2014-01-28 Planning & Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                  28 JANUARY 2014


     Public art is provided within the streetscape, as anticipated by the applicant’s submitted
      landscaping plans and the Noosa Junction Masterplan.
The current draft Infrastructure Agreement provided by the applicant only effectively provides for
the creation of the road corridor and does not include the construction of the road, contributions
to Pinaroo Park upgrade or any other works. These type of works and arrangements would be
most appropriately addressed through an Infrastructure Agreement to make clear the obligations
of both parties. Their inclusion in an infrastructure agreement would also allow a holistic
assessment of the community benefit posed by the development

Impact on Public Parking

Overall, the development provides sufficient car parks to meet the demand it will generate and
provides a modest surplus of further on-street car spaces within Pinaroo Way (45 spaces shown
on the applicant’s plans). Council’s carpark currently provides 125 unrestricted spaces and the
ability of Noosa Junction to accommodate the net loss of approximately 80 spaces must be
considered.

The Noosa Junction Masterplan’s Car Parking Strategy anticipates the loss of the carpark to
create Pinaroo Way but makes the caveat that:

The creation of Pinaroo Way (the new link road) will mean the potential loss of parking in that
location, but this will be offset by improved access to The Junction and future car parking to be
included as part of the development of key development sites including Noosa Bowls Club and
Noosa Fair. The aim of the Strategy is to have no net loss of car parking throughout the precinct.

Since no parking studies had been undertaken in the area in recent times, the applicant was
asked to provide a survey for Noosa Junction, which it undertook on Thursday 14th and Saturday
16th November 2013. The study concludes that demand for long term parking spaces can be
accommodated elsewhere in the Junction. Staff observations of the area over time generally
concur, with the following noted:
   Council’s Lanyana Way carpark is often 50-80% occupied, so is relatively well utilised. It is
    understood that many Noosa Fair employees are directed to park here. It is likely that other
    Noosa Junction employees also use the unrestricted parking.
   Both public carparks at The J and the Transit Centre are underutilised and are rarely 50%
    occupied.
   The Banksia Avenue (Cinema) carpark is well utilised and should not be considered as
    providing excess capacity.
A review of many historic aerial photographs over the last two years on the Nearmap website
reinforces these observations, with the only anomaly being at the time when the Noosa Fair
carpark was closed for redevelopment.
Council’s consultant traffic engineer, Colin Beard, provided the following opinion:

I suspect that, [since the construction of] Noosa Civic, the Junction has enough parking for all but
the very busiest days of the year. The issue is more likely to be convenience, with the more
remote car parks needing to be used on a regular basis rather than only occasionally.

Overall, it is considered that there is sufficient capacity in Noosa Junction to cater for the net loss
of public parking proposed - in particular at The J and Transit Centre carparks. The location of
these may not be as convenient but the loss of the Lanyana Way carpark could be further offset
by the following:




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