A high-stakes game of Monopoly that could lead to Noosa becoming just another high-rise hotspot like Maroochydore or Surfers Paradise is well underway.

The game kicked off some weeks ago when a local property developer rolled the dice in a bid to win a massive jackpot. As you will already know unless you’ve spent the last month spelunking in the Cutta Cutta Caves, he plans to build a whopping 195-unit building complex – the biggest in Noosa’s history – on a prime block at the bus station end of Lanyana Way; the site currently houses the long-established Seafood Market, Pardons and other commercial outlets. Which begs another question: where will these popular businesses go if the application succeeds, and building begins?

Estimates suggest that, if given the nod, the subsequent development will be anywhere between five to six storeys (plus basement parking level), demolishing Noosa’s current maximum building height of three storeys (okay, four in special cases). 

How can that happen? Easy, it seems. Michael Tozer, the Noosa Junction Association vice-president who already owns the equivalent of a Monopoly board of properties in the precinct, lodged a nifty 30-day business-day approval application with the State Government as part of the so-called State Facilitated Development (SFD) process. 

In doing so, he was able to bypass the normal Noosa Council rights/regulations to have his scheme fast-tracked. How? Because Mr Tozer’s building application includes a minimum of 15% affordable housing. BTW – we are just waking up to the fact that the State has the power to override a local authority (and therefore its community) when it comes to generating a swathe of cheaper homes to buy or to rent to offset current and projected population increases in SE Queensland.

And so, the game of Monopoly began. Various players then put their little playing tokens – racing car, boot, top hat et al – on the board. Mayor Frank Wilkie said he was appalled that the State was making such an unprecedented and undemocratic intervention in Noosa’s affairs. He and Independent MP Sandy Bolton then picked up a card from the Community Chest pack granting them a meet with Labor Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon; they tried but failed to persuade her to stop developers bull-Tozering the joint. No doubt they pointed out the rather unpalatable fact that Labor would be effectively handing a ton of taxpayer cash to a private concern while trampling over the democratic rights of ordinary citizens. And, hey, we’re not exactly talking fake Monopoly money either.

In the meantime, other players have joined the Monopoly game; ex-mayor, now LNP candidate Clare Stewart, condemned the scheme. I reckon she has probably played her share of family board games and is smart enough to smell an opportunity to turn this issue to her advantage – a Chance card, if you forgive the ongoing Monopoly metaphor. Clare the (former) Mayor has struggled to gain traction against the popular incumbent but her “get out of jail free” card could be this: if she elbows her boss David Crisafulli in the ribs and persuades him to come out now and pledge to block the scheme if/when his mob get elected on October 26, she could potentially gain some real momentum. 

As the legal beagles would say, there is a precedent. In the run-up to the 2012 State Election, Noosa’s then MP Glen Elmes persuaded his LNP leader Campbell Newman (with the help of Noel Playford, Bob Ansett and Jim Berardo among others) to pledge Noosa a plebiscite on whether the council should be restored after the Labor Government had swallowed it up in the Sunshine Coast regional structure. After he became premier, Newman delivered on that promise and Noosa reclaimed its town council. The only trouble with this fine idea is Crisafulli already supports the overall SFD policy, so he would be in a pretty pickle. But, hey, it won’t be the first time that a politician has said one thing and done another.

Next to put his token on the board was another ex-mayor, Tony Wellington, who kick-started a campaign by a triumvirate of local organisations – Noosa Parks Association, Noosa Shire Residents and Ratepayers Association and Peregian Beach Community Association – to fight the proposal. He promised to dig in for a long and vigorous battle akin to the ‘Free Noosa” campaign that triumphed – just like many other Noosa demonstrations of “people power” have in the past. Tony has now been joined by Friends of Noosa stalwart, Bob Ansett. Go boys!

On the other side of the ledger, we have people like Ralph Rogers of the Noosa Chamber of Commerce who welcomed the SFD policy because it “takes the brakes off local economies”, and because “Noosa’s iconic town plan acts as a straitjacket on business and development”. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? And if the result is a spate of high-rise buildings across Noosa, maybe he’s the one that needs the straitjacket. As the song says: “They paved paradise to put up a parking lot”.

Mr Rogers’ views were then faithfully recycled in a Facebook page with the oxymoronic name “Noosa Truth”. This is apparently run by failed mayoral candidate Ingrid Jackson and her fellow traveller, Andrew McCarthy of the Noosa Boating, Fishing Alliance; you may remember the NBFA was the merry band that shovelled a pile of steaming disinformation at the last council election. It reminds me of when I was a journo during the Cold War days, and there were two state sponsored newspapers in the then USSR – Izvestia, meaning Information, and Pravda meaning Truth. The joke in international media circles in those days was – “In Pravda there is no truth, in Izvestia there is no information”. Draw your own conclusions.

Of course, there are some who’ll say it’s just those snooty Noosa Nimbies at it again. But there is a lot more at stake here. While few can argue that there is a need for cheaper housing, it does not have to come in the shape of ugly high-rise blocks, or at the expense of a town’s carefully nurtured planning ethos. 

Wilkie & Co have already indicated that the Council can deliver the required number of affordable homes in the Shire by other, less obtrusive means and without breaching current high-rise limits – what I have seen referred to in the past as “keeping the building height within the tree line”. A cute way to put a desirable outcome.

Sadly, the mayor failed in his mission to persuade Minister Scanlon to butt out and Mr Tozer’s scheme has now passed Go – in other words, Stage 1 of the SDF planning process; that means he has up to 40 business days to lodge a detailed application for Stage 2 assessment. Assuming he does so, what happens after that? This is how Mayor Wilkie sees it: ‘The Department then has 75 business days to assess and decide the application, which includes the requirement for the applicant to undertake a minimum consultation period of 20 days for the community to provide feedback.’

But get this: after that, neither the council nor the community can appeal the state decision – whatever that might be. How democratic is that? 

So, the clock is ticking and now would be a good opportunity (perhaps the only one) for the community to say to Mr Tozer, politely but firmly: NO DICE. If this Stalinesque state intervention results in the high-rise horror on Lanyana Way, it will trigger a stampede of get-rich-quick developers ready to jump on the fast-track SFD bandwagon. And that, dear readers, will destroy Noosa as we know and love it. 

After all, there is no Monopoly on opportunism.