By Hollie Harris
THE long-awaited end to the feud between multi-million dollar Acres development owner and Noosa council will have to wait for a decision on the future of the site.
Owner Ralph Rogers has previously been served a show cause notice for planning breaches.
The final outcome was due to be addressed at Tuesday’s council meeting but has been moved to Monday’s general meeting.
Mr Rogers has criticised The Noosa Plan for being “out-of-date” and non-reflective of changing times.
Mayor Tony Wellington said on Tuesday that he was aware that the retail industry is changing.
“The nature of retail demands that council become adaptable to that changing nature.
“Providing mixed services, such as Acres, is probably an early indicator of what retail is going to have to be thinking of into the future.
“There are empty shopping centres across many Western cultures now, so these more holistic, lifestyle oriented centres are what we should be looking at encouraging.
“We do have a planning scheme which was written 10 years ago, which does, unfortunately, make it difficult for these types of developments, however, we have a historical issue here – this property is zoned as residential,” Mr Wellington said.
The current council planning scheme is due to be reviewed in 2017.
