Latest update: Round one draft plans endorsed by Council

Our Budget 2025–2026, Revenue and Rating Plan 2025–2029, Strategic Property Plan 2025–2030 and Biodiversity Plan 2025–2029 were endorsed at the Council meeting on 30 June.

In May, we shared these draft plans with you. We received 75 submissions in total — including 62 survey and 13 email submissions. Community members could provide feedback on one or more of the draft plans — to help us understand if we had got them right.

Thank you to the community members who helped inform these documents over the past few months by providing feedback through the Our Place, Our Plan community engagement program.

Scroll down for more information on the feedback received and to find out more on how it influenced the final plans.

Our second round of Plans are coming soon so keep an eye on them in the coming months.

Round one — What we heard

  • Budget 2025–2026

    The draft Budget received a total of 24 submissions.

    The top insights on the draft Budget 2025–2026 focused on the need for increased investment in safety, infrastructure, and amenity upgrades in activity centres and in open space projects for new and existing parks and gardens.


  • Revenue and Rating Plan 2025–2029

    The draft Revenue and Rating Plan received a total of eight submissions.

    A request for the rating system to be reformed was the most consistent feedback received.


  • Strategic Property Plan 2025–2030

    The draft Strategic Property Plan 2025–2030 received a total of 19 submissions.

    The feedback highlighted objections to selling off Council land and buildings, requests to make the plan easier to read and a preference for our buildings to be multipurpose and provide greater shared community spaces.

  • Biodiversity Plan 2025–2029

    The draft Biodiversity Plan 2025–2029 received 45 submissions — the most submissions overall.

    We heard positive feedback about the plan and its focus on education and greening initiatives. There was strong support for increased planting of indigenous trees and plants, partnering with other stakeholders and land managers to protect biodiversity, and calls for greater protection of our waterways.


How your feedback influenced each plan



The Budget has responded to the community’s feedback about investment in roads, buildings, footpaths, activity centres, libraries, events, waste collection, and sustainability programs.

Budget allocations include:

  • $13 million for the renewal and upgrades to roads, footpaths, drainage systems and community facilities.
  • $4.7 million for improving, upgrading and renewing community and sports facilities including the Mackie Road Reserve pavilion.
  • $2.7 million towards sustainability initiatives, including electrification of the Glen Eira Sports and Aquatic Centre.
  • $3.3 million for tree pruning and maintenance, with proactive programs focusing on tree health and electrical compliance works; $520,000 for tree planting and replacement in streets and parks; and $740,000 for tree protection.
  • $1.9 million on Open Space Strategy initiatives, parks and playing surfaces.
  • over $2 million for pedestrian and school safety and sustainable transport upgrades.


The following changes resulted from your feedback in the draft plan:

  • Rate increases will remain fair and sustainable so our core services are funded properly
  • User fees and charges will be reflective of the cost to deliver services that are the most important to our community
  • Resources will be carefully and responsibly managed by investing in key projects that our community needs the most
  • We will wherever possible look for other funding sources such as government grants and partnerships to help top up funding to deliver services and projects.

The following changes resulted from your feedback in the draft plan

  • An executive summary and further points of clarification have been added to the document.
  • The addition of links to future strategic work for recreation planning added in the recommendations.
  • An inclusion in Focus Area 2 that wherever possible Council will consolidate any services that operate under third party private lease arrangements into Council owned land and buildings (excluding exceptional circumstances).
  • More decision making points and community engagement have been added into the development of options for individual strategic sites (a list of short-medium term strategic sites has been added to the document)


The following changes resulted from your feedback in the draft plan

  • Strengthened actions related to increasing local biodiversity through targeted plantings and other environmental works (e.g restoration of aquatic habitat).
  • Added VicTrack as a partner to collaborate with around local biodiversity on their land (also includes Caulfield Racecourse Reserve, Ripponlea Estate, Monash University)
  • Added an action to increase opportunities for community led initiatives to enhance biodiversity and other environmental outcomes.
  • Added more content on the complex interactions and competing needs of addressing urban heat with regard to local and deciduous trees. Balancing competing needs will require ongoing research, to ensure that locations with the highest heat risk receive as much shade as possible while those with the greatest biodiversity value are planted with locally sourced native vegetation.

Our Place, Our Plan engagement phases

These draft plans are the result of community engagement starting in late 2024. Visit the pages below to learn more about each of the main phases of our Our Place, Our Plan community engagement process.