JIM FAGAN
Noosa’s long running battle to keep out developers like RV Thompson (Qld) Pty Ltd has cost multi millions of dollars but Mayor Noel Playford believes that “if you want the sort of Noosa that most of us idealise and desire then you have to draw the line.”
Speaking to Noosa Today on Monday after the council’s general committee meeting, a clearly happy Mayor said the Thompson claim was initiated because of changes to the Noosa Strategic Plan but “it is interesting how over the years a number of members of the community have made incredible statements about this issue. “The Council has always put it in the annual report as a contingent liability and despite the fact of one after the other the claims being knocked over by the court, one of them, Kettering Pty Ltd, even went to the High Court, people still kept making outrageous claims about ‘Noosa Council’s broke because it owes all this money.’ “What we did has been upheld in every one of the court cases and in some cases actually new laws by the courts have been the result of it. There are councils throughout Queensland who have been sitting watching all this because there is always a fine line with ‘injurious affection’ laws as to how far can you go in trying to determine your future in a land planning sense without triggering the provisions of ‘injurious affection.’ Asked about cost of court action, Mr Playford said it was always an educated or calculated decision as to how much it would cost. “Certainly, it has cost multi millions, my guess would be $10 million. It’s difficult to say how much the Thompson case cost because it goes back a long way. Certainly in the millions of dollars.” Had there been any sleepless nights? Mr Playford said, “No, there’s no point. You make your decision that you think it’s the right one for the future and you just hope the courts see it that way, how they view it in terms of the law. In retrospect now, you can say it was the right decision. “We knew when this started that we may have to back our planning laws with the courage of our convictions, and that’s what we did. There will be times in the future when the council has to fight hard again to retain our balanced view of planning. The alternative is ‘anything goes’ and that’s not what our community wants.”
