March 11, 2015
An application to subdivide a rural residential block on a small estate near Kingaroy led to vigorous debate at Wednesday’s South Burnett Regional Council meeting.
The Council was assessing an application to subdivide a 2.7ha block on the Golf Links Estate into two smaller lots.
The land is currently zoned as Rural Residential B and Council officers recommended the application be turned down because both lots would fall below the minimum 2ha lot size set for that zoning in the current Planning Scheme.
One lot would be 1.882ha and the other 0.882ha.
The application had also drawn three objections from neighbours who felt if it were allowed, it would open the way for other subdivisions to occur on the estate which would destroy the character of the area.
Cr Keith Campbell opened the debate by saying the estate had originally been developed with minimum lot sizes of 2ha to allow residents in the area to keep animals such as sheep or horses if they wished.
He said during the 1990s, the former Kingaroy Shire Council had permitted the subdivision of a similar lot on the Kingaroy-Burrandowan Road, but it had to alter the lot’s zoning to allow it to be done.
General Manager Planning, Community & Environment Stan Taylor said Cr Campbell was correct. The incident he was referring to occurred in 1993.
But the circumstances were different 22 years ago, he said, and a similar “spot rezoning” could not be carried out under current laws.
Cr Damien Tessmann took a different view.
“I do not agree with the recommendation for this application to be refused. I have visited this site as the Divisional Councillor and seen firsthand what is proposed and spoken to some of the neighbours in the area.
“Although there were three objections, there are another 57 people in the area who did not object. I believe this is a logical part of development in the region, particularly based on previous decisions taken by this Council.”
Cr Tessmann then cited the approval of 200sq m relocatable home allotments on Kingaroy’s Taabinga Downs Estate last April, and the subdivision of a 5 acre lot at the corner of Arerodrome Road and the Bunya Highway into several smaller lots as two examples of inconsistent decision-making.
He said both subdivisions had attracted many objections, but Council approved them anyway.
Cr Campbell said he thought Cr Tessmann was drawing a long bow to presume that if only three neighbours had objected, the remaining 57 didn’t care.
“I think those 57 people represent the silent majority who trust Council to make the right decision and support the Town Plan,” he said.
Cr Campbell said that as far as Taabinga Downs went, that particular estate had a local plan and the smaller lot sizes that were approved last year fitted into that plan.
“In this particular case, the applicant just wants to carve off a block and sell it.”
Cr Kathy Duff said she agreed with Cr Campbell.
“If we accept this, other residents on the Estate could do the same thing.”
Cr Barry Green said he had originally planned to vote against the application, but after hearing Cr Tessmann’s arguments he found himself in two minds on the matter.
He noted that in the new region-wide Town Plan expected to be adopted later this year, subdivision of five acre blocks would be allowed.
General Manager Taylor said yes, this would be allowed where it was appropriate. But the Golf Links Estate was an older subdivision and it wouldn’t be appropriate for that area.
Cr Green said what really concerned him most was the water supply.
All 60 blocks are currently supplied by trickle irrigation, and if the subdivision were allowed this could potentially double the number of properties requiring water access, which was beyond the capacity of the current system.
“You can’t have a situation where one owner has water and his neighbour doesn’t,” he said.
Mayor Wayne Kratzmann said he agreed with Cr Tessmann.
He said he had inspected the estate, too, and noticed that far from building their houses in the centre of the lots many owners built their houses near each other.
This suggested to him that privacy wasn’t a major issue for many owners, so creating an extra block really wouldn’t destroy the character of the area.
However, when the matter was put to a vote, the application was turned down 5-2 with Crs Tessmann and Kratzmann opposed.
