2020-01-13 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                               13 JANUARY 2020


development’s landscaping, albeit sufficient in quantity, does not meet the intent of the
Landscaping Code which seeks to offer shading in car parking areas, screen buildings and to use
gardens to define public spaces and pedestrian walkways.
Biodiversity
The existing vegetation comprises mostly regrowth community with isolated emergent canopy
trees. Edge effects, fragmentation and surrounding land-uses have compromised the ecological
values. However, native vegetation, including groundcovers, mid-storey and canopy trees exist.
The applicant’s ecology report suggests that no koalas (or koala evidence) were identified during
the recent site inspections. By definition, “koala habitat trees” do occur within the subject land.
For the most part these could be retained within the covenant areas. However, some trees (koala
feed trees) would be removed as part of the balance development area. Retained vegetation
within the covenant areas will allow for koala refuge (as would other open space areas
associated with the Noosa Civic centre) in the event that koalas traverse the area.
A wallum froglet was recorded in a drain to the south of the Noosa Civic centre some years ago.
Within 2km of the subject land there are single records for the wallum rocket frog and wallum
sedge frog and two records for wallum froglet. Further, Litoria fallax was recorded in the area
during those surveys which is an indicator that the habitat is not particularly suitable for Wallum
frogs. The covenant area AB has potential habitat for the Wallum Froglet. The applicant’s
consultant recommends best practice stormwater and erosion measures to be implemented to
ensure no adverse impacts on the habitat and water quality of the covenant area.
Due to the linear arrangement and fragmented nature of the vegetation, the habitat values are
relatively limited save for the provision of a vegetated drainage channel to provide stormwater
carriage through the site and its associated habitat values. Given the above, the removal of this
vegetation is considered acceptable.
Car parking
The development proposes the following car parking provision plus 3 motor cycle spaces. The
applicants Table 2 below indicates the car parking for the development.




The applicant has provided a traffic engineering report to support the proposed car parking
provisions.



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