Council notes the Our Place, Our Plan community engagement report and adopts both the Strategic Property Plan and the Biodiversity Plan

To help with our long-term planning we have been talking with thousands of community members about their ideas and priorities for Glen Eira’s future. The reports on their feedback collected during the Our Place, Our Plan community engagement program have informed the Budget, Revenue and Rating Plan, Strategic Property Plan and our Biodiversity Plan.

Our Strategic Property Plan is a long-term framework to guide how we manage and make the most of the $1.1 billion of land and buildings in our care. 

We know that community spaces like libraries, community centres and parks and open spaces play a vital role in fostering connection, cohesion and wellbeing — they continue to be some of the most important facilities to our community.  

Our Biodiversity Plan is about protecting and improving Glen Eira’s natural environment over the next four years. It outlines the actions Council will take to protect and enhance local ecosystems, wildlife, and natural habitats. Through Our Place, Our Plan, we have heard that looking after our green spaces and local biodiversity is a top priority. So we’ve used your feedback to create a plan that supports a cleaner, greener, and more liveable Glen Eira.

Council declared the Rates and Charges for 2025–2026 and adopted both the Budget 2025–2026 and Revenue and Rating Plan 2025–2029

The declaration of Rates and Charges is an important step in finalising the Budget, our 12-month roadmap of how we’ll invest to make Glen Eira a great place to live, work and visit. External pressures and rising costs mean that financial sustainability must continue to be a primary focus.

Local governments across Australia receive only 3.5 per cent of total tax revenue, with the remaining 96.5 per cent collected by the federal and state governments. This means we are dependent on the rates paid by Glen Eira residents which provide over 65 per cent of our annual operating revenue.

This revenue is essential for the continued delivery of our services and infrastructure but since 2016–2017, our ability to increase rate income has been limited by the Victorian Government’s Fair Go Rates System which has capped rates this year at three per cent.

The actions we do take for financial sustainability will always be balanced with our community’s needs and priorities, which is why the Our Place, Our Plan community engagement program was run through the first half of this year. We are grateful for all the community feedback we received which guided us while forming the Budget, and Revenue and Rating Plan.

Community suggestions and preferences for improving our financial sustainability included:

• keeping rate increases fair and sustainable to make sure services are funded properly
• raising funds through government grants and partnerships
• balance service and facility user fees with the cost to deliver the services
• maintaining current infrastructure instead of increasing or upgrading it.

We thank the Glen Eira community for all their involvement in Our Place, Our Plan and the work of the Community Priorities Panel in helping us shape the Budget and the Revenue and Rating Plan.