This was discussed about a decade ago in regard to unincorporated areas in NSW and SA. The prevailing view was that unincorporated areas are local government areas. They usually have a different administrative structure (as distinct from the councils that administer local government in more populated areas) but irrespective of administrative structure, they are still areas which are subject to a form of local governance. An area does not need a council to make it a local government area.
"Unincorporated" means that the administrative body is not a legal entity that can enter into contracts/debt etc like a company - usually because the areas have insufficient population to support such administrative structures. However decision making is often delegated to the local level. In NSW, the large western unincorporated area used to be administered by a board - I think it has changed and now has an administrator although, as far as I know, Roads and Maritime Services remains responsible for the roads in the area. Lord Howe Island is an unincorporated area administered by a local board. In recent years, Sydney Harbour (including much of Parramatta RIver) and Botany Bay have been removed from local council controls and are now an unincorporated area of NSW - I am uncertain of the administrative arrangements but I think it was intended that state government authorities or administrators would exercise necessary governance over the Harbour area. For example, if one views NSW Local Government Areas at https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?url=https%3A%2F%2Fportal.spatial.nsw.gov.au%2Fserver%2Frest%2Fservices%2FNSW_Administrative_Boundaries_Theme%2FFeatureServer%2F8&source=sd and then "left click" (or whatever works in your browser) when the cursor is in Sydney Harbour, you will get responses such as "LocalGovernmentArea: UNINCORPORATED - SYDNEY HARBOUR AREA" This URL can be acccessed directly or via the NSW Spatial Services website. Unincorporated areas are local government areas, albeit with a different form of governance. On Mon, 17 Jun 2024, at 8:51 AM, Brendan Barnes wrote: > Hi all, just seeing if there's consensus on what administration level > unincorporated areas should have in Australia? > > In Victoria (and potentially other states), the unincorporated areas > are administered by state-level statutory authorities and departments, > so I'm thinking admin_level=6 to match equivalent local government > authorities. > > ACT is an exception obviously, with the unincorporated area matching > the territory border, so it takes on the higher order admin_level=4. > > https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Australian_Tagging_Guidelines/Land_and_boundaries#Administration_Levels > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_in_Australia#Unincorporated_areas > _______________________________________________ > Talk-au mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au _______________________________________________ Talk-au mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
