An appeal against the Sunshine Coast Council’s refusal of an application for a quarry is still playing out in the courts 13 years after it began.
The appeal by Parklands Blue Metal against the council’s refusal of its application for a quarry at Yandina Creek was back in the Planning and Environment Court on December 17.
In the latest instalment in the long-running saga, Judge Glen Cash ordered that the council compile conditions for construction and maintenance of the quarry haulage route.
The quarry saga began in 2009, when Parklands Blue Metal applied for a development permit for a hard rock quarry operation at North Arm-Yandina Creek Road.
The council refused the application in October 2011 and Parklands Blue Metal lodged an appeal in the Planning and Environment Court in December that year.
The first 12 months resulted in a judge ordering the parties’ “experts” to convene a meeting and prepare a joint report, followed by a second meeting, but air quality experts still could not agree.
After a hearing in 2013, Judge John Robertson upheld the appeal by Parklands Blue Metal, finding the quarry offered community benefit, and that its impacts on the amenity of the surrounding rural residential residents could be mitigated through approval conditions.
The council appealed the judge’s decision but was unsuccessful.
Two years later, Parklands Blue Metal sought to make two changes to the development, switching entry and exit from McCords Road to North Arm-Yandina Creek Road and increasing the height of a workshop near the southern perimeter from 8m to 12m.
Judge Robertson gave the company leave in 2017 to make the changes but while some conditions were agreed upon, and some determined, the parties have gone back and forth since over others.
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A major focus has been the upgrade and maintenance of the haulage route, in particular a flood-prone section of North Arm-Yandina Creek Road.
Parklands Blue Metal proposed to pay a levy per tonne of material carted from the quarry, while the council has maintained the quarry operator should be responsible for maintenance of the route for the life of the quarry.
Judge Cash found that a levy could not legally be imposed on Parklands Blue Metal and that the quarry operator should be responsible for the maintenance of the haulage route given it would have more impact than anyone else on the route.
“It is hard to see how it would be unreasonable to require the operator of the quarry to maintain the haulage route which is for the benefit of the quarry, necessary to its operation and which will be the main cause of the need for its maintenance,” the judge wrote in his reasons.
Annie Nolan, of the Yandina Creek Progress Association, which was a co-respondent to the appeal and has maintained an interest in proceedings, commended the council for persisting through the lengthy court process.
She said the best that could now be hoped for were conditions that would reduce the quarry’s impact.
“What we have to do is have a look at these conditions proposed and make sure it’s as much as it can be for the residents,” she said.
