It felt like déjà vu. I had seen it when I was a councillor – Noosa Council planners recommending refusal of long-negotiated proposals after initially encouraging applicants.
The rejection was made in a hurry following considerable expenditure by the applicant, Tewantin businessman Chris Wright’s company Doonella Street Pty Ltd. Yet another applicant led up the garden path by planning staff not acting in good faith, some councillors holding sway over others, and a majority allowing themselves to be swayed.
The Doonella Street development was first approved in 2015 for 16 residential units. In 2016 the land was sold to Mr Wright who in 2017 received Council approval to instead build 10 residential units and 762 sqm of commercial space.
In 2019 the State Government entered into a contract to buy the land for social housing. But despite this being needed in the Shire, Council staff advised that a wholly residential scheme would not be allowed. So the State Government withdrew its offer. Not for the first time the bureaucratic drove out a necessity.
The 2020 Noosa Plan changed the zoning to mixed residential/non-residential supporting Tewantin centre’s “predominant” business function.
A non-existent planning scheme amendment
Having indicated to Council an oversupply of commercial properties for lease in Tewantin, in February Mr Wright sought a change to the approved development, requesting the commercial space be reduced to 198 sqm and residential units increased to 19 with four for special disability accommodation. (By October 2021 Tewantin had 108 vacant commercial properties for lease.)
Following Council’s support of Mayor Stewart’s call for affordable and social housing, in March Council voted to prepare Noosa Plan amendments, including rezoning Doonella Street properties for small affordable dwellings and social housing.
This seemed to augur well for the applicant and negotiations with council staff proceeded along those lines.
Councillor due diligence truncated
Under the Council’s development assessment policy, councillors are forbidden from communicating with applicants until the staff assessment is placed on the agenda for a Council meeting.
Routinely, these reports are available two weeks before the Ordinary Meeting at which decisions are made, allowing time for discussion at committees and for councillors to work through complex proposals and confer with applicants.
But for some reason, the Doonella Street report was available only a week before September’s Ordinary Meeting. Councillors were told if they did not decide at the Ordinary Meeting, under the Planning Act the application would be deemed approved. Council could not defer the decision. The legislation only allows the applicant to request deferral.
Diligent councillors seek to fully understand applications before making decisions. As a councillor I found taking the time to meet with applicants was fair to them and instructive to me. It seems that in this case Mr Wright offered a briefing to each councillor, but only Crs Stewart and Lorentson responded.
A sting in the tail
During negotiations, Council staff suggested the applicant sign an infrastructure agreement locking in the four special disability units in perpetuity in line with the proposed Noosa Plan amendment which was not yet drafted nor exposed to public consultation and State Government review, actions required before a planning scheme can be changed.
The Council’s solicitor advised that, as the proposed rezoning was not in the Noosa Plan, Mr Wright instead needed to sign a deed containing conditions, drafted at the applicant’s expense.
Mr Wright duly paid $5,000, scrutinised the 11 conditions and found two of them unacceptable – one required paying $500,000 to be held by the Council for 10 years (later reduced to $100,000 for five years) and another incorporating the four disability units on one title. He indicated he would proceed if the two conditions were removed.
At September’s General Committee meeting, Crs Lorentson and Stewart moved a motion to do away with the two conditions and request Mr Wright to seek deferral of the decision. But Crs Stockwell and Wilkie successfully moved to keep all the conditions in place. Trouble loomed.
The refusal
Three days later at the Ordinary Meeting, councillors were told that Mr Wright – having attended the meeting where the two onerous conditions were reinstated – had exercised his right to not seek deferral. Council then voted six to one to refuse the application, with only Cr Lorentson dissenting, arguing the units would meet the Council’s affordable housing objective.
Cr Stewart voted against the application, even though she later told the Courier-Mail the decision “pained” her because the development was needed.
So, in spite of many months negotiating to create more affordable and social housing in Noosa, Council refused the proposal on the basis that it did not comply with the Noosa Plan which mandated providing ‘predominant’ business use in a mixed residential-business zone. The view was taken that not just the precinct, but also each lot within it must predominantly provide for business use. This was not in the Noosa Plan, merely an opinion.
Thus a proposal to establish affordable and social housing in the Tewantin town centre was rejected. Council was effectively telling the applicant to revert to the 2017 approval to build 10 residential units and 762 sqm of commercial space, which Mr Wright believed would be unviable.
According to the Courier-Mail, Mr Wright, a Tewantin resident of 16 years, said he would “take on Noosa Council in court”. Mr Wright lodged his appeal on 13 October. He will pay a $5,000 council fee and – if mediation does not result in a settlement – expose himself and the council to hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs.
Noosa Council had done it again: first seeming to be amenable to a worthwhile project, then negotiating for months, imposing burdensome conditions, and finally rejecting another project that would have benefited the community.
