PREMIER WOOS THE GAP VOTERS WITH WORTHLESS PLAN

24/1/2015

Premier Campbell Newman signalled at 6.25pm on January 21 that he still regards the massive new suburb on the outskirts of his electorate of Ashgrove as an issue that could tip him out of parliament.

That signal was an emailed message to voters in The Gap that he would ensure that work would begin this year “on a dedicated Local Neighbourhood Plan for The Gap - a planning blueprint providing peace of mind that the lifestyle of this wonderful suburb is representative of what locals want - now and into the future.”

But he is still refusing to commit to “calling in” the development so the planning application can be re-assessed by the Government – a commitment already made by his main rival, Labor’s Kate Jones.

The fact that the approval by Brisbane City Council for 980 homes has ignored the major restrictions placed on the land by the council’s own local neighbourhood plan demonstrates that the plan was not worth the paper it was printed on.

Using Mr Newman’s own terminology, the Ferny Grove/Upper Kedron Local Neighbourhood Plan proved worthless as a planning blueprint and failed to protect the lifestyle of this suburb despite it being representative of what locals want - now and into the future.

So Premier Newman is offering residents a promise to begin work on a plan which could prove to be equally ineffective.

Mr Newman’s email was timed to coincide with a meeting of local residents wondering what options they have in continuing to fight the mega-suburb.

There are a lot of votes involved in the issue, as demonstrated by the fact that more than 1,500 people “like” the Save The Gap facebook page.

In May 2014, when Cedar Woods Properties Ltd announced it had reached an agreement to buy the land, Brisbane’s LNP Lord Mayor, Graham Quirk, endorsed the plan for a massive suburb despite the local plan for the area restricting development to about 75 hectares of low density housing in the north-east corner of the 227 hectares of land.

He said "Brisbane City Council welcomes the entry of major listed developer Cedar Woods to Brisbane with the purchase of the Upper Kedron site. The development will be a significant project for the City.

“Brisbane City Council looks forward to working with Cedar Woods in the next phase of the project and with the aim of creating a high quality master planned community for the City."

So Mr Quirk locked the city council and his LNP colleagues into supporting the development . That would seem to include the Premier.

Cedar Woods told potential investors at the time of the Lord Mayor’s backing: “Rezoning anticipated within 12 months (strong Council & State Government support).”

For Cedar Woods to be able to report in an Australian Stock Exchange document that it had not just State Government support but “strong” support must surely mean it had a pledge of some sort from the Newman Government.

This would explain why the Premier has refused to act against the development.

Cllr Milton Dick told Brisbane City Council in December: “The LNP received five donations from the owner of the Cedar Woods property just prior to its value increasing from $4 million to $64 million.”

The owner at that time was Ian Macallister who signed an infrastructure agreement for the land with the council.

The land is now owned by Huntsman Property Pty Ltd, an offshoot of Cedar Woods Properties Ltd, of Western Australia, which bought the land from Mr Macallister.

I asked the company whether Cedar Woods Properties Ltd, Huntsman Property Pty Ltd, any company associated with Cedar Woods Properties Ltd or any directors of such companies had made a donation or donations to any fund or organisation associated with the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, the Premier of Queensland or the Liberal National Party.

No response has been received yet.

How does the council’s local neighbourhood plan compare with the plan approved by the council?

The plan on the left is the neighbourhood plan for the land in question. Only the coloured areas are to be developed.

Compare that with the map on the right of the approved development. Areas marked pink will be developed with 980 homes.

Local councillor Geraldine Knapp has explained that the light yellow areas on the neighbourhood plan should have a very low density of 5 homes per hectare; the orange areas 12 homes per hectare; and the pink areas 16 homes per hectare.

The coloured areas occupy about a third of the 227 hectares involved in the application – about 75 hectares. The rest is zoned rural or environmental.

The developable area in the neighbourhood plan is not quantified but as can be seen from the map, it would seem that about a fifth of the area for housing is for 16 homes per ha, about two fifths for 12 homes per ha and about two fifths for 5 homes per ha.

It’s a very rough calculation but it would total about 750 homes.

There are additional limitations. The green shading on some of the light yellow areas means development has to be located at least 15 metres vertically below any ridgeline – and there are several ridgelines.

This might reduce the number of home to around 700 rather than the 980 approved.

The Save The Gap organisation believes the number should be as low as 500 if, as planned, access to the suburb is only through the already busy streets of existing developments to the north.

END

http://us10.campaign-archive2.com/?u=53da90cca90ec3f2b76704851&id=d940bf221d&e=abea116559

www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/.../20141222_-_council_minutes_-_9_december

10 Comments

Not swayed

24/1/2015 06:53:48 am

Again, a major piece of commentary which bases entire article on accusations of bribery, and complaints about the local plan. With absolutely no understanding that the site was included in the urban footprint in 2009, which superseded the local plan automatically. There is plenty of Planning Case Law from the Planning and Environment Court to prove that this is the case.

Under planning Law ( Sustainable Planning Act) the local plan was automatically superseded in 2009 by the site's inclusion in the urban footprint. It was advertised as being included by the previous state government, and it would have been proven to be 'developable' to the state government at the time, for it to be considered for inclusion in the urban footprint.

You may not like it, but the time to object to this development was in 2009. Once the regional plan was implemented, it is within a land owners right to apply under s242 of the SPA to override the local planning scheme, as it is inconsistent with the local plan. The regional plan represents the State's interest in this site, regardless of what Labor, Greens or independent members say, local objection (by people who couldn't be bothered to object in 2009) is not a State Interest, it is a local government interest.

Clearly an un-researched, and uninformed article.

Steve Bishop

24/1/2015 07:14:06 am

There is a conflict between the South East Queensland Regional Plan, which places an Urban Footprint over a vast swathe of land within Brisbane, and Brisbane City Council’s intention for the land which is the subject of planning application A003905687, namely that most of the land should be zoned “rural” and “environmental protection” (2000) “environmental management” (2014).

The Council has been aware of the SEQ Regional Plan’s Urban Footprint since 2009 but has resolutely retained its zonings of “rural” and the need for environmental protection/management for two sections of the land which are the subject of the application.

Which of these competing plans should take precedence?

The Queensland State Government’s South East Queensland Regional Plan divides land in the region into three regional land use categories. These determine which of the plan's regulatory provisions, if any, apply to a given area.

But the plan makes it clear that: “Inclusion of land in the Urban Footprint does not imply that all such lands can be developed for urban purposes. Land not available for development includes land subject to flooding and other constraints.”

The Plan also says: “The information on maps in this document is not intended for reference to specific parcels of land.”

Importantly, the SEQ Plan says categorically: “Local government planning schemes are the main instrument that will establish and refine the desired use of land.

24/1/2015 08:19:26 am

The local government has 7-9 years to update its planning scheme after a regional plan is updated. You are misinterpreting the phrases where the SEQRP notes that not all land is developable if within the urban footprint. Whilst this does apply to upper Kedron, where topography, urban open space requirements, drainage, and bushfire constraints have limited the site's development footprint, the local plan is not one of those constraints.

The SEQRP also notes that "to the extent that there is any inconsistency between the SEQ Regional Plan and any other plan, document, SPA or under another Act, including any other planning instrument, the SEQ Regional Plan Prevails". This rules out the local plan (as another document or plan under SPA).

Therefore the plans are not competing. By law the Regional Plan Prevails, and whilst physical constraints may limit the site's developability, the Local Plan is not a constraint under the regional plan, rather a document which is overriden by the Regional Plan.

24/1/2015 08:56:23 am

The 2014 Brisbane City Plan denotes most of the land in question as rural or environmental. The council announced that the plan takes into account “the largest city-wide public consultation program to take place in Brisbane in more than a decade: over 2700 submissions were received during the 60 day public consultation phase”.
The fact that the council engaged in this consultation and then produced a plan in 2014 showing most of the land in question as being rural or environmental five years after the SEQ Regional Plan proves my point that the neighbourhood plan, with its zonings, was worthless.

24/1/2015 11:20:39 am

Yes, however I think you're getting city plan, and zoning changes mixed up. An updated cityplan doesn't generally include areas being re-zoned. That is why the areas zoned as residential didn't change.

Updated Planning Schemes are generally changes to the definition of zone (I.e residential - and what is permissible within land zoned residential), and different processes and standards.

Zoning changes (ie. Land being rezoned) happens outside of city plan changes, and is done on an area-by-area basis. This is how it has always been done. If, say there was a train station, and the new city plan allowed a new zone within 200m of a train station, then the zones would be updated within the planning scheme update, but that is as a result of a change in standards (in this example, around train stations) rather than a zoning change on its own.

The local plan would have been required to be updated to reflect the urban footprint at some time over the next 3 or so years, but in this instance the Applicant acted first under a s242 application.

Hopefully that makes sense.

24/1/2015 12:37:31 pm

The applicant acted first because the company was advised by the council to do so because the superseded plan was weaker in the requirements placed on applicants.

It again demonstrates the new plan was worthless.

I think I have demonstrated that my article was not un-researched or uninformed.

I try to make my identity clear whenever I post comments. I would be interested to know who you are.

24/1/2015 01:48:31 pm

I am a town planner with 10+ years experience in issues like these.

I once identified myself on the Save the Gap page which resulted in numerous calls to my work demanding that I admit both involvement and bias because I pointed out that there was nothing abnormal about the process which was undertaken. As well this woman made a call to my boss, who dismissed the woman involved as deluded.

In my opinion the STG group is a lobbyist page and I will not be identifying myself again to this group, or anyone associated. For my own safety.

24/1/2015 02:23:03 pm

Fair enough.

My question to an expert is: why did the council go through the charade of creating a 2014 planning map of Ferny Grove/Upper Kedron on which the land which is the subject of this planning application was very carefully and minutely etched in different colours to denote small areas of housing with differing density levels if there was every chance that it would be overruled?

24/1/2015 03:18:59 pm

I dare say that during one of the State Interest checks, that DSDIP/TMR required the old western bypass to be removed from the Ferny grove/upper local plan. This would have triggered a series of mini updates, alongside the removal of any overlays etc (ie some vegetation overlays are now codes, so applicable everywhere - so the 'mapped' areas are now removed) which are no longer applicable under the new planning scheme.

I would call the 2014 local plan more of an administrative update (so that it can be read in conjunction with CityPlan2014). They would have done this with each local plan to make them consistent with the new planning scheme terms and definitions etc.

BCC neighbourhood Planning are responsible for complete overhauls of local plans, and they take about 2 years to complete.

I dare say that the changes were a result of making the new local plan consistent with the new planning scheme terms, rather than in an effort to update the plan to be consistent with the SEQRP, SPP or EPBC Etc. Which explains why the zoned areas weren't uodated, as this is the function of neighbourhood planning.

Hope that helps.

26/1/2015 03:37:03 am

Thanks for that. But whatever the reasoning, local residents had a local neighbourhood plan up dated to take effect in 2014.

Here's another example of why local neighbourhood plans are worthless. The story is from the Brisbane Times:
Kangaroo Point residents have lost out in their bid to stop a 23-storey development, with a Planning and Environment Court judge dismissing their appeal this week.

David Devine's Metro Developments lodged plans with Brisbane City Council for the 23-storey Riverview Towers on the triangular block of land surrounded by Cairns, Lambert and O'Connell streets.

The site was zoned for heights of up to 10 storeys.

In a decision handed down on Wednesday, Judge Kiernan Dorney dismissed the Kangaroo Point Residents Association's appeal against the council's decision to approve the impact assessable application.

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Among his published reasons, Judge Dorney said Kangaroo Point was well – "if not very well" – located in terms of public transport and other infrastructure, including a yet-to-be built pedestrian bridge connecting Kangaroo Point to the CBD.

It was the end of a long process for KPRA president David Murray and other residents, who he said had between them spent about $120,000 on the appeal.

Mr Murray said he was "extremely disappointed" in the court's decision.

"It's not really about us, it's about all of Brisbane City," he said.

"All of those local plans that have been worked through finely with the community and have been reviewed on several occasions … and, with this particular development, it's been totally broken.

"The community feels like it has a contract with the council and it's been totally broken."

PREMIER WOOS THE GAP VOTERS WITH WORTHLESS PLAN

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