By Josh, that seems strange
12:00a.m. 22nd February 2008
An artist's impression of the hotel-motel, restaurant and shops planned for 123 Mooloolaba Esplanade. It provides only 19 car parks for the 37 units. Access to the car parks would be via “a valet and a car lift”.
Entrepreneur Joshua Hunt has lodged a development application hugely at odds with the town plan, for a hotel-motel, restaurant and shops on the Mooloolaba tourist strip.
Not only does the development application for 123 Mooloolaba Esplanade cater for only 19 car parks for the 37 “units”, access to the car parks would be via “a valet and a car lift”.
The application – which is already in the decision stage – also seems to differ significantly from the town plan on set-back requirements.
Nearby residents are appalled that Maroochy council appears to be seriously considering the application.
Council records indicate the application was lodged on November 29, with public notification given at the end of January.
Dusk night club, which operated on the site, closed at noon last Saturday even though entertainment had been booked.
The application will not go to full council for a decision. A council spokesman said it would be decided by “delegated authority”.
Jenny Barry, who owns a unit at Northwind next door, said many of the owners were surprised “at the speed this is taking place”.
“It breeches the by-laws, ignores set-back regulations and requirements and is too big for the site,” Mrs Barry said.
The council’s online development information indicates it advised the applicant on January 15 that “the acceptable measure car-parking requirement for the residential component of the motel use alone is 40 car spaces”.
Sunshine Coast regional council mayoral candidate, Noosa mayor Bob Abbot said he would have “serious issues” with lack of parking facilities.
“I would be disappointed, given the parking problems with Mooloolaba, if the council came up with any other solution than catering to the minimum number of car parks required,” he said.
Maroochy mayor Joe Natoli could not be reached for comment late yesterday.
Mr Hunt will be out of the country until February 26.
Recent Comments
The Town Plan is ONLY as strong as the integrity of the Councillors who make the decisions... and ANY departure from the Town Plan ONLY serves to weaken it.
If I have anything to do with influencing my fellow Councillors (if I'm elected of course... lol), then developers will soon get the message that lodging development applications that fall outside Town Plan guidelines is a complete waste of time and money.
We need strong Councillors determined to uphold the Town Plan that protects people's rights.
The developers have had the power for far too long, particularly in Maroochy Shire... it's about time that power was returned to the people by Councillors willing and able to stand up for resident's rights!
Jeff Watson
Candidate for Division 8
"POWER TO THE PEOPLE"
I’m a developer myself, and I would never waste my time in submitting this to council. If the council grants development approval, I'll have a cardiac arrest and just wait and see what he has in mind next....
And to cap it all the matter is to be delegated and not be handled by full council.
Where is that smell coming from? Something similar to the Mooloolaba Public Car Park aroma perhaps but even more pungent.
Roll on 15 March, so we can get rid of these tainted councillors.
As an architect (NOT A DEVELOPER) i regularly see sites that when meeting all of the requirements of the town plan actually create bad and undesirable outcomes for communities and my clients!!!
The town plan is a set of guidelines, it is not always perfect for each individual site and many optimal solutions trigger a planning application! Many people will experience this dilemma just on a house on a steep site in buderim, let alone on a prominent mooloolaba location.
The purpose of the planning approval process is that if a development goes to impact assessable, then it is to be considered on its merits, and the public gets to comment.
I have no detailed knowledge about the application referred to in the article other than the image presented, in saying that, i would expect my local officials to consider all points of the application with an open mind, rather than applying a blanket 'no approval' to anything that falls outside the town plan.
Is less cars on the coast such a bad thing, when we are trying to encourage walking, bicyles and public transport. Obviously, the developer is making a commercial decision of being able to operate successfully without a massive carpark.
I will say that this particular esplande site could certainly do with some renewal, and knowing that it is a small block of land, any solution within the town plan because the project would be difficult, unfeasible or potentially impossible!! Do we want the coast to become a slum of old undevelopable old asbestos buildings?
I am not advocating a concrete jungle, merely sometimes that the best solutions are sometimes the ones outside of the square, and we need people with the vision to assess these decisions in the interest of the community.
I have recently worked on a design where we had the option to present council with a fully compliant application that was a terrible solution (a concrete jungle solution) and instead the developer decided to work WITH council and community groups to come up with a preferable solution that allowed more community facilities and parklands - a good outcome for everyone!
An adversarial development assessment process is not the way forward, we need to find effective ways of putting the brains of the community, the council and the 'big bad' developers together to work towards a solution that meets as many of everyones desired outcomes as possible.
As a foot note in reply to cooroy_kid re:plaza carparking....like many people I know there is a shortfall of parking at the plaza, yet we all drive there and do a few laps, wait, keep waiting, and eventually we all do still get a carpark! SO it takes us ten minutes longer but we still get a parking spot! or we walk or take public transport! Lets not ruin the coast with asphalt!
The difference is my fees are not related to the profit the developer makes, i charge them for services undertaken before they lodge their DA's. We have a hard time recouping fees when our time is wasted with a long and difficult DA process on sites that need a little more consideration as the town plan fails to protect the community in some instances and prevents good solutions (on some individual sites).
Its in my professional interest to design good quality, aestheticly pleasing and environmentally sustainable buildings, NOT ugly innefficient concrete boxes....I can't obtain accolades designing junk!
If DAGG66 bothered to understand and interpret the content of my previous comment instead of carrrying on with ill informed preconceieved judgments against the development industry, i stated that I am in support of MORE green spaces and less concrete.
We need to look at other alternatives than simply destroying our coast with an abundance of excavated carparks, large road corridors and urban sprawl!!
I just checked the application myself online.
Go to http://www.maroochy.qld.gov.au/, select planning and development, then go to application enquiry (MCU07/0206).
Seems to me that:
1. the proposal has 40 carparks (as required); and
2. it meets the ‘performance criteria’ for setbacks as well.
How typical of the local N.I.M.B.Y. crew to go off half cocked.
Who else would like to see something better on the site than what’s there?
I say great if we can get rid of another nightclub from the Esplanade.
Further, the traffic study bases its argument on an assertion that by reducing the number of car parking spaces in the town centre the economic viability will increase!
This is a distortion of centre revitalisation theory that is dealing with vastly different circumstances and in this case is nonsense.
This is not about NIMBY. This is about appropriate design and planning.
Look at the document called ‘Information Request Response - Submission of Additional Information, Milligan's 1/123 Mooloolaba Esp Mooloolaba’ on Council’s file online. A second basement level has been added so that there are 40 car parks in total.
Who’s misleading who?
They also state in those document that the service vehicle can enter the site and leave in forward gear. The space for the service vehicle and the manouverng for the visitor parking both appear to be in the road reserve that has been somehow incorporated into the site.
"Is less cars on the coast such a bad thing, when we are trying to encourage walking, bicy[c]les and public transport."
Can you tell us exactly who "we" are, or who the authority with a legal mandate is, that is actively catering for and promoting alternative methods of access like walking, bicycles and public transport, to potential users of the Hunt complex?
It seems disingenuous to point to these other transport methods that have not been facilitated any more than they usually are in the surrounding area.
Another option is for lot of developers enter into Voluntary infrastructure agreements, where they come to an agreement with council to build and upgrade local infrastructure and donate it to council.
After reading the planning report, it appears to be a boutique hotel, so many visitors would be arriving via airport transfer services. I know with hotels there is a requirement to provide courtesy bus transport from the venue, perhaps the applicants are considering a similar idea - after all, hunt already provides limosine service to his restaurant!
I lived in holiday apartments in alexandra headlands and that place has an abundance of carparks that were sitting empty almost every day. What a waste of valuable landscape!
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