DEPUTATION - Proposed Housing Development at 62 Lake MacDonald Drive Cooroy Applicant: Patricia Spicer Speakers: Patricia Spicer, Paul Noonan, Phil Egan

Thank you Mayor Wilkie and good morning everybody. Unfortunately Phil can't join us this morning as he has to go to work. But I will read first and then Pat will complete that our deputation. I thank the Council for the opportunity to make this deputation. My name is Paul Noonan and I'm a representative of the residents of Dianella Court, Viola Place, Cowra street and nearby neighbourhoods in Cooroy. This deputation is a small part of response to the housing development proposed for 62 Lake Macdonald Drive. Due to the Council meeting being held during work hours, many residents from the group can't attend due to work and pass on their apologies. Today's deputation is in two parts with two speakers. Our aim is our to ensure the residents' reaction to the development is brought to the attention of all Councillors and senior Council staff. In saying this, we acknowledge the meetings we have had to voice our concerns with Mayor Wilkie, Councillor Stockwell, Kim Rawlings and other planners, once with CEO Larry Sengstock, who has delegated authority on some matters. And on site recently with Councillors Lorentson and Phillips. In response to our many detailed submissions outlining our concerns over several months, we also acknowledge council's recent supply of several technical reports associated with the proposal, including the 1,081 page contaminated site investigation report on September 6 after multiple formal requests. If I could summarise our situation in one paragraph, it will be this: A group of hard-working, community-minded ratepayers were horrified in late May 2024 to learn that Council was planning a broad-scale, high-medium density housing estate on the community open green space between their homes and Cooroy cemetery. Ninety making is the largest matters in worse, Council had been working on it without our knowledge for about two and a half years. It is easy to understand the need for more housing in the Shire. We don't see the sense in wedging 120 affordable and social housing units between the cemetery hill and our low density residential area on. Cooroy's urban boundary, remote from the town centre, without public transport and without the multiple negative impacts, the development would inflict on the locals. And no matter what community is affected, development like this must be impact assessed, as recent comparable developments have been, not code assessed. Housing density: A consistent density with the Dianella and viola precincts would commit about 25 dwellings. Further, the type of housing proposed does not include an essential liveability feature and on-site recreational area. Early consideration of these negative impacts would have been possible had Council been proactive and brought the community along. Or roadway. Council of are still intending to undertake major and irreversible sidewalks. Around the end of this year, an existing ratepayers have been denied an opportunity to review their options and where desired and sell out of their properties in an orderly fashion. Today, there are three houses adjoining the first development stage for sale and one being prepared for sale. A number of residents have been told that were the development to proceed as planned, depreciation of between $100,000 and $150,000 to be expected. Considering the modern, sorry, considering the modest modern housing model, this is of the order of 15 to 20% depreciation. This is a source of extreme stress to hard-working families who love their neighbourhood and is caused by council's late disclosure of the proposal. The stress and anxiety caused by the proposal is causing mental health impacts to many residents. We are not against the development of choice housing in Cooroy, however. Safety. Historically, the land was the official Cooroy dump, presented for sanitary waste and rubbish disposal in 1912. It appears to have operated as a the 1960s and contains all manner of waste materials generated by the growing township of Cooroy. Locals and various industries have had unrestricted dumping access to the land, which contains an area dominated by composted night soil and a larger area dominated by industrial mixed solid waste contaminated with heavy metals and asbestos. What about the dust blowing into our homes by excavating well over 20,000 tonnes of heavy metal or asbestos contaminated waste? Cemetery expansion the land was later purchased by Council in 1999 from the same Pat Spicer who will read the second part of our deputation today. We have it on authority that the 1999 purchase by Council was for two reasons. The firstly, cemetery expansion, which was DA approved in 2008 after much consultation with residents and offering more generous properties for less expensive use. And secondly, to avoid housing being built on the site. Both of these reasons deserve further consideration today, since 62 Lake Macdonald Drive is the only cemetery expansion land available in Noosa Shire. 2008, Council calculated the available land was expected to serve the funerary needs of the Shire until 2058. With a larger population now, and only a quarter of the cemetery expansion land to be retained, we don't see the maths working out as the cemetery will remain culturally significant forever. Council now propose to concede one hectare of the four originally purchased by Council for cemetery expansion. Half the hectare has already for a cemetery workshop. The remaining three hectares is proposed for housing, a centre basin, and a busy road placed a matter of metres behind the bedrooms of the low density Dianella Court and the old place homes. Due to the topography and road placement, this is another potentially life-threatening situation. The problems posed by this over-the-top proposal are so obvious to us and several urban planners of our acquaintance, it is hard to understand how the LD got this far. Council's vegetation clearing DA, approved in February without notification or opportunity to appeal, amidst the clear felling of a 12,000 square metre, almost 50-year-old plantation pine forest and 3,000 square metres of 50-year-old Gympie messmates, both considered a cultural asset of high value in council's subsequent June 2024 Cooroy cemetery conservation management plan. Coast2Bay, buying the first stage. In council's Ordinary Meeting 16, it was agreed to sell the proposed lot 1 at 62 Lake Macdonald Drive to social housing provider Coast2Bay. This was about a week before adjoining residents learned that there was any change of views proposed to the cemetery expansion land at all. We were later surprised to learn the council's authority to sell the land to Coast2Bay for such a purpose was contingent on certain still draft amendments to the Noosa Plan 2020 and the sale was by private agreement not tendered. Other local amenity impacts. One of our actions was to create a website to inform the public firstly that there is proposed development and secondly to illustrate the many problems the proposal will present to the Shire, the town and our ability to peacefully enjoy our homes in a quiet urban area. As we listened to five years of construction noise we got used to having two to three hundred new over the back fence. All of this in full recognition that the Shire will grow. We are not talking about NIMBY problems here. We are talking about inter-matched planning cope with the growing Shire population. The fact that flood water already rages in the environmental reserve on the lower Dianella rear boundaries and that at least two homes have already had extensive retaining wall repairs to flood water erosion. Almost half the 62 landowner drive hill above Dianella Court is forested and the forest holds the stormwater back for weeks after rain. Unlike broods and understand. Which must deliver the stormwater into our area sooner and in great volume, it all must drain to the only entrance to Dianella Court and flood the intersection even more than it already does. Water concentrate 120 affordable or social housing dwellings on a hilly site with about a 1.5km walk to the IGA where there's no public transport. If you live in a two bedroom apartment and drive a car, you'll be one of possibly 300 cars living a busy. Intersection of Dianella Court each morning. After repeated requests for the traffic study, we must assume none has been undertaken. So the flow of effects of Cooroy intersection hotspots can't have been adequately considered. Wildlife. Here's the thing. And here, in the Noosa Biosphere, why has so little attention been paid to the needs of our wildlife? Where do the koalas go when they need to move from the poor koala habitat on the southern boundary to the habitat trees up the hill? The black pups and the Gympie messmates. Dodging cars are looking for the trees that always use for cover. That is what they do. The future. National housing crisis or not, it is not the Noosa way to landlock hundreds of residents into small homes far from services and with no on-site recreational facilities. If the present need for housing genuinely on par with the shire's need for symmetry expansion land forever more, then let's find a solution where the scale of the development suits the constraints of the site. Let's not risk genuine harm to existing residents in our neighbourhood. Council has done a lot to maintain time in the village field feel of Cooroy for many years. We are fighting to defend our health and safety, the character and amenity of our neighbourhoods, the value of our properties and our beautiful country town, while looking for opportunities to contribute to new housing supply in a and it's the sign of the light. We seek to formalise our interactive meetings with Council at regular intervals where we can collaborate with up-to-date information on site planning. Naturally, we request updated versions of all present and future investigations, intersection upgrade plans, traffic studies and management plans for remediation, stormwater, erosion and sediment control, subdivision and landscaping, wildlife, etc. as they remain available. I refer you to our website, this is 62lakewoodtunnel.net, and to Pat Spicer, who will conclude our deputation. Thank you.