12:00a.m. 19th June 2008

| Bill Hoffman and Alan Lander

Deputy premier Paul Lucas has heard first hand just how unhappy the Coast community is with plans to bring forward development approval of major greenfield sites.

Coast mayor Bob Abbot and regional director of strategy and planning Warren Bunker met the state minister for infrastructure and planning on Tuesday to drive home the concerns about the bringing forward of the SEQ regional plan review by 12 months and the decision to fast-track the approval of land that would house an additional 75,000 people.

And a meeting at Sippy Downs saw more than 200 people say while they were not against development per se, they were concerned at the pace of it.

Mr Abbot addressed the meeting, saying he told Mr Lucas there was a fundamental need to bring infrastructure forward with development.

“He is listening,” Mr Abbot said. “But he is determined to make something happen. His philosophy is to get blocks on the ground.”

Mr Abbot said the bottom line was that the state had made a decision it was sticking to and council had to do something with it or risk being shut out of the process.

“The Sunshine Coast is a specific area,’’ he said.

“We want to compete with the Gold Coast on our terms, not theirs.

“If we start to become the Gold Coast, we will all lose.”

Mr Abbot also told Mr Lucas many other Brisbane fringe regions were “screaming out’’ for more residents including the Esk-Kilcoy area, Logan, the Somerset region and Ipswich.

He said planners were saying the land could be developed in those areas, but residents preferred to live in the coastal areas.

Meeting organiser Murray Lyons said an e-petition to state parliament for Coast residents to sign could be found at www.parliament.qld.gov.au.