The Sunshine Coast’s biggest developer Stockland will return to court in its 13-year battle to build an exclusive master-planned estate on a floodplain.
The proposal for Twin Waters West includes 182 lots, new roads and a park next door to the existing Twin Waters community.
The project on 104 hectares at Pacific Paradise has been rejected twice by Sunshine Coast Council and faces stiff community opposition.
A trial date has been set for July 18 in the Planning and Environment Court when Stockland will appeal the council’s latest rejection of its development application.
Stockland’s land at Twin Waters West is sandwiched between Twin Waters and the Sunshine Motorway on part of the Maroochy River floodplain.
It was first knocked back in 2009 and that rejection was appealed in court, a legal fight Stockland lost in 2013.
The developer then lodged a second development application with council in December 2018, but in July 2020 that also was knocked back.
If Stockland loses the upcoming appeal trial, it will be the second time the company has been unsuccessful in court.
The council is fighting the case with back-up from community organisations who have been hanging in for years in the drawn-out battle.
Twin Waters West and Surrounds Inc president Kathryn Hyman said she was confident the community’s recent legal win against Sekisui in Yaroomba would bode well for this case.
In the long-running Sekisui campaign, residents of Yaroomba and Coolum fought against the council’s approval of Sekisui’s $900 million resort and village project near the beach.
Ms Hyman said residents had been fighting the Twin Waters West estate for 13 years.
“It’s a long game and the developer knows it’s a long game and because of that it’s hard for the community to keep up the momentum because we have day jobs and families and ageing parents,” said Ms Hyman.
“We are fortunate we have a lot of community members who are retirees which is why we have been able to stick with it as long as we have.”
Ms Hyman said there were “plenty of grounds” to reject the project including the threat of flooding, impact on native animals and wetlands and the scale and density of housing.
“There is plenty of non-conformity with the planning scheme. The judge only needs one area of non-conformity on which to base a refusal,” she said.
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Court documents reveal council’s grounds for rejection include the developer not setting aside enough land for a future CAMCOS transport corridor and inadequate buffering to the Sunshine Motorway.
Any future residents living in Twin Waters West would therefore have to contend with the “unacceptable acoustic” impact of traffic.
Council has also highlighted the “scale and density of development” as “unacceptable for this land”.
In particular the housing is “not consistent with or sympathetic to the established low-density residential character of the adjoining Twin Waters residential community” because it involves varying the town plan to allow two medium-density sites.
Flooding is another matter which the council says “puts the safety of people and property at risk”.
Council’s environmental concerns relate to the proposal including a medium-density residential site in the wetland and not providing adequate buffers to the wetland.
Stockland’s grounds for appeal include its insistence that council has no solid planning grounds for knocking back the project.
Stockland’s court papers claim the development is “consistent with and sympathetic to the character of the adjoining Twin Waters residential development”.
The company also states construction would create a variety of housing options “that promote affordability and adaptability”.
Stockland first attempted to push Twin Waters West in 2009, seeking 950 residential lots averaging 450sqm, but at that time the land was zoned for rural and failed to gain council support.
At the failed 2013 court appeal, the judge noted the project would “place a substantial new residential community into a floodplain, with the attendant risk of a substantial number of persons becoming isolated in times of major natural disaster”.
Council amended the planning scheme in 2018 to allow for future residential development on that land.
Stockland then submitted this latest scaled back second development application in 2018.
