2014-05-20 Planning & Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                      20 MAY 2014


There was support for shop top housing at Noosa Junction in particular, however submitters felt
planning scheme provisions made the prospect of it occurring unlikely and unviable. Submitters
suggested that parking, density, setbacks and other requirements needed review so as not to
inhibit future redevelopment.

There was also support for visitor accommodation at the Shire Business Centre but this should
only be minor and ancillary to business uses across the site.

Visitor hostels
There was good support for visitor hostels to be reviewed including density requirements. It was
also requested the scheme allow for a range of complementary uses on site (eg cafés) where
such uses have negligible impact on the neighbouring amenity.

4    Rural Areas

Rural Uses
There were a number of requests for intensive animal husbandry (eg. chicken farms) to not be
allowed in Noosa because of the potential disruption to neighbour’s quality of life. Some
suggested that the use should continue to be impact assessable.

There was support for the idea of value adding to farm produce and preventing fragmentation of
agricultural land as primary production. One submitter noted that current animal husbandry
regulations make no reference to lot size or free ranging animal practices and makes the point
that regulating the amount of animals by lot size prevents overstocking and preserves the quality
of good agricultural land.

A number of other changes were suggested in submissions for consideration.

Rural subdivision
There were requests for reducing the minimum lot size for rural zoned allotments. Currently, a
100ha minimum applies and is governed by the SEQ regional plan and cannot be modified.

Others requested reduction in the minimum lot size of rural residential (rural settlement zoned)
lots to allow for subdivision and to provide affordable rural blocks for boutique operations. There
are strong planning reasons to limit further development of rural residential. It is land
consumptive, expensive for the provision of infrastructure and services, and impacts on
agricultural viability where agricultural land is subdivided or alienated. Rather than increasing
rural residential development, staff will be investigating means of providing for more affordable
housing choices in existing urban areas.

Rural accommodation
Some submitters supported the encouragement of small nature based rural accommodation
where it does not impact adversely on the local community or environment.

One submitter did not support proposed changes to facilitate visitor accommodation facilities in
rural areas as it was seen to compromise rural amenity and impact on remaining good quality
agricultural land. They made the point that further fragmentation or alienation of agricultural land
would impact on sustainability and food security in the future and that inappropriate tourist
development can represent a direct threat to expansion of valuable rural industries. They
suggest that:
     Council should be facilitating expansion of viable and sustainable rural production in the
      hinterland as opposed to reliance on tourism development;
     allowance for visitor accommodation should be restricted to existing provisions in the
      Noosa Plan; and



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