A contingent of Coast residents visited Brisbane on Wednesday 10 March to observe the Supreme Court hearing of their Appeal to save Yaroomba from a significant high-rise development.
Spokesperson for the Save Yaroomba campaign, Kathryn Hyman, said it was a relief to finally have their day in Court.
“In the past six months our volunteers have launched a GoFundMe page for donations, produced two videos, held events including a traffic impact display, a silent art auction, a trivia night, numerous sausage sizzles and sold merchandise at markets, plus run a social media and news media campaign,“ she said.
“All of this was to raise the $100,000 needed for legal fees. We are close to our target, but still have a gap to fill.”
A Council map of submissions received for and against the high-density urban development shows an overwhelming majority were against it, despite often quoted claims to the contrary by Sekisui House. The map appears on Page 871 of Council’s internal documents recently published under a Right to Information request.
Ms Hyman said the Save Yaroomba campaigners have been called a ‘noisy minority’ and generally disparaged in public by Sekisui and its supporters.
“But we are far from that, and the Council map paints the picture quite clearly,“ she said.
“The ratio of objections was three to one out of more than 12,000 submissions which was a record.
“We want the Coast community to grasp that these written submissions were ignored by their Council, the planning department was ignored, the Town Plan was ignored and the project was approved.
“Now we place full trust in our legal team and the Court of Appeals in Brisbane’s Supreme Court. Then the wait begins, as it could take several nail-biting months for the Court’s decision to be known.”
