The City is a finalist in two awards due to be announced in October and November, with its work on the erosion reduction reef project at C. Y. O’Connor Beach, featuring in both.
UPDATE: The City has won the Smart Budget Award in the 2023 Core Values Awards IAP2 Australasia, for its community engagement around how the City should respond to erosion challenges along our coastline.
The community engagement resulted in an Australian first — the trial of a modular concrete erosion reduction reef designed to reduce wave energy that causes beach erosion.
The City was a finalist in the 2023 Core Values Awards environment category.
The community engagement project used innovative strategies to engage with more than 300 people, transforming a dry and complex subject into a consultation that resonated with participants.
The absence of a predetermined outcome allowed the community's values and aspirations to shape the project’s direction.
Judges commented that the City’s consultation demonstrated what could be done with a ‘very limited budget’, with great methodology to go to the people instead of only relying on online channels and using data to demonstrate how engagement outcomes could influence the projects next steps.
The reef is being closely monitored by The University of Western Australia’s Oceans Graduate School over the next few years to assess its effectiveness.
Winners were announced at the IAP2 Australasia conference in Brisbane on 24 October.
The City’s Built and Natural Environment Team is also a nominee in the Local Government Team of the Year (Band 1) category of the Planning Institute of Australia (WA) Planning Excellence Awards.
The City’s entry demonstrates how the erosion reduction reef project is an example of the City’s strong collaborations with universities.
Collaboration with universities enables the City to develop the next generation of urban planners, with the City’s marine engineers working to design and instal the 100m artificial reef at C.Y. O’Connor Beach.
This award will be announced on 17 November.