By Alesha Capone
Residents who fail to maintain their nature strips may face a $330 fine under legal reforms to be considered by Wyndham council next year.
A report presented at a council meeting last week recommended amending a policy “to provide a clear description of the expectations for nature strip maintenance by residents in Wyndham”.
Cr Josh Gilligan said the existing policy only required residents to comply with directives to maintain nature strips if they were considered to be a fire hazard.
However, the council is considering implementing a clause to its local laws, which are to be reviewed next year, which would require residents to maintain their nature strips all the time.
The report stated that if a penalty was introduced for residents who failed to maintain nature strips it “would likely be two penalty units, or $330 at current penalty unit rates”, in line with other offences in the Local Law.
The council would also provide support to owners of vacant land to help them understand the benefits of fencing their land if it has been the target of persistent littering or rubbish dumping.
According to the report, the council’s nature strip technical officer responded to 2695 requests from residents relating to overgrown, obstructed, damaged, or hazardous nature strips last year.
Of those, 2051 were specifically about overgrown grass at 1594 individual properties.
“The majority of residents mowed the nature strip on request,” the report stated.
“The ability to require the nature strip to be maintained or receive a fine is unnecessary in most cases but might be useful for the small number of properties where the request to cut the grass is ignored.”
The council last year received 2504 notifications from residents about “unsightly” vacant land, of which 847 mentioned litter, rubbish or the word “dumped”.
Cr Gilligan said he has received “overwhelmingly positive” feedback from residents in favour of changing council’s laws on nature-strips and vacant land.
Cr Susan McIntyre said that “the presentation of our municipality is a concern”.
She said that the council’s efforts to improve the appearance of nature strips and vacant land also needed to include education and communication with residents and property owners.
The council will engage in community consultation before adopting any amendment, the report said.
