Ownership and community assets: managing change processes in strategic local government corporate property management

Replacing and upgrading community assets raises issues of perceptions of ‘ownership’ of facilities. Strategic local government Corporate Property management aims to meet organisational objectives, not necessarily those of vested sectional interests. Being corporate suggests the development of multi-purpose facilities to replace outdated existing single purpose facilities. Such proposals challenge ‘ownership’ perceptions based on the old facilities, and create opportunities to shape different senses of ‘ownership’ for the new facility. This paper discusses the issues of ‘ownership’ within the context of a new multi-purpose Library-Community Centre. Three forms of ‘bad’ ownership are identified. ‘Good’ ownership also has three aspects that are desirable for the organisation, tenant groups and the wider community Processes used in managing these changes in ‘ownership’ are elaborated. As the project is not due for occupation until mid-2005, this research investigates only the project’s pre-design and design phase processes. ‘Ownership in-use’ of this community asset must be future research.