2015-09-15 Planning & Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                           15 SEPTEMBER 2015


   Employment centres are dispersed throughout the Sunshine Coast, including Maroochydore.
     Since many people within the Noosa Civic catchment already travel to their place of work,
     retail spending results at other locations.
These are critical oversights by the applicant. Escape spending from Noosa is anticipated by local
and regional statutory planning instruments. It is not agreed the development should, or would,
respond to any level of pressing need for further retail expansion.
Commercial Needs Assessment
The submitted Commercial Needs Assessment has been prepared by the applicant to demonstrate
there is limited need for commercial office development consistent with the planning provisions for
the development site. Urbis’ approach to the assessment has been to identify existing and future
demand for commercial office based on existing market conditions. It identifies a demand of
1,360m2 to 8,000m2 to 2031.
In its response to Council’s Further Information Request the applicant also advised:
As a further indication of demand for commercial office space in the Noosa region, discussions
with Sunshine Coast real estate agents indicates that there has been some enquiry from medical
businesses such as chiropractors, physiotherapists etc. These prospective tenants have mainly
been requesting office/medical space in other established areas such as Noosaville and Noosa
Junction. These areas present a more appropriate location for these medical/health related tenants
as they already have a considerable number of similar tenants in the area. Given the proximity of
Noosa Civic to Centrelink, the demand for commercial office space was mostly driven by
employment service businesses.
Local office market intelligence provided by real estate agents indicates that the Noosa office
market struggles to attract tenants of significant scale. By way of example, the “Marquesas on
Peregian” commercial office development located at 247-253 David Low Way has taken 6 years
to reach a 90% take up. The most likely market appears to be for small tenancies of 60 sq.m to 80
sq.m in small scale developments of 1,000 sq.m to 1,500 sq.m.
Urbis’ assessment concludes:
Whilst it may be sage for Noosa Shire Council to allow for additional land use capacity in a
development area, this needs to be balanced with what is required by the market. In this sense the
allowance for land use needs to be in line with market demand. On this basis it would appear
appropriate to allow for capacity of up to 8,000 sq.m of office floor space in Noosa Civic to 2031.
The applicant also undertook a building massing exercise to indicate the footprint that 15,000m2 of
additional office buildings would occupy on the site’s balance lands - refer Figure 26 below.




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