Plans for the next stage of a housing estate that would include more than 500 homes could be in trouble, with the proposed project being recommended for refusal.
The agenda for Thursday’s Sunshine Coast Council meeting includes a determination on the proposed third stage of the Parklakes development on 51 hectares of rural land at Bli Bli.
The application for the development, which was first submitted to the council in 2022, seeks preliminary approval for a material change of use to vary the Sunshine Coast Planning Scheme 2014 to allow for residential, shopping centre and retirement facility uses, and to vary the height of buildings and structures overlay from 8.5m to 12m.
A report prepared by a council officer ahead of Thursday’s meeting says the applicants, Focus Estates Pty Ltd and One Man Bli Bli Pty Ltd, have provided a range of matters to support the application, but that “significant reasons warrant refusal of the application”.
“The development is proposed in a flood and inundation area, and the development does not satisfy the criteria to allow urban development to occur in the flood and inundation area,” it says.
“The local flooding solution is reliant on offsite channel improvement works on private properties, which do not form part of the application and would result in offsite impacts.”
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The report says the applicants’ push for the proposal is based around the need for housing and housing diversity, a new local centre and how its planned lake would provide social benefits for those within and nearby the estate.
But it states that other matters remain unresolved “such as building height, open space, agricultural buffers etc”, but could be conditioned or amended should approval be contemplated.
“On balance, the development raises a number of inconsistencies with the Planning Scheme,” the report says.
“In this circumstance, the matters that may warrant approval are not as compelling as those against of the development.”
The report notes that the application was subject to public notification between May 15 and June 30 last year, attracting 253 ‘properly made’ submissions.
Of these, 142 submissions were in support of the proposal, 87 were opposed and six were neutral.
The applicants declined to comment until after Thursday’s meeting.
