The Molonglo Valley Community Forum has been formally recognised as a community council with the ACT government signing a deed of agreement.

The council's first meeting is to be held next Thursday.

Labor backbencher Dr Marisa Paterson, a member for Murrumbidgee, moved a motion in the Legislative Assembly in February calling on the ACT government to establish the new council.

"I've attended all of the group's community forum meetings this year and have been very impressed with the strong sense of community cohesion, the diversity, energy and passion of residents wanting to help shape the future of the area," Dr Paterson said.

"The ACT government's formal recognition of the group as a community council will open up new opportunities through funding and in-kind support."

Community councils are incorporated associations which receive support from the ACT government to provide an arena for community voices on planning and other local area matters.

The Molonglo Valley community council will consult publicly before adopting a new constitution and holding elections for executive committee members later this year.

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Interim spokesman for the Molonglo Valley Community Forum Ryan Hemsley said the organisation was excited to become a community council.

"As a growing region, we are keen to support the communities of Coombs, Denman Prospect, Whitlam, Wright and the future suburbs to be developed in the Molonglo Valley," Mr Hemsley said.

Mr Hemsley told The Canberra Times the council would seek to impose term limits on office holders to ensure fresh faces moved through the council.

Mr Hemsley said he hoped the Molonglo Valley could avoid a repeat of issues faced by other areas in Canberra, like Gungahlin and Tuggeranong, where community councils have long advocated for the interests of residents as the suburbs expanded.

"There was an article in The Canberra Times from the 1990s where, word-for-word, what they were saying [in Gungahlin], we could be saying. It literally has not changed," he said.

"The same thing about community services, facilities, infrastructure."

Chief Minister Andrew Barr, speaking in support of Dr Paterson's motion in February, said it was important "a representative range of community voices" engaged with the new council, and his directorate had been instructed to find ways to bring more voices to the table.

"I would hope that, with successful trial implementation of those models and new ways of engagement for the Molonglo Valley community council, that might spread throughout the rest of the city's community councils," Mr Barr said.

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