2015-05-26 Planning & Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                        26 MAY 2015


Offsets

The required changes will allow Council to seek environmental offsets for clearing of koala
habitat trees in the mapped Assessable Development Area, provided the applicant has
demonstrated that the clearing is unavoidable and efforts have gone towards mitigating potential
risks to koalas. The Assessable Development Area takes in parts of Tewantin, Doonan,
Noosaville, Noosa Heads and Eastern Beaches and a small area around Cooroy (Attachment 1).

Under the current planning scheme arrangements, environmental offsets cannot be sought for
any other ‘environmental matter’, only koala habitat in the mapped Assessable Development
Area. Council may choose to extend the offset provisions to apply to other ‘environmental
matters’ as part of the drafting of the new planning scheme. Staff are currently investigating
suitable ‘receiving sites’ for offsets to be used. A further report on offsets will be presented to
Council shortly.

For now Council can still negotiate with applicants to require compensatory actions for vegetation
clearing as part of development applications, such as onsite replacement plantings or offsite
environmental works, as a condition of the development approval.

Shire-wide koala habitat mapping

Council has been working with SEQ catchments to prepare more comprehensive shire-wide
koala habitat mapping (Attachment 2) for inclusion in the planning scheme. This mapping uses
high provision koala records and data from Council, State agencies and community groups.
Koalas are known to occur around core habitat areas of Pomona and Cooroy, as well as the
coastal areas. The mapping seeks to recognise that protecting koala habitat away from the busy
urbanised areas is essential for the long term survival and recovery of koala population in Noosa
Shire. The University of the Sunshine Coast, in partnership with Council, is undertaking further
research to determine the extent of koala populations across Noosa Shire. This work will build on
current koala records and further validate Noosa’s mapped koala habitat areas.

The koala habitat mapping once in the planning scheme will provide a reference to where known
and potential koala habitat exists within the shire. It will only apply for those applications that are
already code assessable and requiring assessment against the Biodiversity Overlay Code.
Specifically, applications for vegetation clearing and development in the koala habitat area would
need to demonstrate how development is to be designed and constructed to avoid adverse
impacts on koalas and to avoid further fragmentation of habitat.

A copy of the proposed amendments to the wording to the koala habitat wording in the
Biodiversity Code is provided in the Councillor’s room.




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