Michael Yeates
PTA 7 Marston Avenue Indooroopilly 4068 07 3371 9355
Another house "on the move"
30 March 2003
Another "hotspot" ... the southern side of the Swann Road ridge, at the top end of Central Avenue
I have just been advised of another "hotspot" ... the southern side of the Swann Road ridge, at the top end of Central Avenue.
Here there is a massive development about to be constructed between Central and Swann ...
And now nearby on the bend in Central Avenue, is a very nicely restored house and garden ... with a Town Planning notice on the front fence...!
Another really nicely restored/renovated house and garden in exchange for up to 10 units ...?
Hopefully, those nearby can get together and present a case to preserve these increasingly scarce elements of "character" that Council supposedly "protects".
What is increasingly the case and is therefore increasingly disturbing is the obvious tendency for Council officers to be sympathetic ... to the applicants, not to the neighbours ... so setting in place a process of creeping invasion and destruction either until it is too late, or more likely, until people no longer want to buy the new places because the "borrowed amenity" has been so destroyed.
So a NEW part of the armoury of the "developers and applicants" is a "sob story", a case of hardship ... IF the application is not allowed.
With the Central Avenue house, there is a suggestion that the "developer" has over-capitalised and cannot achieve a rental return and has therefore chosen to try to protect "his" investment ... by arguing the "hardship" if the house has to stay...
This is no different to the IRONY case where only one of the two houses of merit is required to be "protected" .... by moving it to a totally insignificant location.
The other house on the IRONY site, the beautiful little white cottage, has already gone ... and still no notification as to the Council's approval has ben notified.
I have become aware of a similar situation at 234-6 Boundary Road in Bardon where a typical 32 perch (809m) block has a really
original "oldie" more or less in the middle of the block ... it looks very grand despite being very run-down ... but being very original, has real potential.
The "developers" have applied for relocation to allow subdivision with this house jammed into one corner. But because the house is too wide, it won't fit on a "standard" 10m wide 400m block, so the developers have asked for it to be located on an 11m block with the "new" allotment having a 9m frontage.
In this case, the "hardship" will be keeping the house AND complying with a 10m block width AND the boundary clearances ... so Council is very likely to approve it.
YET, the developer paid top price at auction and MUST have known that Council "should" not allow such an extreme combination of favourable relaxations ...
Here again the "hardship" will be shifted from the developer onto the neighbours ... WHEN or IF Council approves the development.
The question is ..."Should Council continue
to approve such develoments if in doing so it knowingly encourages more of them based on even more relaxations?"
Clearly, if the existing house won't fit AND "character" is to be protected, then these applications should be refused.
If the house then burns down or whatever, it should be required to be replaced.
The subdivision should NOT be approved thus "encouraging" increased rather than decreased value in the original house and land ... the "character" value!
Arguably, by continuing to approve these types of "relaxed" applications, Council does NOT want to "protect" the character suburbs.
By allowing these developments to be approved to avoid the "developers' hardship", Council adds to the pressure for neighbours to sell ...!
Until this pattern is made clear in the public realm, it will continue...!
It is no better illustrated than by the approval of a 3-5 storey unit building in the middle of the group of "oldies" on Railway Avenue at the Indooroopilly station ... where the vacant block now is!