MCU14/0106 & OPW15/0001 Town Planning Report & Appendix A Code Compliance

                                                                                                                Town Planning Report
                                 28 Eenie Creek Road, Noosaville and parts of the road reserves of Hofmann Drive and Walter Hay Drive




8                   Sufficient Grounds
8.1                 Compliance with the Applicable Codes
Section 326 of the SPA states that an assessment manager’s decision must not conflict with a relevant
instrument unless:-
(a)       the conflict is necessary to ensure the decision complies with a State planning regulatory provision; or
(b)       there are sufficient grounds to justify the decision, despite the conflict; or
(c)       the conflict arises because of a conflict between—
          (i)       2 or more relevant instruments of the same type, and the decision best achieves the purposes of
                    the instruments; or
          (ii)      2 or more aspects of any 1 relevant instrument, and the decision best achieves the purposes of
                    the instrument.
This chapter identifies sufficient grounds to justify the approval of the development application, despite any
conflict with the statutory planning framework identified in the previous chapter of this Report.

8.2                 Retail Need
A Retail Need Assessment has been prepared by Urbis, and included as Appendix J – Retail Need
Assessment to this report.
The key findings of the assessment are as follows:
               trade area population is expected to increase to 89,900 people in 2021 and 95,550 people by 2031;
               retail spending, expressed in 2014 dollar terms, by trade area residents is forecast to increase from
                $1.075 billion to $1.346 billion in 2021 and $1.698 billion in 2031;
               forecast growth between 2014 and 2021 amounts to $271 million, which supports performance
                improvement in existing centres as well as expansion opportunities;
               the existing Noosa Civic centre accounts for 10.5% of the Main Trade Area market share in retail
                spending by local residents;
               escape spending, as a consequence of the attraction of external centres, online and overseas
                shopping, and the lack of existing facilities within the trade area equates to 37% of total retail
                spending, including 57% in apparel specialty categories;
               very high escape spending suggests a strong need for a critical mass of specialty stores;
               supermarkets operating within the trade area are understood to be currently trading very well, which
                suggests the market can support more supermarket floor space with manageable cannibalisation
                impacts on individual stores;
               the provision of a better range of facilities and services would retain a proportion of escape spending
                by diverting sales from external centres with no impact on local centres;
               local centres are expected to be reasonably resilient as a consequence of reasonably strong trading
                levels, growth in tourism, as well as local market growth;
               strong retail market growth ($271 million between 2014 and 2021, excluding inflation) suggests
                between 26,600m2 and 39,400m2 of additional retail floor space would be warranted by 2021 based
                on market growth alone (i.e. not including additional floor space required to resolve current
                deficiencies);
               there is a current gap in the market in Noosa which the proposed development will, in part, satisfy;
               all centres within the trade area will be affected by the proposed development, but no centres will
                experience a decline to trading volume below 2014 levels (i.e. all centres should achieve growth at
                least equivalent to the rate of inflation, if not more);


December 2014                                                Cardno HRP                                                           73