consultation with the following amendments to the draft for moment of place plan under item 3, environment conservation and sustainability living theme on page 28 1. Unattached take action 3.1 waterway protection and amend to read, develop a program of volunteer events to support the waterway health and restoration. This includes, put an S on there please, extending rehabilitation planning along Cooroora creek, riparian area, along rifle street to improve the area, enhance the linkage through to Tuchekoi national park. And two, under action 3.1, who is involved, amend Council's role to deliver and facilitate.

Brian Stockwell98:05

Um I'll talk to it like the amendment I moved was about the natural capital of Pomona but the reason we chose Pomona it has such a high latent social capital it's a community that because still has many of the elements of the traditional country care but it has also the diversity of a lot of country care also the diversity in movers with a range of different skills to make it the in movers with a range of different skills to make it the place it is has the also the plan does I believe the diversity of a lot of in movers with a range reflect the good engagement processes that were conducted as part of it and I'd expect that the feedback will be one of support for the plan does I believe reflect one of support for the plan and the concept of monitoring evaluation the outcomes was raised and I totally agree with the response that when we look at the outcomes we're trying to achieve the liveability survey will be the test of an outcome however I think one of the things we need to do between the release of the draft and the adoption is have a look have a look a bit about how we monitor the progress and evaluate the outcome so if I look at the vision Pomona will continue to preserve its heritage and village charm I think by the time we get to a final draft I would like to see the advocacy action have that the Noosa Plan is amended by 2025 to reflect the heritage and charm to give greater protection as required as outlined by the community I think we need to have a few more specific key performance indicators of the action rather than we've done 10 of the 20 actions. I think you know when we look at that of its parks, yeah, fill the chat more than enhancing the many of its parks and public spaces. The ease of safety of getting around. I think we can actually have a key performance indicator about the extent of pathway improvements and actually check that off year after year because you know as I mentioned I lived there for a couple years and my dog never got so many walks in his life because it's such a good place to walk around and but there's some key gaps that we've identified so to me that's another real specific we can have a look at what is the key performance indicators for rolling out in terms of the trails and the pathways. Sustainability, respect for nature, creativity, strong community connections, support for local independent businesses continue to be important. Our community. Communities and once again how do we show that we're doing that and finally in terms of vision a diverse range of events programs and recreation opportunities bringing people of all ages together and we've had that conversation about the all ages and that's one of the issues that up through the consultation but I've heard for years is if you're a youth in the hinterland there's not that many activities identified for you and I know the Council during this process has actually had a specific events looking at youth but that's something in this placemaking that we can really make sure that you know Pomona is really an opportunity for you know building on that creative and the arts culture and the experience with events to actually provide a really healthy place for our young people to come together and socialise and I think by going through the vision I'm hopeful that this plan will achieve it. Anyone else wish to talk? Councillor Finzel would you like to close?

Amelia Lorentson90:22

I'm happy to speak to the amendment. The wording is quite explicit. This can include. So it's an example of what type of volunteer event or what type of program can be scoped under the plan. I'm happy to support the amendment. It actually says it doesn't. Sorry. It says this can include. Extending rehabilitation planning. So I'm happy to support the amendment. And my main reason is that what we just saw on the screen is Councillor Stockwell's love letter to Pomona. So anyone that's invested and I'm happy. I just think it's great to have a the program identified an example of what that waterway protection can look like. And again, this is a draft plan going out to community for consultation. And we put it out to the community see whether or not they agree with it. So happy to support.

Through the Chair, I think Pomona as a community itself I think maintains its economic diversity really well. There is the markets and a few of the businesses do bring tourism into town but in terms of managing it's very important that Pomona is not a tourist town it's a community and I guess the outcomes of tourism will be included in the Destination Management Plan moving forward but the feel from the community through the place plan was really this is our home in town first and if you're coming here respect it as being such um so it's really about and it and it's attractive because of the way it is like it's such a beautiful community that's um connected and vibrant um as its own little entity really.

Yeah so there's probably a number of ways um obviously starting off we did the liveability survey back in 2021 which really set the baseline set data the baseline data for those liveability for those liveability metrics across the Shire so really our plan would be to run and the Pomona Place Plan obviously with some KPIs in terms of delivering the actions in the plan over those time frames but we're looking to run that liveability survey again next year to really start looking at all those metrics to see how they've changed and the difference and whether our investments have improved liveability or not and if not why and are there other factors that we need to consider and the plan will be reviewed every five years as a refresh to make sure that the actions still are what the community are looking to have in Pomona. Thank you.

Tom Wegener93:33

Speak to it. I haven't spoken to it. I'm so happy with this, with the plan. Pomona is a small paradise. It really, really is. And so sometimes this, I wonder whether Pomona is a small paradise. Whether really it's so sometimes I the people that live there, because they're such an absolute vibrant community, including Stephen, Brian O'Connor, the Landcare group, the Majestic Theatre with Alison and Michael, then Ron west and Vince, and then the museum with Ann Coombs there's just so many, and one of the things that Brian O'Connor has done is brings the architects there every year, and I find that that's really interesting because it gets us really thinking about Pomona more than any other place because we're actually talking and they've actually presented to Councillors here. Just a question to put out there, is it the people that makes the town or the town that makes the people because it is such a vibrant place. And so I'm very happy that Pomona was the first and it just shows how exemplary Pomona is. So I'll be supporting the plan. Thank you very much for your hard work.