With its Growth Management Strategy causing concern for residents over loss of lifestyle amenity and our unique landscape character, the Planning Department’s ongoing advocacy for overdevelopment in a current case must surely sound the alarm. The case is MCU20/077 – 10 ‘nature-based tourism’ cabins at 36 Young St.

The 10-acre block is mostly unusable, being mainly within the high-risk landslip zone (brown shading) – leaving a thin sliver of developable land (arrow) with 12 neighbouring properties. The developer wants the maximum number of cabins that may be allowed under the Planning Scheme – the same allowance as a 10 acre ‘usable’ block with no existing approvals. 

However, there is already substantial existing development at 36 Young St, consisting of 4 approved uses:
- A 3-bedroom dwelling
- A 3-bedroom B&B
- A 40-person function room
- An agricultural business

The additional ten proposed cabins will be the 5th use. Yet more additional uses are foreshadowed in the application, apparently with Planning Department compliance, as it has included ‘Future Intensification’ (which may not be subject to public consultation) in its recommendation to Councillors. 

 How much more intense can it get? 
 See comments below re: the inadequacy of the proposed wastewater system. All this bodes ill for ‘Growth Management’ consistent with the natural image of Tamborine Mountain – which image has attracted worldwide attention.

All current and proposed structures will be in an area of a mere ~ 180m x 25m.

To squeeze the ten cabins into what remains of the tiny usable area, the developer seeks (with Planning Department support) to substantially violate the ‘minimum 20m setback where involving tourism activities’ stipulated in the Planning Scheme – resulting in cars parked at neighbours’ boundaries with cabins close by (conveniently near the 40-person function room). The Planning Manager advised Councillors during an 8 Feb meeting (transcript available) that the cabins could likely be built at the 20m setback (placing most of them further into the high-risk landslide zone), stating ‘in nearly all cases there is a technical engineering solution to it... but sometimes the cost of doing it is higher... but it’s not common that the structure itself couldn’t go ahead and that the Planning Department was avoiding the situation where ‘Geotech becomes too difficult and too costly (for the developer). 

But why are Council officers even considering reducing the minimum 20m setback to favour the developer – to the conceded detriment of neighbours? Planners (should) know they cannot consider developers’ costs when assessing a proposal, yet the Planning Department persists in advocating an uncompliant plan over residents’ reasonable expectations that the content of the Planning Scheme will be actually applied. 

Despite the application being lodged in 2020, planners have failed to act in respect of non-compliance with numerous other planning criteria, submitting the developer’s plans unchanged for Councillors’ approval – stating that the application was ‘generally compliant’ at the same time acknowledging the substantial negative impacts on neighbours. 

Community concern doesn’t stop there. The developer’s own engineer has acknowledged that the project’s small wastewater system would likely fail if its capacity was regularly exceeded. This system was included because a larger system was ‘unlikely to be approved’ and would trigger State Government Environmental Assessment. This inadequate system was ‘justified’ using the developer’s unenforceable ‘business plan’ based on hypothetical and reduced guest numbers instead of full occupancy figures. System failure will result in poorly treated or untreated sewage on the Escarpment. 

Yet still, the Planning Department advocates the proposal – as it did when it was advised some cabins were in the high-risk landslide zone despite ‘nature-based’ tourism being a prohibited use in that zone with its establishment or expansion to be avoided near that zone. In the 1981 Willmott Report, on which Council’s Landslide Hazard Code is based, the building is not recommended within 15 to 20 metres of the plateau edge due to inherent instability along the edge, yet the Planning Department is recommends approval of cabins positioned ‘on edge’ and within the high-risk landslide zone, in contradiction with the Planning Scheme and Council’s stated commitment in its 2020 Fact Sheet, to a Duty of Care to protect people, property and the environment from the risk of a landslide!

Alarm bells must be ringing by now for all Tamborine Mountain residents concerned about inappropriate development. The Planning Manager has scoffed at the concerns of residents and the community, stating that 200 objections to the Young Street development were ‘negligible’. It appears that development trumps all other concerns, including negative effects on our lifestyle and on our unique environment.

The Planning Department’s pro-development stance also disregards the Strategic Framework 2020 - the document which prevails over and directs how the Planning Scheme is applied and which acknowledges the differences between SRRC regions when considering ‘appropriate’ development. For the Escarpment Protection Zone relevant to 36 Young Street, the Intent of the Scheme is clear, repetitive, and unambiguous – low intensity/density development, which avoids impacts on neighbouring properties that may be considered on appropriately sized blocks in accordance with community aspirations. This proposal fails all these criteria but is still recommended by the Planning Department. A case of development for its own sake? Revenue over residents? 

Via its long-term advocacy of this proposal, the Planning Department has indicated its preparedness to disregard both the Strategic Framework and the unique nature of Tamborine Mountain – the reason most residents choose to live here. Given that Growth Management is a reality, a ‘development regardless’ Planning Department that deliberately ignores its own planning framework in favour of developers and development has the potential, unchecked, for irremediable harm.