Row over bushland
REDLAND Shire Council is standing firm in opposing an application to turn one of the last remaining tracts of bushland in Cleveland into a housing estate.
The 8.7 hectares of land on the corner of Beach and Waterloo streets is zoned Rural Non-Urban under Council's Strategic Plan.
But the development application still awaiting a decision after two and a half years was lodged by Karreman Investments when the former Strategic Plan ear marked the land for future housing.
This was before the land was recognised for its "extremely significant environmental values".
Karreman Investments has asked Council to pay Residential A prices for the land if it wants it back for environmental purposes.
Community Planning executive director Gary White told Council at a recent Community Planning Committee meeting it would have to be prepared to go to court to stand up for the current lower valuation of the land under Rural Non-Urban classification.
He said the Strategic Plan shows 70 per cent of the land unsuitable for development.
Another Council officer reporting to the meeting on the application said 3.5 hectares of the land was flood-prone.
A further report will he prepared for the Community Planning Committee to give specific indications of the developable land on the site.
Mr Karreman said he would fight Council all the way on this application.
He said he had strenuously objected to the zoning change at the time of the new Strategic Plan.
He said a council officer had admitted to him that prior to changing the Strategic Plan that he had not seen the land and based his decision from aerial photographs.
Mr Karreman said Council knew full well at the time of the last Strategic Plan that land had been previously earmarked as Future Residential A and, that he as a local developer owned the land.
"It they want the land to stay in its present form they can pay full compensation to me for it."
Bayside Bulletin December 7, 1999 page 5
