Noosa Heads Lions Park Land Management Plan

Jessica Phillips128:58

Okay. Can I please put a motion up? Thank you, Cathy. Um, so, um, my alternate motion is that Council note the report by the property advisor to the General Committee dated 11th of August 2026. Sorry, that was the ordnance. Yeah, that's right. I don't remember. No, because it came from the. No, this was you moving a motion. Oh, sorry, no you're right yes regarding a Noosa Heads Lions Park land management plan, LNP, and a request to further report to a future Council meeting detailing scope, costs, funding implications, consultation requirements and the proposed timeline for the preparation of the of an LNP for Noosa Heads Lions Park including consideration of a temporary overflowed car park in accordance with the requirements of the Land Act 1994 and the Queensland government's guideline for managing actions consistent and inconsistent with the purpose of trust and be followed consideration of the further report determined whether to proceed with the preparation of the land management plan and allocation of appropriate budget.

Amelia Lorentson138:45

Moving this amendment and I first want to state that it does not replace or undermine the land management plan pathway which I think is a really important process that we need to undertake or make at least the decision to undertake when we receive further information. The amendment basically ensures that Council also explores the alternative lawful pathway available under the Land Act 1994 before it commits significant time, cost and staff resources to a land management plan process. The General Committee, Councillors were presented with a report that focused almost exclusively on the preparation of a land management plan under section 52 AB. The report concluded that a land management. Plan was the appropriate process available to Council and outlined a process estimated to take between six and 12 months and cost between $30,000 and $75,000. In my view, the report was not balanced because it did not provide Councillors with a meaningful assessment of the alternative pathway available under section 52 AA. As a result, Councillors were presented with one option in detail rather than a comparison of the available statutory pathways and their respective cost timeframes and implications. During the General Committee debate, I raised concerns regarding section 52 AA and I sought greater clarity about whether that provision remained available to Council. I also sought legal clarification and proposed that Council write directly to the minister regarding the availability of that pathway. Unfortunately, those requests were not supported. Following the meeting, I. Pursued. I matter further through governance because I remained very concerned that councils had not been provided with all the information necessary to make an informed decision. Specifically, I sought clarification as to whether section 52AA was available. Council and whether a land management plan was required for the minister to consider the matter. I was subsequently advised as we all were today that section 52AA remains available and that a land management plan is not required for the minister to consider an application. Instead, Council may write directly to the minister and address the statutory tests of whether the proposed use would, A, diminish the purpose of the reserve and, B, whether it would adversely affect the public interest. That advice is significant. If section 52 AA is available then we have an opportunity to open the overflow car parking for this Christmas. Importantly. And I do want to say this and I do also want to reference Councillor finnsell's comments in terms of the importance of the land management plan process. The amendment doesn't prevent Council from preparing a land management plan should that ultimately be required. Importantly also, the amendment doesn't commit Council to overflow parking on an ongoing basis. It's temporary. It's only for this Christmas and it doesn't determine the future use of Lions Park. What the amendment does is that it keeps all lawful options open. The minister advises that a section 52 AA approval is not available or not appropriate, then Council can proceed with the land management plan pathway fully informed and with no loss of opportunity. Or if section 52 AA approval is supported, A, we can open Lions Park this Christmas for the overflow parking, and we can still proceed with the land management plan. For that reason, I believe that this amendment is a sensible, low cost and practical step that improves our information base and preserves our options and ensures that all available pathways are considered committing to a significant planning exercise. Ultimately, you know, when I look at the discussion we're having, it's to me, it centres around good governance, informed decision making, and ensuring that Council explores every lawful option. Before deciding which path to pursue, or again, whether both paths are what we need to do.

Amelia Lorentson231:14

So the other thing that I really wanted to speak to was that there was mentions in terms of notices of motions, whether it was an appropriate vehicle-- concerns about notices of motions etc. I really need to say this and set this straight and put it on record. Notices of motion is a legitimate part. Of the democratic process available to us as Councillors. If you disagree with the motion, I accept that. Don't vote for it. But challenging my right to bring community issues and raise issues that residents expect elected representatives to put before the Council. It's not only my right, but it's also my responsibility. Happy that we debate the merits of the motions, but I do want to put on record, I don't think it's appropriate to debate my rights. So again, I go back to the notice of motion. To me, it was just there was uncertainty about the overflow parking arrangement. The advice I was given was through a notice of motion was the only way we could change what was a ratified decision by this Council in July 2026, the notified motion does there might be an agreement to retain the status quo. But given the uncertainty and all the extra information that we've received since the July 2026 motion, I thought it was good governance. To go back to the traders and understand whether they were happy to progress with the decision that we made in July 2026. At the time and I do want to enforce this at the was a majority support to allow overflow car parking as we've just discussed and we've just gone through some extensive time debating land management plan under section 52 AB and also section 52 AA there is still uncertainty again whether there is going to be overflow car parking available at Lions Park this Christmas again this is just an opportunity for the traders to revisit the decision and see if they want to move the commencement date, propose a different option that decision remains solely between staff and the traders and stakeholders commencement.

Jessica Phillips130:28

It's quite interesting listening to everyone's different opinions. There's been really good points raised by Councillor Lorentson just previously on the higher use. So thank you for that, Councillor Lorentson. And to Councillor Wilson's point was their data about the people using the park so that was good. Thank you. So with my motion before us, I'm actually not going to ask Council today when to approve the land management plan. I'm not asking us to allocate the 30,000, 50 or 75,000 and I'm certainly not asking Council to decide today Lions Park should permanently remain available for parking. But I am going to ask for the information that Council needs before we make that decision. The report this month told us that seasonal overflow parking is an inconsistent use of that reserve and that following changes to the Land Act there is now a lawful pathway under section 52ab for a land management plan that pathway requires Council to be satisfied that the inconsistent action would not diminish the reserve purpose and would not adversely affect the public interest. I accept that. But there's an important sentence in the report, and it was that Council should first consider whether overflow parking is reasonably capable of satisfying those tests before embarking on a full LMP process. The problem is that I have not been able to be provided with enough information or evidence based to make that decision. Make that decision um and the State guideline tells us what we should consider if we're in this position, it actually asks, an LMP is going to ask about the scale and nature of the use, whether impacts can be mitigated, whether the land remains recognisable. And usable for its reserved purpose, whether its future use is compromised, community views and values and environmental, economic, recreational, social and strategic public interest. We haven't been given that assessment. I also might go over time so I might just tell you that I'm going to try and stay under. We don't know from the report what percentage of the usable reserve would actually be occupied and we haven't been given assessment of what physical impacts more than 20 years of historical seasonal parking has actually caused. We haven't been given rehabilitation data, cumulative impact data or a detailed assessment on whether seasonal controls, wet weather closures, vegetation protection and rehabilitation could actually mitigate those impacts. The community was told in multiple media releases that we need results. Need data to form a long-term position. So that history is before us. The consultation was actually promised. I spent a couple of hours watching the March 24 meeting where we had an amendment that took out the DMP from the consultation. And we still haven't done that. If the legal framework has changed then Council should understand what complying with the framework is actually going to require. Compliance is not by itself a policy answer. Fact that the land management plan may now be required does not tell us whether preparing one is worthwhile. The history of this car park used for car parking matters because the logical sequence will be consult, gather the evidence and then make the long-term decision and I don't think we've completed that sequence today. There's also been a significant change in the legal framework since Council first started discussing this issue. The 2024 amendments to the Land Act created this management plan pathway for statutory body trustees. The State guideline made clear that inconsistent use does not automatically fail simply because it is inconsistent. It specifically recognises that with adequate management and inconsistent action may be capable of occurring without diminishing underlying purpose and that doesn't mean Lions Park passes that test nor does it mean it doesn't. It means we need to test it before we're deciding we can't. And importantly the report also said no external community or stakeholder consultation has been done and yet community views are one of the matters that the State guideline expresses identifies as a rel as relevant to the public interest assessment. There is another reason I think we need to be cautious about choosing not proceeding with this is Council's own history has shown that we have consistently treated the future of Lions Park as an issue requiring further evidence and community input. In that March meeting that I watched from 2023 we also had staff comment during questioning that Lions Park provides a significant community benefit the original wording to the motion removed the Destination Management Plan as part of the consultation. The final resolution became seek community feedback on the use of Noosa Heads Lions Park for parking. That matters. Significantly, that matters to me because Council has publicly acknowledged that the specific consultation has not yet occurred. In 2024, we told the community we have an obligation to honour what we said in 2023 as part of the Council resolution. And Council further acknowledged that it wanted to specifically ask the community about public open space for parking, particularly.

Nicola Wilson108:33

I can't believe that we're doing this again we're spending so much time on something that should be quite simple I don't know why we're singling out one car park in the absence of a parking management plan for the whole Shire. Times may have changed in 20 years but they haven't changed much since 2020 when the Go Noosa initiatives began. In 2021-22 we had the free buses we were paying payments to TransLink of $248,000 for those buses and the total Go Noosa Program cost us $588,000 so a net without the free buses of the free buses of $340,000. In recent years because got $0.50 fares, we're no longer funding the local buses only the loop bus service yet cost to operate the Go Noosa Program have increased to over $940,000 for this financial year with peak period management free bus and-off zone costing $477,000 in 2025-26 and rising to $567,000 in this financial year yet we're complaining about $30,000 for a land management plan the Go Noosa initiatives working we still have congestion we still have demand for parking we still have underutilization of park and ride facilities but only two percent of survey respondents saying they used it don't have much data on cars coming in or who's using the buses we can only really monitor the loop bus which has increased 25 percent since 2021 we can we measure that there are more people coming in but we don't know if they would ordinarily have come by car another bus route or whether there's just an overall increase in people it could just be attracting young people who don't have a car there have been issues with using the AFL grounds for the park and ride since 2020 that hasn't changed the occupancy of the 400 spaces under 10 utilised on the 3rd of January and feedback has been that it's impractical for those carrying bulky beach equipment and it still takes a long time to get to the beach don't have a parking management plan although this has been reported under the operational plan for a number of years with varying results of being on track, disrupted, and now it's in this year's operational plan to finalise Noosa parking. Management plan to guide our approach to parking throughout the show so why don't we wait for that but why are we still waiting for it and I know there's been staffing shortages that have contributed to that. In May 2023 Council made a commitment to community consultation on Lions Park. A motion was amended to keep this separate from the DMP but this consultation never happened. The DMP was then also supposed to be used to determine whether parking would occur at Lions Park for Easter 2026 but that specific question was never asked. The one question mentioning Lions Park was asked obliquely in the long form DMP survey but only the 900 people who were interested in the DMP and had the time and inclination to respond to a long survey got a voice. There would be many people interested in the future of Lions Park who didn't get to participate in that one of many questions. The local paper did a more specific poll potentially reaching a different audience and got a different result. We have an obligation to act in the public interest and give everyone a voice. The survey results tell us nothing except that there are mixed opinions in the community. The business community has said losing this park this parking over Christmas will impact their income at this peak period. In the absence of any economic analysis by Council, to the contrary, I believe them. We using the comms team is busy as an excuse not to engage with the community or proceed with basic tasks. I note also that Councillors have not seen or approved a forward engagement calendar for comms for over two years. There's no clear data on the number of cars visiting Noosa Main Beach area. We can and should install counters at intersections and in car parks. We don't know if we're getting more or fewer cars in as a result of the Go Noosa initiatives. We don't regularly measure congestion. The Easter period was presented as an opportunity to compare traffic and congestion with and without lines parked being used for parking. We did that but the two periods were not comparable, one being the end of March while school holidays started 3rd of April. We can't compare congestion in peak and off-peak periods when making decisions around parking we have a saying here that we need to finish what we've started so please let's stop making this political and ask the CEO to finish the completion of the outstanding operational tasks that have been in previous Council resolutions. The parking management plan, traffic modelling, impact studies, community consultation, measuring congestion, and preparing a land management plan that should have been in place two years ago this will give us the information to make strategic decisions that are based on fact and not on personal experience.

Amelia Lorentson180:21

I'm going to speak to the amendment. I'm not going to support it. I think. Where do I start? The intent of the motion to me is that. I don't know the intent of the original amendment was that we explore a legal pathway, lawful pathway to see whether we can demonstrate that overflow car parking would not diminish the purpose of the reserve and would not adversely affect the public interest. So the intent is. There a pathway that we could have interim approval of car parking whilst still exploring and potentially undergoing a land management plan process? I think as the wording is at the moment, I don't know, it's sort of. I don't know, it doesn't give certainty to the Tewantin Noosa Lions Club, doesn't give certainty to the businesses in Hastings Street. I think the decision is simply, you know, are we committed to trying to find an option to allow the car park to remain open only for 2021 days this Christmas while still exploring and potentially undertaking the process of a land management plan. As worded in the amendment, I'm not sitting comfortably that that's going to it's actually happen with that, change of word. I think it's too materially different.

Frank Wilkie167:07

Councillors thank very much for your you and have a great rest of your day. Can't have a bet both ways. You can't say this car park is for temporary uses only and then talk in a way that talks about the history and talks about it continuing on into the future. Today's the day when you could have made the decision to end the temporary car park but not and I accept the majority vote on this. It's incorrect to say it only affects 21 days a year that is totally incorrect. There's also the 10 days at Easter. And it wasn't so long ago when it was all school holidays and every long weekend during COVID and it could have been more but it was a we made the decision and it was a battle to back that public recreation reserve for the public use during school holidays and long weekends because once you lose this public open space to something other than recreation to cash generating car parking it's very hard to break that addition now the um I think we're moving in the right direction with the land management plan that is the correct process there's been some statements made the staff gave us incorrect advice there is nothing incorrect about the advice staff gave us it is the correct statutory path under path the under land management act, the Land Act under 52ab that if a statutory body is involved that is a Council that a land management plan is the correct process 52aa refers to trustees but of course there's nothing to stop us writing to the minister or any minister on any issue it's up to the minister whether they allow temporary use of the park or not I do have a problem with this motion as it stands because we've made a mistake with section d Council's letter to the minister addresses the statutory requirements and demonstrate that it meets these public interest tests or doesn't demand it diminish the purpose of the reserve we cannot demonstrate that would be to preempt the land management plan process why have a land why commit to a land management plan process if we're going to be able to demonstrate that it meets these tests already I think we've made an error there Councillors um good to debate bite it's um it's always going to be a contentious issue um the call for uniting the community around this and not creating division is one that's very easy to say but the community is deeply divided on this because there's a fundamental flaw in its uses of this recreational reserve the highest and best use of this park as defined under our role as trustees is out of a recreational reserve and the fact that it has been misused for such a long time has created the division it's a controversial issue that we have inherited and had an opportunity to end today we are committing with this motion to go down at what an expense perhaps I'll have to rephrase that get information on potentially costly process and I think Councillor Phillips has done well to come up with the motion that she put forward. I do have problems with it because of the amendment about our letter demonstrating that we've met the tests of 52AA or what the land management plan is setting out to prove so for that reason I won't be supporting the motion in its current form but I do think if you're going down a land management plan process that is the correct way I but I do accept also that as Councillor Phillips said once we've got this information we can decide determine whether or not to adopt a land management planning process for future uses of this reserve or not.

Karen Finzel121:35

I think a lot has been said. I would just like to make the point that the matter before us in the General Committee Meeting was around the Noosa Heads Lions Park LNP. The author of that was the property advisor from the property development regulation department. I think we need to come back to actually what we are looking at. The higher order planning around land use and to me the debate has been reduced. To conversations around, well, you know, they have all been around. In terms of meeting the land management plan determination, has been once and for all for me would support a framework that can address all the matters being raised in now and into the future and the key mechanisms of a land management plan. Are about zoning and density shifts, parking requirement adjustments, local road and active travel design, traffic impact assessments. By making this really bringing it down to what the Mayor's brought before is discontinued temporary car parking and Noosa Heads Lions Park, to me diminishes. The higher order of strategic thinking. That I would like to be at today when we're talking about future sustainability through a land management plan that will, in my opinion, inform these strategies. Into the future, instead of consistently coming back and talking about do we write to the minister? Is there legislative change? Is there enough data? All these things are relevant, but in my opinion, I think putting to the test around the land management plan and engaging our community about the higher use of that land. Through that process, that we need to do. To propose that the diminishment of the purpose test and the public interest test around the proposed inconsistent use is put to bed once and for all. So I cannot support this today in its current form with how it's been worded to discontinue the temporary car parking because in my opinion it is not addressing the higher order of that land use and to meet the requirements set forward by the legislation for the land management plan. Thank you. Council.