Community consultation

Community consultation is embedded in the democracy process of any governance system for engaging the people in the planning and decision making process. It is important for listening and incorporating the views of grass root people as they are the intended beneficiaries as well as the people who will receive negative impact from any decision made. For example, the property assessment rate, the approval of development project and traffic diversion scheme. Although some might of view that inviting the participation of people from diverse background with different agenda, personal or public will prolong the process of development, it is better of doing so for fear of delay and unrest later. Having said this, a threshold of engaging people must be set up and agreed upon first so that discussion, if any will not be delayed. People need to agree to disagree. Sometime although a meeting has come to a consensus of decision, minority of the people who are objecting to the decision might still voiced out their differences openly and strongly. This is not acceptable and defeat the purpose of having community consultation.

Another interesting thing of community consultation is we are always starting with problem rather than solution. We engage people for discussing a problem and trying to find out an amicable solution. In other words, consultation has always been done due to the presence of a problem and we will not organise any session if such issues are not happened. From the community development point of view, this is not positive simply because it will not enhance the relationship for all. People will have the perception that we are needed only if you need our support for some agenda of development. This might be the root cause of community confrontation.

If we have from time to time to organise community consultation over solution rather than problem, then I presume many of the potential issues can be solved even before these issues evolved. For example, discussion on how to make a safer neighbourhood can lead to the implementation of Safe City Programme or even Traffic Calming Scheme. Thereby, strategic long term community plan is required to gauge the opinion and vision of every residents in a neighbourhood first. The Plan shall be guiding the development of the neighbourhood. Similarly the Strategic Plan of local council should be involving the stakeholders and getting their endorsement. For example, communicating the time frame of property assessment rate review to residents in which everyone will know when a review is expected.

Having said this, more than often session to discuss solution cannot attract participation due to public apathy and people simply do not care about what you are planning if the proposal does not affect them directly. For instance, I will complain actively if you are building a community hall in front of my house but doing nothing or even welcome the proposal if it is built far from my house. This syndrome as some interpreted it showing the selfishness of people. Similarly, the talking of "I pay assessment annually for you to collect the rubbish from my house, so you better clear all rubbish from within my house compound". People have never thought about reducing the rubbish generation is their responsibility as well. By reducing rubbish individually, collectively we can minimise the cost of managing the rubbish, and of course protecting our environment.

Community consultation is a must, but to shift from discussing problem first to the solution will require awareness and capacity improvement of the people, more importantly behavioural change.