A telecommunications infrastructure provider has launched a court appeal after Sunshine Coast Council rejected its plans for a phone tower.
Waveconn Operations Pty Ltd’s application to build a 31.3m tower and ground-based equipment at 1-9 Campbell Street, Woombye, was refused by councillors at their ordinary meeting on July 24.
Ten out of 11 councillors voted to refuse the proposal, after council officers recommended it be rejected. Only Cr Terry Landsberg supported the plan.
Brisbane-based lawyers Corrs Chambers Westgarth on August 22 filed a notice of appeal with the Planning and Environment Court on behalf of Waveconn, asking for the decision to be overturned.
The council’s statement of reasons for the refusal centred on impacts to rural character, amenity and landscape values.
“The proposal has not been designed and located to minimise community impacts, in particular, visual amenity on nearby residences,” it stated.
“The proposal has not been integrated in a sustainable and attractive manner and therefore would unduly impact upon the character of the local area.
“The built form of the proposal does not integrate with or complement the predominant rural character intended for the zone.”
The appeal documents state that the planned phone tower would not unacceptably impact on the character, setting and identity of Woombye.
“The proposed development complies with, or can be conditioned to comply with, the relevant assessment benchmarks, particularly those referred to in the respondent’s grounds of refusal,” it said.
Waveconn has previously outlined in a letter to the council why the facility was needed.
“Due to the constraints of 5G in terms of its reach there is no feasible way to provide useful and reliable 5G services to Woombye without additional infrastructure much closer to the township and the population that is to be served,” the letter by SAQ Consulting in July last year said.
“(The lack of service) affects both the resident population, businesses and visitors to the town, including those conducting business such as tradies, pop-up shops and other mobile employees who rely on voice and data connectivity as well as for payment systems such as EFTPOS.”
In July’s meeting, Cr Landsberg – who is a councillor for the Resilient Economy portfolio – said it was rare he would go against a council officer’s recommendation.
“We have a huge amount of challenges ahead of us,” he said. “I’m sure issues like this are going to come up front and centre in the release of our draft Planning Scheme, how we start to have conversations around critical infrastructure that needs to be delivered, especially in rural settings to improve liveability and connectivity.
“So today, I won’t be supporting the recommendation.”
The initial development application was lodged in October 2023, with public notification taking place from August 5-26 last year.
“A total of 453 submissions were received, of which 443 were determined to be ‘properly made’ in accordance with the Planning Act 2016,” the council’s statement of reasons said.
“Most of the submissions received oppose the proposed development.
“The properly made submissions included six petitions, all opposing the development, which contained a total of 253 signatures.”
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