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Touching on transparency in city local law making: Experiences from waking up each day in City of Melbourne, Australia

Rebecca Leshinsky

International Journal of Law in the Built Environment

ISSN: 1756-1450

Article publication date: 10 October 2016

311

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose for this paper is to share jurisdictional knowledge on local law-making theory and praxis, an area of law not well represented in the literature despite its involvement in day-to-day life.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper not only shares knowledge about the local law-making process in Melbourne, Australia, but also explores attitudes to local law-making gathered through semi-structured interviews from a sample of relevant stakeholders.

Findings

The paper reports on findings from a study undertaken in Melbourne, Australia. Stakeholder perceptions and attitudes were canvassed regarding local law-making in the areas of land use planning and waste management. Overall, stakeholders were satisfied that Melbourne is a robust jurisdiction offering a fair and transparent local law-making system, but they see scope for more public participation.

Research limitations/implications

The findings suggest that even though the state of Victoria offers a fair and transparent system of local law-making, there is still significant scope for more meaningful involvement from the community, as well as space for more effective enforcement of local laws. The stage is set for greater cross-jurisdictional reciprocal learning about local law-making between cities.

Originality/value

This paper offers meaningful and utilitarian insight for policy and law makers, academics and built environment professionals from relevant stakeholders on the operation and transparency of local law-making.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank UN-Habitat Nairobi for its generous funding for this project.

Citation

Leshinsky, R. (2016), "Touching on transparency in city local law making: Experiences from waking up each day in City of Melbourne, Australia", International Journal of Law in the Built Environment, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 194-209. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLBE-01-2016-0001

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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