LATE RFI Attachment 2 - Additional Economic Advice

                  220079 Additional advice in relation to proposed car wash at 34 Elm Street, Cooroy

are acutely aware of industrial traffic, however the typical user of a commercial car wash might not.
In a practical sense, it is not desirable for traffic not associated with a proper industrial use to be
forced to enter an industrial area to use a commercial car wash. By its nature, a car wash relies
heavily on passing trade.

Increasingly commercial car washes have been established within major shopping centres, one such
example being Snap Car Wash in Sunshine Plaza. Another example would be the Sparkles chain of
car washes located within major shopping centres, such as Westfield Garden City, Mount Ommaney
Shopping Centre, RiverLink Shopping Centre.

The proposed car wash will provide an additional service to the service offering of the Cooroy District
Centre and has more potential to encourage residents of Noosa’s hinterland to patronize Cooroy
District Centre, by offering something additional as opposed to more of the same small specialty
tenancies.

Role of Industrial Areas
Industrial areas fulfill a vital role in the sustainable development of a city economy. Industrial areas
provide land for businesses who operate as wholesalers, manufacturers and transporters of goods.
Industrial area primarily accommodate businesses that engage in business-to-business transactions.
There are some industrial uses that serve households, but this is typically for occasional needs, such
as motor vehicle servicing (now typically annually) or similar.

Noosa faces scarcity of most forms of urban land. This is a result of a desire to balance environmental
outcomes with urban development sustainably. As mentioned above, today’s commercial car
washes cater primarily for passenger vehicles owned by households, they are primarily a business-to-
household transaction based activity. While commercial car washes do occur in industrial area these
are normally on highly visible and accessible roads, an example of which is the Noosa Car Spa along
Noosa Eumundi Road. There is no such land in the Cooroy locality, with the industrial estates being
well removed from the main commercial and accessible areas.

By requiring a commercial car wash to locate in an industrial area it results in the take-up of land by
a business-to-household enterprise at the expense of business-to-business enterprises, the core
business group industrial areas are intended to accommodate. By locating a facility that primarily
serves households in an industrial area (as opposed to a centre), householders are required to enter
an industrial area as customers. This creates potential conflict between industrial businesses, which
typically generate significant heavy vehicle movements, and everyday householders who might not
have the same situational awareness as workers in those areas.

Not only would requiring a car wash to locate in an industrial area compromise the facility’s ability to
meet an identified need, but it would also take-up land from a more appropriate business-to-business
oriented industrial use and introduce non-industrial traffic into an industrial location.

Eastern Cooroy-Part of the District Centre
Council’s information request appears to rely on the proposition that the eastern part of the Cooroy
District Centre is somehow subservient to the western part of the Cooroy Town Centre. However,
there are myriad examples of tenants within the eastern part of Cooroy Town Centre that would
serve a catchment consistent with a District Centre trade area (of the scale identified in the
economic need assessment). One such example is Sauers Produce and Garden Centre at 13
Diamond Street, Cooroy, which utilize ~3,000 sqm of land (~1,200 sqm of floor space) within eastern


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220079 LTR BBE Cooroy Car Wash Response to IR REVA 280223