2015-09-15 Planning & Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                               15 SEPTEMBER 2015


Council engaged traffic engineer, Colin Beard, to undertake a peer review of the traffic assessment
and his findings on the development’s traffic implications differ markedly from Cardno’s. Mr Beard
notes his primary concerns with the increase in traffic generation above the planned development
for the NBC were raised both in the pre-lodgement meeting with the applicant and in Council’s
Further Information Request. Mr Beard foremost concern stated in the pre-lodgement meeting
was:
[Historic traffic planning] for the Shire Business Centre was based on the premise that development
would include a wide range of business uses which were intended to benefit from being within
walking distance of other business activities. The range of uses was expected to include education,
medical, professional and commercial offices, innovative clean industries, as well as restaurants
and some retail. These uses were expected to generate a lot of internal and shared trip making,
with relatively low external trip generations. The proposed development is the antithesis of what
was planned. This development proposal is likely to cause significant traffic problems on a critical
part of the local road network that was not planned to accommodate the proposed uses.
Mr Beard’s assessment finds:
I have completed only a review of Thursday PM peak hour traffic impacts, which have been shown
to be unacceptable. My analyses were based on the traffic count date submitted by the applicant,
but the results were significantly different. … it is expected that analyses of Saturday midday traffic
operations will reveal similar results, but it has not been seen as necessary ... when the
development proposal has already been shown to be unacceptable based on the Thursday
analyses.
My analyses were based on higher design traffic generations than those assumed by the applicant.
This was largely because of the physical design and components of the proposed retail expansion.
In my opinion, to a significantly greater extent than normally occurs, this proposed expansion will
be a duplication of the existing centre rather than a conventional expansion.
Normally, a retail centre being expanded from 18,600m2 to 41,500m2 would involve a significant
shift to “higher order” retailing. Traffic engineers typically assume that most of the additional retail
expenditure is achieved through shoppers staying at the expanded centre for longer, rather than
through more people visiting. Because of its essentially linear design, separated by the creek, and
with the supermarkets at opposite ends of the centre, and because the major tenancies will
essentially duplicate existing facilities, it has been assumed that a higher-than-normal proportion
of the increased retail expenditure will come from more people visiting rather than staying longer.
Further, the applicant has chosen to treat, for traffic design purposes, the existing development on
the NBC site as if it was all part of a single homogeneous shopping centre. Of course, it is not,
with significant retail showroom and commercial office components which need to be separately
assessed.
Mr Beard’s summary of estimated traffic generation figures are included as Attachment 3,
indicating Cardno’s variance in approach and highlighting the following key differences:
    Cardno have not made allowance for unrelated commercial office development within the
      business centre between 2014 and 2026; and
    Cardno assume the expansion represents a change from a small to a large centre with
      different primary components, whereas Beard has assessed the expansion to some extent,
      based on composition and design, as a duplication of the existing centre.
Council has also been undertaking a separate Shire-wide study of its road network, intended to
inform decisions on likely future infrastructure needs. The study is being undertaken by Holland
Traffic Consulting and is well advanced, with substantial traffic modelling completed for Noosa’s
road network. Mr Beard was asked to liaise with Holland to verify assessment of the development’s
likely traffic impacts. His preliminary findings based on development consistent with the planning
scheme and without the proposed shopping centre are:




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