Town Planning Report - Noosa Professional and Medical Centre

Given the results of the car parking survey and the cost associated with providing a
multi-storey car park, in my opinion, it is not reasonable to require 393 parking spaces
in the circumstances. Consequently, it is requested that condition 36 be amended to as
follows:

The development shall provide a minimum of 355 car parking spaces on site, including
six clearly defined disabled car parking spaces.

Further, it is requested that condition 38 be amended as follows:

Vehicular access to the site from Goodchap Street and car parking shall be generally in
accordance with the drawings prepared by Middap Architiecture Pty Ltd, as follows:

    •    Overall Parking Layout – Drawing No. 0427 DA01F, dated October 2014; and
    •    Working Drawings Carpark Layout – Drawing No. 0715 WD01.1A, dated April
         2008.

5. Appropriateness of the Development

Under the planning scheme the Office, Medical and Educational uses are supported on
the site, as is a Local Store. The site was always intended to primarily provide support
services for the Noosa Hospital. Given the extent and nature of the Medical uses on the
site, this is what is currently occurring, which is a desirable. Further, the Educational
use also provides for a number of courses that are medically related, including nursing
with a purpose built hospital ward within the CQU tenancy.

The Education use is primarily taken up by the CQU, which is of significant benefit to
the local community. It acknowledged that the CQU occupies a considerable amount of
the use area, but this can be proportioned between that used for administration
purposes and that used for student teaching. It is also noted that the methods of
teaching are also changing with less student contact time being required, given that
most lectures are available by podcast.

There are limited if any opportunities elsewhere to cater for the CQU given the present
scale of this Educational use. This is likely to be the case until such time the Noosa
Business Centre is further developed. Once that occurs it is highly likely that the UCQ
would relocate to that site. It is suggested that at the present time the location of the
CQU is also desirable given that it is central to the Noosa area.

It is accepted that adequate parking needs to be provided on site and other initiatives
taken to reduce parking demand. However, given current circumstances, it would be
undesirable to reduce the scale of CQU on the site, in lieu of providing a multi-storey
car park. This is particularly the case given the car parking surveys undertaken show
that there is sufficient parking to satisfy demand. Further, a number of travel smart
initiatives are to be implemented, which should assist in reducing the demand for car
parking on site.




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“Noosa Professional and Medical Centre” – November 2014