When I was mayor, a development application came to council seeking approval for a petrol station on the Eumundi-Noosa Road, between Rene Street and Eenie Creek Road. I received correspondence and verbal urgings from some residents urging a refusal of the application on the grounds that Noosa didn’t need another service station, and particularly in that area. 

But the viability of a business is not a planning issue. That is a matter for the developer. Many people seem to think that council has carte blanche to accept or refuse any development that comes their way. However, the zoning for the service station land in the Noosa Plan clearly rendered such a use, amongst many others, as compliant. Council couldn’t refuse the service station simply because we councillors deemed such a business to be superfluous. If the council had refused the development, any appeal by the applicant to the Planning and Environment (P&E) Court would have been an expensive loss for council. Every planning decision that council makes must be defendable in that court of appeal.

Recently, our council was faced with a decision about a proposed car wash facility within the Cooroy district centre zone – effectively the business centre of Cooroy. The planning staff recommended refusal as the use conflicted with that Noosa Plan zoning. The planning scheme allows for car wash facilities in industrial zones, not business centres. If council had refused, they would have had a strong case should the applicant appeal the decision. However, only the two most experienced councillors, Mayor Wilkie and Deputy Mayor Stockwell, voted to support the staff recommendation and thus refuse the application. All the more junior councillors voted to override the staff recommendation and approve the out-of-zone development. Regardless of perceived resident desire for a car wash facility in Cooroy, the majority decision may have consequences for future development appeals in the P&E Court.

When matters come before the P&E Court, precedent plays a pivotal role. A similar developer who wishes to override the planning scheme, particularly in a district centre zone or in Cooroy more specifically, may now point to the precedent established by the council in the recent case of the car wash facility. 

Making repeated decisions contrary to a planning scheme has even more dire consequences. Where a council has made a series of such decisions, then the court will view that particular council as fundamentally less diligent in their support of their planning scheme, and the court will be more inclined to find in favour of the appellant. The one central argument that any Council relies upon in the P&E Court will have been severely diluted. 

In planning precedent is everything, and a council’s ability to hold the line on inappropriate development relies on them supporting their scheme in every possible instance. 

Sure, planning schemes aren’t perfect. They are developed in anticipation of future needs and must survive rigorous challenges. But when it comes to preventing land use conflicts, such as industrial activities on residential land, or out-of-scale development in any zone, they are the essential tool.
Planning schemes also establish and help to maintain the overarching look-and-feel of precincts: in Noosa’s case the set of low-key development principles that distinguish our patch from many other seaside resort towns.

With the debate over the State Facilitated Development (SFD) underway, a resident has written to me arguing that the planning scheme should be more “flexible”. If the council were to take that attitude, then they would have no hope of standing up for their planning scheme when it really mattered.

And that, of course, brings us to the execrable SFDs. The development proposed for Tewantin is outside the district centre zone, where 3 to 4 storeys is non-compliant. The one for Noosa Junction is within a major centre zone, however the proposed 5 to 6 storeys are again contrary to a scheme that seeks to limit building heights. If one or both proceed, they will establish ongoing precedents that will make it virtually impossible to prevent future high-rise developments in the shire. Once a planning precedent is established it becomes leverage for more of the same to occur. 

The state’s willingness to discard local planning schemes in a headlong rush to look like they’re doing something about affordable housing demonstrates that they have zero regard for how precedents impact on future planning decisions.