Public notices re Development applications


Phone 07 3371 9355 or Email

14 October 2004

If I am informed correctly, developers no longer are required ...

Background

A "town planning" sign on the fence of the rather large and important "character" house on the southwest corner of Kew Street and Lambert Road indicating an application for subdivision into multiple blocks was tucked away in Kew Street out of sight of Lambert road.
The question arose... shouldn't there also be a sign on the Lambert Road frontage?

The rush to make a submission regarding the subdivision for small lots at the very prominent house and site on the corner of Kew Street and Lambert Road Indooroopilly has raised some very interesting issues.
It appears that our Councillors have again let us down badly. For if I am informed correctly, developers no longer are required to place an advertisement of the public notice on all street frontages ... only one street frontage will do ... and it appears the developer can choose which one ...!

These types of changes are made by the Councillors who approve them ... or sit on the relevant specific committees of Council ... and/or who do not raise objection to them.

Of course it can be argued that it is unreasonable to expect the Councillors to read and understand all such changes but if they don't understand what they are voting on and for, why don't they say so ... and what does that say about our "representatives" diligence ?

One way to try to overcome this problem is for Councillors to not only understand the matters they vote on, rather than accepting party advice, voting on party lines, or worse, accepting the advice of Council officers without understanding it, but to ensure that as much as possible is advised to "the community" and exposed to critique by those who might have an interest and/or expertise in the issue.

A change such as this would hardly be welcomed by either the WTSAG or WTN RAG ... but at least it could be discussed and the Councillor advised of the issues and implications ...!

It is quite clear for example that allowing developers to only put one sign on a property with multiple frontages is not in the public interest and IS in the interest of development, so as re-development and development is the main aim of Council (and therefore Councillors), it is also the "bread and butter" of Council officers ... so who would want to argue against such a move?

The local community or at least those who don't want it re-developed ... and one hopes, the political representatives, in this case, our Councillor, who supposedly "represents" us in Council.

Clearly there were some of the current longer serving Liberal Councillors who failed to draw our attention to this very significant "pro-developer" change. Will they now reverse it?

Michael Yeates.