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9:21PM Sunday 07 September, 2008 Sunshine Coast weather Mostly sunny min 10° - max 23°

Development plan outrages councillor

10 June 2008

| Staff writers

Sunshine Coast regional councillor Russell Green says he is outraged and offended by the state government plan to fast-track development approvals to accommodate an additional 75,000 people at the southern end of the Sunshine Coast.

“Is Anna Bligh a premier or is she simply a Marionette to the various highly influential and highly funded lobby groups,” the Statutory and Regional Planning portfolio member said.

Mr Green said that while the developments were not in the “old” Noosa shire area, they would impact on this area.

He believes that the other end of the Coast would become so crowded, that people would seek out areas such as Noosa that have parks and recreational areas and travel to them for their leisure activities.

“Yes, the decision will definitely impact on Noosa’s liveability,” the division 11 councillor said.

Mayor Bob Abbot has called on Sunshine Coast residents to stand up for their lifestyle in the face of a state government push to increase the region’s rate of growth.

Mr Abbot said the announcement in the short-term was a direct assault on the values they had sought in electing the regional council.

“This is your future,’’ he said.

“The community needs to rise up and make the clear statement it made at the election.”

Mr Abbot rejected any suggestion that the process would deliver affordable land, predicting blocks would not go to market for less than $300,000.

“If they were talking about low-value blocks, we would be interested,” he said.

“We need house and land packages at $250,000 for it to be affordable.”

He described the move to bring to market ready status large areas of land within 12 months, as a “line in the sand moment” for the region.

“This is the Sunshine Coast’s Traveston dam,” Mr Abbot said.

His call for the community to stand as one with the council came as deputy premier Paul Lucas declared that the government would take action against developers who landbanked their approvals.

However, he could provide no detail of what that action might be beyond naming and shaming developers, nor could he give details of what the government would constitute as “landbanking”.

A BankWest report into affordability released last Monday has revealed that housing on the Sunshine Coast and across Queensland is increasingly out of reach of key workers in professions like nursing, firefighting, teaching and paramedics.

However, the government has yet to define what real dollar impact its policy would have on improving affordability.

But a rising tide against the Bligh government’s decision could see direct community action.

An emergency meeting of 16 regional community groups expected to be held in the next two weeks may be the first steps in a campaign to rival the successful protest against road tolls in the 1990s and Noosa’s forced amalgamation and the Traveston dam.

The Organisation of Sunshine Coast Associations of Residents (OSCAR) has canvassed its member associations to back a public meeting to protest the moves to cram another 75,000 people into the region.

However, Sunshine Coast Environment Council head, Ian Christesen, said the community should save its breath with a government that ignores their opinion. Last week, he advocated the council simply refuse to co-operate and instead should tell Ms Bligh that if she wants to fast-track development applications, then the state government should do the work.

“The council is on a hiding to nothing. They can’t achieve what she had demanded,” he said.

But one Noosa resident is already urging a show of people power. In a letter to the editor, Ms Susie Osmaston, of Noosa Heads, expressed her views:

Mayor Bob Abbot asks us to "rise up" against the state government’s plans to pack another 75,000 people into the Sunshine Coast.

Most of us would agree with him but how on earth do we influence this flint-hearted government, which seems determined to destroy our little piece of paradise?

Bob has no silver bullet, but as he says "bad things happen when good people do nothing".

Let’s all tell premier Anna Bligh what we think of her plan. Even though the 30,000+ Noosa anti-amalgamation letters were ignored, you never know, short, sharp succinct messages, straight from the heart, just might get read this time.

Her email address is: the premier@premiers.qld.gov.au

Recent Comments

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Posted by garya from Cooroy
on 25 June, 2008 at 10:13 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Isn't this the reason Powerlink is battering their way through Eerwah Vale and installing a huge substation right outside Eumundi? - i.e. to supply these new residential developments with power? According to a letter in today's Noosa Journal, the majority of this new power supply will be used for industrial and commercial purposes. This suggests to me that there are industrial and commercial developments planned which will make the residential plan pale in comparison.

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