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00:00:00 Councillor Wilkie: Okay, good morning everybody. Welcome to the General Committee meeting. Declare the meeting open and begin with an acknowledgement of the traditional owners on whose land we meet today, the Kabi Kabi or the Gabi Gabi people, and pay respect to their elders past, present and emerging. We have an apology today from Councillor Tom Wegener who has a bereavement in the family. We have no presentations or deputations. Councillors, the General Committee meeting is more informal than the ordinary meeting, so when staff members come up to address each item, you can ask questions up front. We might have some light discussion but we only move into formal debate when the discussion starts to be, starts to suggest
00:01:00 we're starting to argue points. We'll save that for the debate. You don't need to stand to speak, unlike the formal ordinary meeting. And for the benefit of those at home, the motions that are passed today only have the status of recommendations to the ordinary meeting on Thursday, which is the forum where the motions are ratified as a decision of Councillor Jurisevic: the local government. So, we begin with some items referred to the Services and Organisation Councillor Wilkie: Committee. That's the Audit and Risk Committee membership. Our councillors felt that we needed to consider this further at the Services and Organisation Committee meeting last week. So, councillors, questions for Deb, who's provided some comparative pricing? Councillor Jurisevic: Well, I have a question. Just with comparative pricing, the number of meetings that we have
00:02:00 a year with the Audit and Risk Committee, what are the financial implications for council Speaker 5: of increasing from one fee to the next? Yes. So, councillor Jo, if you'd based it on four meetings a year, you'd be looking at over the cost of the year, $3,200 a year. Moving from what was originally recommended in the report to, yes. So, you'd be looking at that difference. Comparing it to the current fee, which is $300 per member per meeting. Councillor Wilkie: There are two external members, aren't there? Yes, there are. Yes, the Chair and then one ordinary member. Is any other councillors concerned about Councillor Lorentson: this? No. Thank you for the information you provided, Deb, and it was actually quite good to see how other councils are addressing this. I also sent out just that little formula,
00:03:00 so I think $800 in light of the information you sent is actually quite reasonable. Speaker 6: Okay. I think the number's about right number. The question is whether we want to do an increase now, if there's anything else we've got going on, whether we want to defer it for six months or 12 months, or we might want to do it. I think that's the option. I'm pretty relaxed either way. We've got some wording there, depending on whether you want to set the fee now, or defer it for 12 months, or set the fee now and defer it for the next one, January 21. The benefit of the third one is going to be the equivalent of your current amendment that's going to go on that basis. But again, I'm pretty relaxed about which way you want Mayor Stewart: to go. I think that the last one, Brett, where we defer it and go to when we get that recruitment and say, this is what it will be. But I think everyone would understand in light of where we are, and everyone's taking haircuts and pay cuts and freezing. I think it's fair that
00:04:00 if we maybe defer it for that period, and then they're going to be aware of that and understand it in that time. Are we moving the motion and speaking to Councillor Jurisevic: the motion at this point in time, Mr Chair? Well, we can. We seem to be debating the issue before the motion's actually on the table. Councillor Wilkie: You're quite correct, Joe. This is the first general committee meeting, so we'll find our Councillor Jurisevic: way with the . Just clarifying the situation. I'll be happy to move the third recommendation there. Okay, we'll move Councillor Jurisevic. Councillor Wilkie: Do we have a seconder for that, please? I'll second it. Councillor Jurisevic: Seconder, Councillor Stewart. Joe. Look, I have no qualms with the recommendation here from staff to look at increasing the fee for those two external members. I think that's in line with and in keeping with what we see other councils and the norm that is around. But in these challenging times, I think there's a lot of belt tightening going
00:05:00 on and some need to be done. I think it's important to consider when and if increases in fees and the like are relevant and pertinent at this point in time. So I see that for the recruitment process and for the fullness of opportunity in attaining the right type of people towards this position, announcing the fact that we would increase those fees to something more in keeping with what other councils and other committees would undertake is pertinent. But I think deferring it until we're over most of this COVID issue is probably more in keeping with the expectation of the community. Councillor Wilkie: Now, the councillors will suspect to the motion. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I will. I think it's important to recognise that the contributions made by the external members are significantly more in value than what they get paid presently.
00:06:00 In that respect, I think we should acknowledge that their commitment to supporting the good governance of this Shire by reducing what probably is a more significant professional fee to participate in the way they do is something that this community is benefiting from and we should acknowledge that. Councillor Wilkie: Yes, that's true. The councillors will suspect to the motion. Mr Close, you're up. Councillor Jurisevic: I just acknowledge the comments of Councillor Stockwell. They're having sat on the ordnance for a very long time. I've been on the Audit and Risk Committee for the last two years. I too acknowledge the contribution that all members on the Audit and Risk Committee give to the council and to that committee in particular, but to external members and to try and keep the quality of applicants that we have in seeking a change over member for the current chair, I think acknowledging the contribution that those members make to our community.
00:07:00 Thank you. Councillor Wilkie: I'll put the motion to those in favour. That's unanimous. Thank you. Move to the next item, which is the amendment to councillors acceptable request guidelines. This is also from the Services and Organisation Committee agenda. And it's the first item in the page three of the general committee further report. Councillor's questions for Deb. Councillor Lorentson: Thank you. I just want to thank you for making the amendments to the councillors acceptable request guidelines policy, Deb. I think allowing councillors the discretion to make either a verbal or a written request removes the potential associated with only verbal communication. For example, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and denial. Simply, there's no conclusion about the message. And councillors, in having the choice of a written reply to the amendment, I think
00:08:00 it's important that those who have a written reply also have an opportunity to indicate their understanding of the communication, especially if the language is technical. So again, thank you for addressing my concern. Thank you. Councillor Jurisevic: Once again, Mr Chair, I'll point out that councillors are speaking to the motion before not asking questions. That's my fault. That's my fault. Councillor Lorentson: I should have called it. But Amelia, would you like to move that motion? I would like to move that motion. Councillor Wilkie: Any other councillors wish to speak to the motion? Okay. Thanks. Councillor Jurisevic: That's very forward. Councillor Wilkie: No. I'd just like to say that while there's been nothing in the policy that's prevented councillors from gaining advice in either verbal or written form, the additions make this even more explicit. The changes don't in any way mean that councillors are going to have to make any changes in the way, change the interactions councillors and staff have in cooperating together to effectively problem solve on behalf of Mercer community members. So it's a good addition.
00:09:00 It makes it more explicit, clearer. Any other councillors wish to speak to the motion? Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Just to clarify that the changes that have been made are in keeping with those that have been recommended by all of the state government agencies that have been dealing with councillor improvements in councillor communications and understandings with regard to the Belcarra review. So I'm in favour of the change that are here and that clarification there with regard to how councillors may use their discretion, how requests are responded to by staff. I just think it's a clear and concise method so that there's no doubt there. Councillor Wilkie: Thank you, Joe. Any other councillors wish to speak? Mayor Stewart: No. I just want to thank Deb for making those changes on our behalf. I think it adds flexibility and it keeps in with the collaboration. But I think it also gives peace of mind with asking for the request in writing and or verbally. But I think that flexibility is a great thing. You can just ask something, a very general question, quite easily but in detail.
00:10:00 So thank you very much for that. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Right. I think overall what councillor Jurisevic said was correct. What we're adjusting the policy overall is to make the new reform agenda. But there's nothing that's going to change the way we work. How this works in this council is that the respect that both staff face as councillors and councillors' staff have built a very good relationship so that information is freely available to councillors to make informed decisions. And I think that's one thing that, while this is the guideline, it's the culture of working together to achieve outcomes for the community, which is the important thing. That is embedded within this guideline. Councillor Wilkie: Very important. Amelia, do you wish to close? Oh, sorry. Karen, do you wish to speak? Councillor Finzel: I'll just reiterate what everyone said at the table. I think what's been proposed is acceptable and provides clear guidelines for communication
00:11:00 between the councillors and the staff. And I think that can only result in good outcomes. Great. Thank you. Councillor Wilkie: Amelia, do you wish to close? Councillor Finzel: No, I'll just... Councillor Wilkie: Okay. Again, it's unanimous. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Stewart: Thank you. Councillor Wilkie: Thank you. Thank you. We'll move on to item four, which is Planning and Environment Court Appeal, Refusable Unapplication of Material Change Abuse for Service and Utility, Type 3 Tower, 244 Tablelands Road to Land. And Karen? Councillor Finzel: I declare a real conflict of interest in this matter as defined in section 175D of the Local Government Act 2009. As prior to my election to council, I sign a petition relating to this application. Thank you. Councillor Wilkie: You're choosing to leave the room? Councillor Finzel: And I'm choosing to leave the room based on the Local Government Act. Councillor Wilkie: Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
00:12:00 Deputy Mayor Stockwell: As a result of the email I read this morning, I may have a perceived conflict of interest in this matter. We did receive an email from Bill and Christine Taint, who were submitters to the proposal and have elected to become respondents to the appeal. They both assisted with my campaign. I believe I can deal with this issue in a impartial and in public interest and would request the remaining meeting. Okay. Speaker 6: In that case, I would suggest that council might want to at the time how they... Councillor Jurisevic: I'd like to raise a question there. Speaker 6: ...how they'd answer with a donation or whatever. If the level would be... Yes. ...I think in terms of that, if the designation was significant.
00:13:00 Deputy Mayor Stockwell: They did the highly technical job of letterbox delivery in the suburb. Mayor Stewart: How long have you known them? Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I've known them as a result of their relationship with council in the presence of Lake Weyba. So since the Weyba...was it Weyba on Noosa or Noosa on Weyba campaign, which was towards the end of the email that went there. It's only in that capacity. Councillor Lorentson: Did you... Did you understand or were you aware of their position with this application prior to the election, Brian? Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Well, they hadn't assisted prior to when the application was being considered, so... Councillor Lorentson: So did they at any stage express to you that they opposed or... Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Certainly, they lobbied all councillors before the election year. Mayor Stewart: Had you had any conversation that the other councillors may not have had with these people before the election? No. Councillor Jurisevic: No. Okay. Thank you. I haven't fully gone over that email. I didn't take note of where they reside in relation to this tower.
00:14:00 Do they live in proximity to the tower? And are they impacted by the capacity of this tower to deliver MVN services in the Corran area? Deputy Mayor Stockwell: My understanding is they own a block of land in the locality. However, my understanding is they're still a resident of the Northern Sunshine Coast Council area. Councillor Wilkie: So they're not Noosa residents? No. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: That's my understanding. I couldn't swear to... Speaker 8: That's my understanding too. Councillor Jurisevic: Can I just check the email and see what address they stated as residing in? Mayor Stewart: It came this morning. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: I was just trying to find it. Oh, there it is. Sorry. It was responded to to acknowledge there. It was sent to all councillors, wasn't it? Councillor Wilkie: Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: It was sent to all councillors. They don't actually mention... There's only a phone number and no address. They do say they're owners.
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00:15:00 This would be interesting. Owners of property 486 Tablelands Road, Corran. But don't mention whether they live there or not. Councillor Lorentson: I think the issue here is one of the influence. So the fact that they let a job tour in... Councillor Wilkie: This is question time at the moment. Because we're going to have to... We're going to debate this motion whether Brian stays or not. Oh, I see. So that'll be the time to put an opinion. Okay. Yeah. How many submissions were there? 442. Yes. A lot of submissions. 442. Yes. Councillor Jurisevic: Of those, approximately 50 lived in the immediate vicinity of Corran. Mayor Stewart: Yeah. But even at this day, she said 442 submissions were lodged. Councillor Wilkie: I have a question for the CEO. The fact that any councillors may know submitters, does that create a... And there's 442. Does that create a conflict in itself? Speaker 6: No. The fact that you know someone in the community is not a conflict of interest.
00:16:00 It's what relationship you have with that person. And that's why, at the beginning, I said councillors need to establish what type of support they provide. So, for example, if it's a $10,000 donation, well, there's no question... Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yeah. So the question is agreed. And it is... If people think there is any doubt, I'm happy to leave the room, too. I'll probably seek your advice. You know, you always say, if in doubt, get out. I just think in terms of the level of... In this particular decision, we're not deciding anything. We're just going to defend the field if they also... Speaker 6: My advice to councillors always is, you've done the right thing by speaking out. That's the first thing. When in doubt, speak out. So if there's potential, you need to assert it. And if there's any doubt, you should get out. That's the other one. So you have that choice. You can choose to leave the room at your own call. Or you can request your colleagues to make that decision. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I did. But I think it's easier because it's not... The substantive issue is not one that's going to bother me. Okay. I'll leave the room.
00:17:00 Councillor Wilkie: Choose councillor Stockwell has chosen to leave the room. Mayor Stewart: That is a concern, though. 142 people. I don't know who those people were to make those submissions. So that would be known to myself or someone else. Speaker 6: Yeah. So that would be known to someone. It's not a conflict of interest. Mayor Stewart: No, but if they may have donated to my campaign, I don't know who they are. Speaker 6: Yeah. So it is a concern. And if you don't know, please, you know, you have a due diligence to think in that sense. But if you did know, I didn't know anything about that issue. Yeah. Or if you should reasonably have known. Yeah. So if someone gave a donation and said, for example, well, I'm giving this donation. By the way, when you give it on to council, I want you to advocate for this. Well, that's an issue. Councillor Wilkie: Okay. Councillor, we've got a motion before us to defend the appeal, but Kerry's here to answer any questions you may have. Councillor Lorentson: Okay. Councillor Wilkie: Councillor? Councillor Lorentson: My only question, Kerry, is the application before us. We requested that it was deferred to this meeting for a decision, just so that the new councillors
00:18:00 would be briefed and get up to date with the application. So I'm just wondering if there's anything else you'd like to add to that? Was the application time sensitive? Did the deferral have any legal implications on the case? Speaker 8: No, it hasn't had any legal implications. Thank you. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah, my understanding is that this wasn't the only location that a town could be situated that NBN looked at, is that correct? Or is that planning's understanding? Speaker 8: That's our understanding and it is the practice of these providers to look at a number of sites in an area before selecting what they consider the most appropriate. You know, that can come down to which landowner is most willing to have a town located on the site to the most number of people it can serve. So yes. Councillor Jurisevic: So will the reasons of this site, if this goes to appeal after this vote, is the reasons that particular sites were chosen okay?
00:19:00 Are there other sites likely to come out in that appeal process? Speaker 8: That can be discussed during mediation with the applicant and will be. In a court situation though, the judge will look at the merits of the appeal for this site only and not consider whether there's other sites available. Councillor Jurisevic: Okay. And whether there were, what the merits or otherwise of the sites, the other sites that were potentially available aren't known to council at this point in time either? Speaker 8: Sorry, Joe? Councillor Jurisevic: Are the merits of the other sites or the other sites known to council? Council staff, planning staff, or only this site was provided information on? Speaker 8: I'd have to check for you, but it is typical for these providers to give us the details of the other sites they considered. Speaker 6: Okay. Mayor Stewart: There were 442, what I received this morning, submissions objecting to the proposal. Were there any that you know of, Kerry, that were supporting it? Speaker 8: No. At the time the application was advertised, we didn't receive any in support. I am aware though of a resident who had the amount of staff.
00:20:00 Who are supportive of it because they're lacking service in the area. Councillor Jurisevic: We have had, the councillors have received, certain councillors have received one strong supporter that I'm aware of. Certainly I have only received one submission in favour of the tower due to a lack of services in the area. Mayor Stewart: So the overwhelming community thought is objection. That's right. Okay. Thank you. Councillor Wilkie: Council we have a recommendation there, does anyone care to move? I'll have to move. Move Councillor Jurisevic second it Councillor Lorentson, go. Councillor Jurisevic: Now we've had these submissions come before us, NBN and the various authorities make their decisions based on the criteria. This clearly doesn't meet our criteria, and is such perhaps, one of the other locations could be more relevant or less controversial To the local community if and when that goes to a process of mediation. So I think
00:21:00 at least exploring and examining all the options that are available on the table is one of the things that can happen with that through the field process and a more suitable or a more acceptable outcome for the community may be able to be found. Councillor Lorentson: I appreciate and thank council for accommodating my request for further the background details on the on this application. I'd also like to add that when I did ask for a deferral I did check with council whether there was any legal implications with deferring this item and I was told as you just said Kerry that there was no that this application was not time sensitive. In regards to the application I've visited the site and I've also looked through all the submissions and these are my observations. I think that yes the Noosa plan has got a requirement to ensure that the community is
00:22:00 provided with services and infrastructures needed in the current age of technology but not at the expense of scenic amenity values and rural character of the region and the planning scheme is very clear on its intent to protect these values. It's clear also by the number of submissions that this proposal simply doesn't meet the requirements of the community nor the overall intent of the plan. What concerns me is that if this was approved under the Telecommunications Act 1997 the structure would be afforded immunity which enables it to extend up to five meters more without bringing these changes to council. And finally as Joe mentioned there actually is an opportunity to consider further alternative sites. There is an opportunity to consider further alternative sites. that won't compromise scenic amenity and regional landscape as identified
00:23:00 under the southeast Queensland regional plan. For these reasons I support council's recommendation to defend the appeal. Mayor Stewart: Thank you. Claire. Yeah look I do too. I mean I think it's 400 it's loud and clear when 442 submissions are lodged objecting to this. The words of the email we received is is quite interesting. It says it compromises the values and visual amenity of an area that has regionally significant scenic amenity and I think that's really important to note and I think the overwhelming support from the community against this is is really clear um you know in regard to the ability to uh if it were approved for it to increase in in height is a concern and something that we can't do anything about and can't be brought back to the table and as uh councillor just said there is an opportunity to look for other areas so you know in for all those reasons I too support um defending the appeal. I agree um in defending
00:24:00 Councillor Wilkie: this appeal we're fulfilling an obligation to preserve the beauty and scenic amenity of the area and ensure that the communications benefits brought by mobile towers have been balanced against the need to preserve this relatively untouched hinterland. The matter is technically already an appeal and the motion to defend gives the best chance to gain a balanced outcome involving alternative sites as previously mentioned that may improve residents communications while preserving their sanity. I support the motion before us um Joe you wish to close. Yeah look it's been mentioned that there's 442 objectives now Councillor Jurisevic: the the one strong um uh supporter in favour of uh this going ahead has has lobbied extensively and I will point out that whilst as he does the 442 didn't all live locally in the area a significant number 50 uh in that in the vicinity of 50 do live in the local area and objected to this and
00:25:00 and have shown strong support for council's stance on this with regard to visual amenities so I support that uh that that strong support of the community uh with regards to refusing this location and uh and the possibility of uh seeking uh a more suitable alternative okay I think I'll put the Councillor Wilkie: motion as a failure that's unanimous CEO unanimous as far as the council is in the room Councillor Jurisevic: and he just got a quorum Deputy Mayor Stockwell: oh you should have seen the cake that was out there Councillor Wilkie: we'll move on to item five which is a minor change to a development approval for material change of use premises entertainment and dining business type one food and beverage and type two recreation
00:26:00 amusement and fitness at four the Esplanade Sunshine Beach which is the Sunshine Beach Surf Club and we have Sunil here to talk about some of the things that we're going to be talking about. today I had a question of staff and I'm hoping that they could perhaps it's very technical this language about sound levels so Sunil um the approved changes is described here in the report and saying will be what councillors will be consenting to is between 6am and 10pm the adjusted maximum sound pressure level la 10 plus adjustments adjustments for tonal and impulse components and seating the background level la 90 by more than 10 decibels and then in brackets a and b between 10pm and 6am the sound pressure level loct 10 and a full octave band with center frequencies from 63 hertz to 2000 hertz exceeding the background level loct 90 by more than 8 decibels than any octave band could you please explain what we would be like come on come on Craig
00:27:00 Councillor Jurisevic: you're going to explain that to me I am jumping out of the room. we want to know what we're actually crystal crystal clear Councillor Wilkie: what it means for the impact on residents when they live nearby sometimes did you hear everything I Speaker 1: said yeah yeah I think the um the simplest way to understand this is that the human ear does not pick up sounds that are at a very low decibel and a very high decibel exceeding some you wouldn't be able to hear it when they use the sound level meter what they're trying to do with the a level or c level measurements is trying to exclude those higher level or lower level sounds that you can't generally hear because if they measure that then it basically gives you an inaccurate or incomplete in terms of how the human here responds to a specific noise that can cause
00:28:00 health issues or can cause a specific noise that can cause some health issues or can cause some uh immunity issues like lack of sleep etc so the weighting that they're using is basically trying to rule out those other uh high level high pitch sounds that maybe dogs or other animals can hear that the human can't pick up so it measures specifically uh sound emanating from a source like a big speaker that you might have and its impact on the human ear during our normal hearing in other words things that we can hear the um basically the c level weighting is sometimes you have flatter flatter or sound frequencies and those flatter sound frequencies that comes out like for example a bass speaker will be quite flat and what the reading does or the measurement tool does it tries to rule out that flatter sound and basically gives you an average
00:29:00 hearing over a period of time therefore they say la 10 10 of the time that flatter sound has breached the requirements of more than 90 decibels that can affect the year or they say la 90 which means that 90 of the time those flatter sounds will be able to impact on the here because if you hear flatter noises bass noises all the time 90 of the time it's likely to not only annoy you but likely to affect your hearing in some way or form therefore people use ear mufflers and ear plugs etc when they have when they're exposed to these high frequencies my assessment when i did this review for the acoustic report was basically that we had in council a clause eight that was saying that you could have a noise level up to 90 dbas another decibels measured on this
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00:30:00 a weighting average that rules out high frequency and low frequency noises in other words to get the accurate reading the meter so the 90 decibels that we set in that clause 8 or the condition 8 basically didn't take into account this new extension to the building outdoor dining putting a speaker outside etc and and therefore we're saying that if we have to now recalculate what minimum values are acceptable now that they've expanded the clubhouse more dining and probably these speakers the way they're placed i will create more sound going out to the neighboring residents i think it's to the east and some to the southeast of that building where there's residents are living close by unlike the other surf clubs where it might be slightly different so we specifically evaluated this
00:31:00 surf club and not try to compare those uh those readings but i think it's a good thing that we've done a little bit of research and we've found that in in analyzing the readings from the acoustic engineer what i found was that uh for several of their readings between the time up to 10 o'clock they were breaches in other words they've gone beyond 90 decibels so i mean if we have to set 90 decibels they'll breach it almost every time they have a karaoke band or they have a rock band for example they'll they'll breach the conditions and that creates a problem so what we thought is that rather than us recreating a new uh standards in terms of how far they can go what we agreed was that let's use the liquor licensing conditions that basically is a standard condition across queensland that sets limits and levels and what they've said is 90 decibels which is the minimum and i can say that 90 decibels would be the background noise when you look at background noise
00:32:00 before you calculate it's a conversation that's right this is paid patron noise and general light entertainment noise uh music that's light and patron noise up to 100 people in this this venue i will give you a background of 90 decibels uh so how close to the source though three meters from the three meters from the source so three meters from that speaker when you measure it or whichever side you measure it from but three meters from the source when you measure it yeah i think that's a yes the residents are much further than that uh but basically anything over 90 decibels up to 100 decibels like the liquor licensing conditions are proposing or they have set a standard already uh we would be reasonable up to 10 p.m and i think that's what we were saying uh beyond 10 p.m we think that this this would create a disturbance and unnecessary annoyance for the residents around that area so uh i i think for us this is uh setting the liquor licensing conditions and adhering to that
00:33:00 has some benefits for council in other words the enforcement if there's complaints will be legal licensing rather than the environmental health team offices which is a huge resource implication to go out measure the noise check the complaints get some readings from residents about the complaints etc so there's some benefits in that and our intention is to more and more uh align conditions so two agencies are not working with different conditions so this is more stringent Councillor Wilkie: than what was originally proposed the the condition that there's a condition made on page 15 of the report which was the original conditions and on page 13 is part of the recommendation there's new Speaker 1: conditions are the new conditions more stringent no because of the we we said 90 decibels and this one goes up to 100 decibels up to 10 10 p.m so they allowed a 10 10 decibel difference for
00:34:00 entertainment price now a standard rock band in itself will give you 100 decibels of emission generally with all the things they use so i think for us is like us saying is because we didn't consider entertainment outside and to maintain the noise emissions from in that kind of entertainment we had to shift slightly in terms Mayor Stewart: of aligning with the olgr this is an acoustic and gaming regulation um do they place that then and how often do they do that do you know that only for complaints i think if there's complaints Speaker 1: then they respond to customer complaints or neighborhood complaints and they follow that up there's stringent requirements for that in terms of a noise management plan for these businesses so they record and frequently test the noise emissions coming out of there so then there are some conditions that set out in the liquor licensing for them to go through and make sure that the noise is within the restricted levels and they'll obviously be used to
00:35:00 Mayor Stewart: doing this i mean this is just you know doing this for a number of venues yeah okay Councillor Wilkie: you mentioned sound sound limiting devices i mentioned Speaker 1: yes we we because they are very acoustic engineer who's recognized in terms of the law suggested that in the absence of a sound level a meter that a limiting device that they can measure the noise uh periodically and what we thought is for a business this size and the amount of activities and entertainment they likely to have they should have a sound limiting device built in that records automatically sound over a period of time and and we have access to that or olgr officers have access to that so they can check because if a person complains and it's one-off then you're not necessarily going to find them you're going to check how often this kind of transgression is taking place so that was our
00:36:00 recommend it makes it a lot easier for that business in terms of complying but also to have evidence uh that they can store and i think if they check their own records they're able to then start to make adjustments like put baffles or look at retreating the environment you know to try and Councillor Jurisevic: contain that that noise i assume that will also ensure that uh in the event that a complaint is received before the office of liquor and gaming get there that someone hasn't turned the sound down to say well i don't know what they're complaining about we just you know there's no noise problem here but it's just that there isn't an adjustment to the volume well when a complaint is received before the officer's all right perhaps Speaker 1: yes and i i think probably probably yes but but i think also that because you have workers in this uh these these facilities uh they need to comply with the occupation or the work workplace regulations in terms of exposure to noise now these workers who work they will be more exposed
00:37:00 because of their time period they work they often it's not like me going in to have dinner or a dance and i get away you know probably would yeah take some noise inside uh but they're exposed to this all the time so i think in terms of the limits that we're setting and agreeing with all gr it's also considering those people that are likely to be exposed over a longer period of time and if they work there for 30 years or more it's basically it will impact them and if somebody screams in your ear every day you'll probably need to have a hearing test very often Councillor Jurisevic: yeah more questions if i may um lower frequencies are my concern uh senil with regard to less uh um um uh require or lesser requirements on uh on controlling those noises because that's the one we often get you get the complaints about it's more i felt noise those bass frequencies that doof doof doof sort of sound and that those sounds that are more felt as much as heard uh in in many instances how does how does this your your suggestion or from what i'm hearing
00:38:00 with what you're saying there is there's less um control over those bass sounds through these sort of uh measures than than would otherwise be the case is that provided that the uh the noise emitted Speaker 1: from source when measured is is within these requirements of 90 dba plus 8 or 10 that they give Councillor Jurisevic: them as as over the 90 dba so 90 dba i know this is difficult for the layman to understand but what typically what are the other um background noise levels that we may have in dba that might be around you know conversation uh the sort of noise you'd have from dinner being held in a restaurant the surf and those other things what sort of other background deep noise levels could we uh do we have Speaker 1: and what sort of levels they typically typically undertake yeah so basically it's it's on loading and the number of people sitting within a confined space so let's take as an example
00:39:00 100 people sitting in a restaurant are you likely to get in the region of 80 decibels of noise however as the evening goes by and people have a few more drinks that is likely to go up so therefore this benchmark limit of saying you've got a background noise generally of 80 dbas but actually you've got to manage it within this so what they've done in this report they're trying to get basically to go to 12 o'clock and that's the issue here is that we said no 10 o'clock is because if you remove 10 people which they did in their calculation it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to reduce the noise level uh to to that the longer time correct and the longer time we go the the more conversation uh we have uh we get more bolder as as you might say so i think that's one two is that if you take a karaoke and singing in a carrier depends on size as well you'd get a normal sound of just about 95 dbas uh karaoke and i think i stated that somewhere in my
00:40:00 response and if you take a rock band generally a rock band in a venue like uh the surf club here you'll get 105 dbas so they they what they've done here is they've managed it by putting some shutters and baffles closer to the residential facing area i think it's the south east area so they put some baffles in there and then measured it so what they're doing is using environmental conditions to to reduce that noise if you take a rock concert outdoor concert you're likely to reach 110 decibels of noise so as as you increase your activity you get a better noise but in terms of background noise for ordinary residents we're wanting to keep that below 70 decibels especially at night if you're wanting to have a good sleep then you need peace and quiet and therefore we set as council some other rules like you can't use a
00:41:00 blower uh before seven seven in the morning because that sound will be greater than the background noise and people will start complaining because they can't sleep but those are some Councillor Jurisevic: examples that answer your question thank you uh question for kerry um given that this is the first time we're implementing uh obviously liquor and gaming regulation sound limitations to uh to a venue is this likely to be the norm in the future with regard to noise limitations um i don't believe Speaker 8: we've done it in the past it's preferred where we can because they are better at compliance in Councillor Jurisevic: respect to noise and well they are the compliance they are the compliance officers they have more Speaker 8: experience in that they're better equipped to be out there at night time when this is occurring there may be some instances where we find it's not appropriate and we actually think a more stringent Councillor Jurisevic: requirement should apply but i think so if we find that these measures um do not address that
00:42:00 noise issues for for residents what uh provision have council got then to uh to make any changes Speaker 8: well the condition we can't the conditions stand so they will be the conditions the conditions are the conditions if council goes for this um i have to go back to see there's a general condition Councillor Jurisevic: around amenity but um so they will be my question for the local residents if they find their amenities continuing to be disturbed what actions can they take and and approach council on to Speaker 8: to alter these all to these conditions council would not be able to alter the conditions once we make the decision that is the development approval that we can only alter the conditions if the applicant agreed the residence course of action if there's a noise issue would be either to contact council or liquor licensing and either party can do compliance on their current conditions Councillor Jurisevic: so liquor licensing would have the capability of saying that you are well if they're not being
00:43:00 no no no recourse to uh have that sound turned down in the away shape or form that's right if Speaker 8: they're not breaching their conditions there's no recourse there so if if they're not breaching the conditions and we're getting a lot of complaints that's something we'd have to have a discussion with the surf club about being good neighbors and seeing what measures they could put in place to Councillor Jurisevic: try and minimize it all right so the neighbors still have some recourse if it continues so again again do we think that this will be the uh the standard that we now implement across um entertainment venues particularly with the new planning scheme and areas like the uh the junction Speaker 8: where we're looking at yeah as i said i think it is desirable to be consistent and reflect liquor licensing conditions because they're a better place to do compliance um but there still may be instances where we think a more stringent requirement that should apply and we'll have Deputy Mayor Stockwell: to consider that each one that's okay thank you right um yeah things to use care um so neil mentioned that you know the there's one difference in this condition the
00:44:00 previous one is the requirement for a sound limiting device and i always think about the um you can't manage what you don't measure now we've included similar conditions in other uses where noise could be an issue where they have to measure it and do we find that it's a successful technique in terms of curbing a problem in order Speaker 8: yes the ones where they are conditioned to have a sound limiting device i don't think we've had Deputy Mayor Stockwell: complaints about it but that's probably the one i have forward in terms of the community outcome Speaker 8: yeah it's a good outcome in terms of regulating noise the older ones that don't have such a Councillor Jurisevic: condition then we tend to have more problems here when did council start putting that sort of condition on uh is it that's not something fairly recent is it um no it's not it is more Speaker 8: recent probably around 2008 2007 around that time would that be right for you yes yep we didn't see those sort of devices until around that time we did it on baron scottsdale yeah but they're not
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00:45:00 Councillor Jurisevic: they're not operating they're not operating as yet so it's been hard to judge the studio and Deputy Mayor Stockwell: the industrial state and what else Mayor Stewart: have you had any noise complaints in the area in regard to the surfboard no no i haven't had any Councillor Jurisevic: are there other entertainment sorry are there other entertainment venues where we have Speaker 8: implemented the um i think the noosa head surf club has a similar condition but i'd have to go back and check um uh do you recall any other anywhere in the junction at all Speaker 1: yeah we we get we we we get a few complaints um from nightclubs and um in hastings street for example yeah we we get complaints and and basically we follow those up most of the cases have been in conjunction with olgr offices is is trying to manage that
00:46:00 Councillor Jurisevic: i'm just trying to just try to ascertain whether any other entertainment values have had this this methodology because i do do recall us doing it with bounce uh the bounce hostel in noosaville and other localities i can't recall and we have had entertainment venues before us having that sound measuring device as part of their part of their conditions before so that's why i was trying Speaker 8: to clarify that point yeah yeah i'd have to take that on those drones see if i can find some for you Councillor Jurisevic: that'll be that'll be good if we can have that before thursday's meeting uh the other question i had for bugger i forgot that that's all right all right come back to it i just have a question Councillor Finzel: with regards to um the noise complaints from other precincts you said that this is a new thing where you're introducing or discussing the compliance coming through gaming and liquor so those other venues mentioned around like the junction and then there's a surf club how is compliance at the moment met in those venues when the complaints come
00:47:00 Speaker 8: um so it's what's what's more recent or new if you like well it's a sound limiting device that's something um that's that's yeah i understand that so the question is but in terms of clients how is it addressed so for some time there's been um coordination or work with liquor licensing around these venues there's a process of referral liquor licensing to council where we have the opportunity to request liquor license to include conditions or reflect our conditions or hours of operation so there is work done between the two areas to ensure there's a consistent approach and conditions are followed through there's been a range of approaches over the year based on best practice at the time in terms of controlling noise there's some venues in the junction that may not have any conditions on them just because they commenced at a time you know in the
00:48:00 early 80s or 70s and there wasn't the knowledge around the importance of placing some of these conditions on them so it's only in more recent times where these sorts of conditions have been going on entertainment type venues and i'd suggest that they've been fairly effective because we're not not getting the complaints particularly those venues that have that that sound limiting device on them because they can self-regulate to a certain extent so moving forward then with the Councillor Finzel: recommendations moving towards with this venue at sunshine surf club we're recommending that we're recommending gaming and liquor offices now take over that role what's the rationale behind that Speaker 8: we're we're not recommending they take over that role we're we're reflecting their condition on our approval so we're we've got a bit of consistency between the two
00:49:00 areas in terms of regulation and so both parties could take action in the future so both liquor licensing or council would be able to act on complaints if we receive them in the future Councillor Finzel: so say i'm a resident living around that area and the noise is increasing and i ring say council in the first incident and it's 10 o'clock at night how's that process going Speaker 1: to roll out this this this yeah so this is directly to police yes and then police if you're a member of the public living in house there's a disturbance you really really ring the police at that time in normal compliance protocol is that you'll have to fill in a a noise lock in other words the date time this happened and it needs to be repeated noise so you'll have to do at least 10 entries on a page if we we investigate it we send out a noise lock so you put all those details it comes back to us we look at
00:50:00 that and then continue investigating with that premise to like check their sound levels etc a similar procedure with the liquor and gaming you can't take one incident and and prosecute or go to court so they look at it in terms number of complaints and then we'll have to put in some devices once we've got that log to measure noise as well background noise at that person's house and also measure the actual noise from the similar events before we can conclude either way that yes there's a problem problem or not so i know those processes are fairly robust Councillor Jurisevic: okay that's good sorry did i remember my other question so neil mentioned something about um speakers outside of the like from my understanding experience in council we typically don't permit amplified sound outside of venues like this or uh or limited to times
00:51:00 so they can't uh uh impede on the noise or create a noise that isn't uh acceptable outside of the venue is that the case in uh in the surf clubs uh approval yeah so that's um it's difficult to can't Speaker 8: control noise when it's outside um so you can look at um directing the way the direction the speakers face but ours is primarily what what you're using or the type of equipment you know Councillor Jurisevic: amplified music ensuring doors are closed by a certain time that's right so we typically control Speaker 8: it by hours and this has a condition on them for hours thank you i just want to clarify that when Councillor Jurisevic: you mentioned outdoor outdoor uh sound okay i'm moving it all to sort of quicker and gaming does Mayor Stewart: it provide a sort of i guess a more succinct way to go about the server like is it is it easier for them for remote due diligence rather than sort of having to adhere to us and then you know the opposite is this sort of this is a one-stop shop and does it make it more i guess effective for them Speaker 8: certainly it's the applicant's preference that they're just dealing with one body rather than two
00:52:00 and they're not keen to have different requirements by different bodies yeah who are regulating noise uh so from their perspective it's their preference okay thank you and i know it's not relative to Councillor Jurisevic: to this but with regard to that sound limiting device is that something that if we continue to get noise complaints at other venues we could look at retrospectively uh applying a condition Speaker 8: too if it's an ongoing issue yeah we can't we can't apply conditions retrospectively you know in the future if they come to us for expansion or change there may be an opportunity then to impose a further condition but once the approval was issued there's limited opportunity to do that we can we can work with the venue if we're getting complaints and try and encourage them Councillor Jurisevic: to suggest that this could be a methodology to deal with those complaints but we can't necessarily Councillor Wilkie: insist on it thank you right councillors um we have a recommendation before us anyone can move
00:53:00 Councillor Lorentson: that move counselor is this a question emily or do you like to move it well i'd like to move a motion to um defer this motion until further information's um attained do i do that now frank well and can i explain why sure okay um and you need to move on a second before she can explain why okay so i'd like to remove the motion to um to defer this motion until further information is Councillor Wilkie: attained is there is there any information we've got the experts here now what information oh i Councillor Lorentson: think i've done a little bit of research so i i'd like to explain why i'm moving this motion true to her um thank you um we'll just get the learning Councillor Wilkie: while Councillor Lorentson: just your deferred consideration until further information is
00:54:00 available and i'll and i'll i'll need to clarify a question Speaker 6: no that's just normally we prefer to the next round of meetings Speaker 8: is there a time issue in terms of this request it's not a deemed approval but um obviously we will be outside our time frame if we defer it to the next round so depending on the information we may be able to provide it before Councillor Lorentson: you Item 8. um my main concern is um why the Serv Club has made this request request to me this appears to be a concession and um and the beneficiary is actually the applicant not the community um we're talking about an industry standard versus a community standard um and i just think there would be more benefits to have a community standard as opposed to a community standard and i don't have any
00:55:00 These are all standards. Therefore for me to allow or consider any concessions or changes to this approval, I'd actually like to revisit some facts or what I call all red flags about this newly constructed surf club. The first is that again, these are concerns that the surf club has doubled their gross floor area. Their number two, reduced the number of car parks for visitors. Number three, they've tripled their patronage. Number four, they've created a parking nightmare for existing businesses and residents. And five, they've eroded residential amenities due to increased noise from car parking, traffic and outdoor noise. Therefore, the need to consider the application before me, I'd actually like an impact assessment report to be provided before any concessions. And this is what I call this application, a concession to be afforded to the surf club.
00:56:00 And the following information and data I'd like is the total complaints that were made to council since the surf club has opened, total complaints made to the police since opening, feedback from residents and surrounding businesses, and the total fines issued for parking from our local laws department. The noise standard in this approval should address all of the above, including we should be looking at council at including further conditions that may alleviate the four flags, four red flags that I've just brought up. It's critical to get this data to fully understand the impact of noise on the residential amenity within residential zones and businesses, business zones. In front of us councillors, we've actually got an opportunity to put in place strategies and conditions to manage noise issues so as to protect residential amenity while still allowing the surf club to flourish. This is what I see a leveraging opportunity
00:57:00 that we cannot let slip by. So I'm moving to defer this motion until all that information is attained and we can further discuss. Councillor Jurisevic: Question for staff. Question for staff. My understanding is with the approval, there are existing sound requirements in the list of the approvals there. This has been considered as a relaxation. Is there any opportunity here given that that application has been approved to alter the conditions that the surf club currently operates under? Speaker 8: Yeah. So the surf club obviously has an approval for the extensions. With that application came the impact assessment report that was lodged. It was lodged with that application considered by council at the time. Today, council is limited in terms of what they can look at.
00:58:00 They can only respond to the proposed change. They can't try and look at addressing additional car parking or traffic issues that might be perceived to have happened. The time has passed for that. That's not related to the requested change. Councillor Lorentson: No, but the approval, what we allow, whether it's through... No, sorry. Sorry about now. Councillor Wilkie: Okay. Yeah. Question. You can pose a question. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Question. In terms of the subset of Councillor Lorentson's request in terms of assessments, is there enough time before Thursday's meeting to get a list of noise complaints since the new operation has occurred? Speaker 8: We can certainly look at what complaints council has received since it commenced operation. We can certainly look at what complaints council has received since it commenced operation. We can contact the police to see if they're able or willing to provide us with the list.
00:59:00 But in terms of the other information, no, there wouldn't be sufficient time to do that before Thursday. Councillor Jurisevic: Are we also able to obtain what actions have been requested by Office of Liquor and Gaming with regard to those complaints and what actions have been undertaken by the Surf Club to deal with those complaints? Speaker 8: I had experience before with liquor licences in that they won't share the details of complaints. Councillor Jurisevic: We can ask the applicant what actions they may have taken to deal with any complaints received up until. Speaker 8: We can ask the applicant. Yes. Mayor Stewart: Are you aware of any complaints? No, we've had no complaints. We can ask questions. Yes. In your opinion, in your expert opinion, what the applicants are asking for in regard to noise levels. How do you assess that? How will that affect? In comparison to what they currently have and what they're currently looking at, what will that overall effect be?
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01:00:00 Is it a minor effect? Is it a minor change, that the noise is not going to increase that much? Or is it, I mean, how will it impact, in your opinion, people around that area? Speaker 1: My opinion is that the impact will be minor in the sense of what we are agreeing to hear. Instead of 95 decibels at a time. At a maximum, or 90 decibels, they are asking for 8 decibels higher and up to a maximum of 10 decibels higher for 10% of the time. And my view is that this won't impact the residents on the eastern side or the other side of the building at its closest point any more than it would do if we maintain our similar conditions. But what it does is, because of the size of the building. Now, like I said, is our condition was when they had not done these extensions for their proposed activities. So all we could consider is what the proposed activity is and whether or not that noise
01:01:00 limitations are suitable up to 10 o'clock. Mayor Stewart: So what we're dealing with on the table today and what we can decide upon, in your opinion, the difference is a minor. Speaker 1: Absolutely. But just to clarify, is that, in the report, what we're saying is that the noise is not being measured. We assessed the acoustic engineer's report, which I did. And that report didn't account for the questions that are being raised in terms of additional information. It didn't measure the traffic noise. It didn't measure the other noises and car traffic noise, et cetera. So what they did is basically looked at background noises to residents and what's the normal background noises they had at any given time during their measurement period. But what they did is basically looked at background noises to residents and what's the normal Speaker 8: I think it's important to say that what we're being asked to look at here is a change to condition that doesn't manage traffic noise, that was part of the original application consideration then, that's not relevant to this application before us.
01:02:00 We are restricted by the planning application in terms of what we can look at. If we had those concerns, we would have had to have looked at it with the original application when lodged. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I'm moving an amendment. Amendment is, and defer consideration of the application until the general, to the ordinary meeting on Thursday, November 28th.
01:03:00 Thank you. Councillor Jurisevic: I'll look for the exercise of debate. I'll second by Council of Jurisdiction. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I do so because I think in terms of this application, what staff have really identified is the context within which this application is made is very narrow. The legislation is very narrow. The information is very descriptive on what we can and can't do. We can't go back and do an impact assessment.
01:04:00 We can only look at the issues relative to what would change with this particular condition. I think it's reasonable to ask to see whether there was any complaints about noise and what the results of those complaints were for the period that it was open since the new structure was opened. But I think there's plenty of time to get whatever information is likely to be able to be available before Thursdays to allow that information to be shared. Councillor Jurisevic: One would think that noise is noise. It doesn't matter where the noise comes from. I mean, a car backfiring or a car horn firing off or people in the corridor. What's your question, Joe? Yes, the question's asked. Councillor Wilkie: No, you're expressing an opinion there. Councillor Jurisevic: Sorry, I'm trying to allude to the question. Councillor Wilkie: Well, cut to the chase, please. Councillor Jurisevic: Is noise noise? I mean, is all of this noise understood and incorporated in the understanding of what noise is measured when noise is measured?
01:05:00 Speaker 1: Like I said before is that, yes, you'd get all kinds of noises at different parts of the day or night might be one off. But what we look at here is the noise over a period of time and the consistency of the noise and the exposure. So if this club is operating or this surf club operates every day, it means that people will be exposed to that noise. Councillor Jurisevic: So it doesn't matter what form of noise takes, that noise is measured and calculated in the calculations here? Yes. Thank you. Councillor Wilkie: Councillor, the amendment before us is whether we defer this to Thursday night. Any other councillors wish to express an opinion whether it's to Thursday night or a different date? Speaker 6: And just be specific to that to start and bring that information particularly around Thursday night. Councillor Jurisevic: I'm happy to. I'm happy to support the amendment to defer to the ordinary meeting.
01:06:00 I don't think that makes any difference on the on the process here. It just means that we don't have to make a recommendation from this committee going forward. And we can make a final decision on Thursday night as we have the opportunity to do at any stage anyway. Councillor Finzel: Okay. Can I just make it? Yes, can. Do I have to ask a question now? No, you can speak to the amendment. Okay. Or you can ask a question. The amendment, not the applicant. So any applicant's request, they state that the acoustic testing criteria determines the maximum permitted noise level. And they want to make sure that it's unreasonable, that it wouldn't be considered unreasonable in the terms S187 of the Liquor Act in 1992. My concern is from a comment that, when I asked you a question about how to make sure that we get the compliance, and your answer back to me was that we want a consistent approach and both parties can act. Then someone else asked a question and you actually said that the liquor licensing people
01:07:00 are reluctant to share information. So my concern is moving forward. If I'm, you know, Mrs Brown up the road, this has been an ongoing issue, we have approved this, and the licensing people take over, you know, management of this, and they're reluctant to share information. How, moving forward, is the council going to address ongoing complaints back to council to get everyone back at the table to find equitable outcomes for the community living in the area when their amenity, which is what we're looking at, isn't unreasonable, and how do we resolve those issues? Good question. Speaker 1: Can I? Do you want to go? Yeah. So the, and I think that's a good question, is that because of privacy and other pieces of legislation. The information we collect, and that should be used for the purposes it's collected. It's the same like if somebody makes a request to us about details. So it's something that we work with the other agencies about is how much you can share that kind of information without disclosing personal information or identifiers.
01:08:00 But here in council, we in environmental health, for example, we have some general powers. And those powers under the Public Health Act is to ensure that we can maintain well-being of people. We have often used those general powers when there's other agencies involved. And basically saying that a member of the public seems to be impacted. We want to now consider what the health impact is as well as the well-being impact. So there's nothing stopping us from using those pieces of legislation to deal with these issues. And I can say that the Public Health Act, for example, has some clout over some of these regulations, for example, Regulation 40. If somebody is complaining that, listen, we're not getting the kind of satisfaction we need from a government agency, we can use that Public Health Act, which we designated for, to call for a more discussion or call for a resolution to that,
01:09:00 including making sure that the member of the public receives a satisfactory answer. All those issues are mitigated sufficiently. So yes, there might be concerns. There might be conditions and district approvals, et cetera. But we have some other powers that we could use to make those interventions. Councillor Wilkie: Councilors, are you happy for this matter to be deferred to the ordinary people? Speaker 3: Yes. Councillor Wilkie: Okay. Kim, do you have... Sorry. Speaker 3: Can I go further to Councillor Kimbrough's question? Can I just get to clarify that, in fact, the change to this condition, is it that we're passing on the compliance to the Office of Public Health? Yes. So that we both have an enforcement and compliance role, but it's an alignment with the state's, the Office of Liquor and Gambling standard. And they're linked to their liquor license.
01:10:00 And therefore, they also have a compliance and enforcement role. Councillor Finzel: That's right. Councillor Jurisevic: That's correct. Okay. I'll let that lead us to a further question then. Councillor Finzel: Thank you. Councillor Jurisevic: If we don't have the capability of measuring that, then we're not going to be able to do anything sound in the way that the Office of Liquor and Gambling regulation do, how do we then obtain that information? I think it's the question that Karen was... Speaker 1: Just to correct that, we do have capability to measure. So we have the devices that we need to measure. If it's too resource intensive to go out at 10 at night, et cetera, then we can always get a recognised independent qualified practitioner to do that on our behalf. So I think we have those accesses too. Councillor Wilkie: The amendment now becomes a motion, let the matter be deferred to the ordinary meeting
01:11:00 on Thursday night. Amelia is the only one who has spoken to this. Is there any further debate on this when we leave it for Thursday night? Speaker 3: Yes, we can. Councillor Wilkie: Okay, I'll put the motion. Those in favour? Okay, the motion is carried unanimously. Councilors, I want to call a five minute adjournment. Mayor Stewart: Call the break. Call the break. Thank you. Thank you.
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01:18:00 Speaker 7: Thank you. Mayor Stewart: Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Lorentson: Alright, Councilors, we're back.
01:19:00 We're back. Welcome back, viewers. Councillor Wilkie: And we're up to item six, which is an application to extend the currency period of development approval for a duplex dwelling and operational works at Five Park Prison at Sunshine Beach. Welcome, Tara. Thank you for your report. Thank you. Mayor Stewart: I take it from reading your report there's been considerable rejection from the owners of No. 7? Speaker 2: No, so there was a combined, it wasn't a combined application but it had previously been owned by the same owners. And then it was sold? It was sold separately. The design was together so they'd been told over the years, the new owners, look they kind of rely on each other for them to work. No. 5 lodged their request to extend, No. 7 didn't. So I did let them know that their application had actually lapsed and they had wanted to maybe look at doing an extension at that point.
01:20:00 But unfortunately under the legislation you can't sort of do a retrospective once it's lapsed, revive it. So I'd let them know that it's lapsed. And they didn't really have any... Mayor Stewart: They had no issues with them with No. 5 going ahead? Speaker 2: There was no comment on it. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: So let me just clarify, on an application like this there's no opportunity for submitters or objections? Speaker 2: Not for the extension, no. Councillor Lorentson: Tara, what other reasons other than funds and waiting for the right to market conditions has the applicant put forward this... Speaker 2: That was it. Councillor Lorentson: That was it. So they're not relying on any regulations under the Noosa plan, under the planning scheme, I think. No. So they're sold reasons. Okay. Yes.
01:21:00 Councillor Jurisevic: And just to confirm, how long has development application been before Council, sorry, approval... So it was approved in 2006. The original approval. So 14 years they've had to undertake works on this site. Yes. Mayor Stewart: Can I clarify something on page 21, please, Tara? It just says that under the Noosa plan 2006, the proposal does not comply with the building height and stories. But then here it says, it is however noted that the development is consistent with the carriage over the street, surrounding building, impediment three and four stories in height. Yes. Speaker 2: Okay. Yes. So a lot of that area was developed prior to the current scheme. Okay. So the definition of basements was different under the previous scheme. So what they designed was under the previous scheme. It was approved under the previous scheme. So basically it's quite consistent to look at with what is around that area. Yes. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I'm happy to move these recommendations.
01:22:00 I'll second. Can we move? Councillor Wilkie: I'll second. Move Council Stockwell, seconded Council Jurisevic. Council Stockwell? Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I think this one is fairly black and white. Having 14 years to... Yes. ...the development of the site and the action, a development approval is I think very generous to start with. There's a range of non-compliance with the way we currently look at development in accordance with the 2006 scheme and what is proposed in the new scheme. And therefore, it's appropriate that any future development of the site should be in keeping with the planning scheme in force at the time of that development. Councillor Jurisevic: John? Yes. It's clear that the approval granted here involves an approval that does not have implications for both sites, not only this site, but the adjoining site. And now that the sites have been sold, the potential for impact on the adjoining premises is evident. Again, 14 years has undergone and obviously there's a change in circumstances associated
01:23:00 with this. So I think I'll support the staff recommendation in going forward in that both applications need to be assessed on their own merits. Mayor Stewart: Thank you. Thank you. I would support it as well. Look, as Councillor Stockwell said, 14 years. If I'm correct, there's been five extensions, which is very generous. It doesn't comply with the definition of abasement. It doesn't comply with the height in stories. And bear in mind that this is very much looked at when given first approval, the two together. So on that basis, I vote in accordance with that staff recommendation. Thank you. Councillor Wilkie: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So the duplex was given preliminary approval in 2006 under the superseded planning scheme, an extension for two years in April 2010, another extension in 2012 to 2014, and other extensions from 2014 to 2016, 2016 to 2018, and 2018 to 2020.
01:24:00 As other councillors have said, there's been more than enough time to develop according to the original conditions. Since then, the development no longer meets the standards required under the existing or draft planning scheme. The original approvals reduce side boundary setbacks at the potential level. The Duplex would present its four storeys and duplexes would not be consistent with the new planning schemes in Kensington for the area of support for the recommendation. Mayor, councillors wish to speak. Brian, do you wish to close? I'll put the motion. Those in favour? That's carried unanimously. Speaker 2: Thank you, Tara. Thanks, Tara. Councillor Wilkie: We've got another one for you. Yes, I am. Now, you're on a roll. Okay, this is item seven, development application for reconfiguring a lot, one lot into two lots at 216 Black Mountain Road, Black Mountain. Questions, councillors? Yeah, a question if I may. Yes, Joe. Councillor Jurisevic: Page 46, paragraph at the bottom, states proposed lot is not an appropriate area to provide intended use on the site, being a rural residential lot due to topography, proposed house site location on a steep slope.
01:25:00 The proposed site, house site at 300 square metres also does not comply with the specific outcome 01, table 1469, which requires a minimum house site area of 1,000 square metres. I'm assuming that the minimum house site of 1,000 square metres in an area such as this is to allow for appropriate effluent disposal, given that there is no water and sewage or no sewage in the area. Speaker 2: Yes, predominantly, yes. Councillor Jurisevic: Thank you. Second question. The draft planning scheme, where it mentions in page 49, minimum lot size under the draft planning scheme has been reduced to one and a half hectares and a minimum lot of 30 metres. So under the draft planning scheme, the minimum lot sizes are acceptable, but under the existing planning scheme, they're not.
01:26:00 That's correct, yes. Thank you. But either way, under both planning schemes, 1,000 square metres is still the minimum house lot size? Speaker 2: I'd have to check under the draft. The bigger issue, I guess, in... Councillor Jurisevic: That was the follow-on question that came into my head, is that it's consistent with 1,000 square metres, because I think that's still the minimum footprint for effluent disposal from memory. Speaker 2: I'll have to check. But with the current lot design, we did have discussions with the applicant about the 1.5 and the draft scheme, and that it would maybe be considered appropriate. Councillor Jurisevic: Or if you could clarify before Thursday's meeting that the lot size for effluent disposal is still a minimum of 1,000 square metres, that would be appreciated. My recollection is that didn't change with the draft planning scheme. Speaker 8: Yeah. The requirement for steep slope didn't change. Yeah, no. Councillor Jurisevic: No, I get that. Right. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: So just a question. In the capability assessment for effluent disposal areas on very steep land like this, it requires significantly larger or different treatments. Is that something our scheme differentiates on?
01:27:00 Speaker 8: Our current scheme doesn't differentiate on that. I'll have to check the new scheme. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: There's a likelihood of the effluent coming out down the slope increases, so therefore you tend to have... Speaker 8: Yeah. And what you sometimes find on these sites is they end up going to pump out because it can't work. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah, one more thing on the steep slope. Speaker 8: Which is an expensive problem. Councillor Jurisevic: There's a run downhill would likely be into a waterway? Speaker 8: If there's a waterway nearby, yes. Mayor Stewart: I've got a question for you. Just on page 46, the program is not supplied for above-the-limit, but we're completing a lot because it's a minimum of two hectares. But under the new plan, it does comply, doesn't it, because it's 1.5 hectares? Yes. Okay. Speaker 8: So, Councillor, if that was the only issue with this application, it's one that we would recommend approval for, given the new scheme is substantially advanced, and it's not considered that it's likely to change. But there's more issues with this one. Councillor Wilkie: So the steep slope is an issue.
01:28:00 The steep slope is an issue. Yeah. Councillor Lorentson: And the koala, South East Queensland koala conservation strategy, can you talk a little bit about the koala priority areas, Kerry? There's a koala habitat area. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Does that look normal? Councillor Lorentson: The core habitat area. Yeah. The subject site's now mapped as a koala priority area, and it contains, of course, a core habitat area. Speaker 8: So on page 45, there's an excerpt from the mapping from the state regulation around koala habitat, which shows that the whole site is priority area, but only part of it is core koala habitat area. So the development wouldn't be prohibited under that. It would have to be removing vegetation from the core koala habitat area for it to be prohibited. Okay. In a priority area, there would just be conditions typically set if council wanted to approve this development. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: So my question's probably to the director, because it's a strategic planning question.
01:29:00 In the review of the scheme, we did reduce the lot size, and particularly that affected this area around the Black Mountain Range Road, there is a significant area that would appear to have the ability to make 1.5 hectare lots, but have the similar level of constraint in terms of steep land. So the question is, is this a significant issue that we have to consider in terms of setting precedents for future subdivision applications in that area? Speaker 3: You're right. You can be closer. Sure. Yeah. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Thank you. Speaker 3: Thanks, Councillor Stockwell. Yes, there has been a general reduction in the lot size in the new planning scheme, and this area is one of them, but that the reduction in subdivision size, it still requires consideration of constraints, land constraints.
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01:30:00 Steep slope being one of them, biodiversity being another, flooding being another. So the reduced subdivision size does allow for some, some potential in some areas, but it doesn't actually make some difference in other areas because of the land constraints that do exist in some of those areas. Yes, you're correct. Does that have to do with the landslides hazard? There's a number of constraints in some of these areas. It might be, in this one, it's sloping sites and landslides, one of them, but in other areas, other constraints may still exist even though you've got to reduce subdivision size, which may mean, that you don't have further development potential anyway. You probably, we've actually done an analysis. Some sites don't have further development subdivision potential because of the constraints, but some sites do. Councillor Finzel: Thank you.
01:31:00 Councillor Wilkie: Councillor, is there no further questions? Anyone care to move the recommendation? Councillor Jurisevic: No more. Councillor Wilkie: Councillor Stockwell? Also. Seconded by Councillor Jurisdict. I thought he'd go then. Stryon? Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I think this is a really important decision, but as I said, in the advertising of the draft scheme, there was quite a lot of people concerned about the potential of the reduction in rural residential size lots and what that might mean for increasing development. And when we researched this, we identified that you had to be within the rural living area. I think that's what it's called. Under the SEQ regional plan, and you also had, in this particular area, large lots that were there because they were very steep land. The figure of 25% is a very well-established figure in terms of suitability for rural residential subdivisions. In fact, my first job as a planner was a subdivisions planner, and the first policy change I made was to adopt that 25% limit in the rural residential subdivisions in 19 years.
01:32:00 In fact, that's about the limit of where you want to put stock on, in terms of the level it has at about 35%. High-stake residents think we don't put stock on slopes that high. So they are not just for the mass movement, but also for general erosion, as I said, for managing the water processes with effluent areas, and for a range of reasons. Not the least of them is the utility of the lot. If you have to do huge cut and fills, which creates an aesthetic problem for our rural landscape, and all the rest of the land is 25% or more steep than that, you're basically living in a constrained house site with a lot of land that you need specialist mowing equipment on. So you don't create a usable rural residential lot.
01:33:00 You create a house site in the middle of a rural residential area with a whole lot of potential constraints. And that's why I do recommend that the 2006 requirements and the new scheme requirements are things that we should take into consideration. And therefore, the staff recommendation is one I support. Councillor Wilkie: Anybody else wish to speak to the motion to close, Brian, again? Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I can't argue with the argument so far. Councillor Wilkie: I like what you hear. Those in favour? It's carried unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Charlie. Item O, development application for material change of use for an ancillary dwelling unit at unit 133 Gateway Drive, Noosaville. Kerry, are we assessing a detached house or a unit? Speaker 8: Well, they've proposed it as a caretaker's residence, but I think it's just a house. Councillor Wilkie: It's a house? Speaker 8: Yeah. Councillor Wilkie: Because of its size and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms?
01:34:00 Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yeah. Speaker 8: Sorry, I think we do have the dean on the line. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: And the question, I think, goes to the confusion that may be around is that this is not a house sitting at the back of the industrial area because it's a defined term for a detached house. Speaker 8: That's right. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Basically, it's a separate household with not sufficient nexus to the industrial use to determine the caretaker accommodation. Councillor Finzel: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 6: Nadine, can you hear us? Okay. Hang on. Hang on. I just need to turn you up a bit. Try again. Can you hear us now? I can hear you. That's good. We can hear you too. So, you can get lots of questions now. Councillor Jurisevic: So, okay. Nadine or Kerry, on page 56, the report alludes to a minor change of existing approval on 27 June 2018
01:35:00 Caretakers Residence at Unit 4 of 40 Gateway Drive. Can you explain how Caretakers Residence at 4 of 40 Gateway Drive, which is on the other side of the road, relates to this unit complex on 33 Gateway Drive? I'm assuming that they were all part of one development approval at the time? Speaker 8: That's right. There was one approval for this extension of Gateway Drive for all these warehouse unit sort of developments down there. That's right. Councillor Jurisevic: Do all the components of the elements of development here still exist under the one ownership? Speaker 8: No, it's been titled. They're all separately titled, but they still remain under the one approval. Councillor Jurisevic: Okay, so there's still only the one approval and that one approval and that amendment to that approval was for one Caretakers Residence for the entire allotment. Speaker 8: Yeah, Nadine may wish to expand on that one, Nadine. I don't know much about that one. Speaker 7: The previous approval, the higher order approval, I should say, is relating to an exchange that was requested to permit a Caretakers Residence.
01:36:00 It wasn't specifically identified to caretake the entire 12 lots that was previously approved in the higher order approval. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Question, the reason we're looking at this one for a refusal and not having enough nexus as a caretaker unit, what is the risk if we start approving units as caretaker units but they're let out for other reasons or they're basically
01:37:00 used as a residence within an industrial area? What are the risks with just having general tendencies within an industrial area? Speaker 8: Well there is a significant risk. This is our primary industrial area in Noosa. So residential uses and industrial uses don't go well together. They're incompatible uses. A residential use would start to inhibit and impact on the ability of genuine industrial uses operating. So this seems to be a little bit of a trend that's occurring in the area at the moment. We've had a number of applications in the area for ancillary dwelling units and they're just not demonstrating any need for ancillary dwelling unit. They seem to be proposing it as a means to provide more affordable housing. But the problem is where they have that potential to impact on the genuine operations of the industrial area.
01:38:00 Deputy Mayor Stockwell: So in terms of the trend, are there other sites or perhaps our business centres where the new scheme would encourage this sort of use? Speaker 8: Yes, that's exactly right. Our current scheme and our new scheme both encourage sort of shop-top housing where these sorts of styles of accommodation could be made available and built. So through all our business centres you're able to do commercial on the ground floor and residential above the ground floor. For small dwelling units. We haven't had anyone take that up just as yet in our business centre. But certainly there's that opportunity. Councillor Jurisevic: One would suggest that the reason for a caretaker's residence in an industrial area is that the industrial area isn't as fully occupied as a commercial area would be outside of working hours.
01:39:00 Is that the reason for caretaker's residence being proposed? Speaker 8: Yeah, that would be a genuine reason. Historically we've mostly seen the caretaker's residence proposed in association with self-storage units because it provides that security, a sense of security for people storing their goods there on site. Councillor Jurisevic: One would think with a self-storage capacity is that people would access that or have the capacity to access that after hours. And in the event that something doesn't function there is someone there to facilitate that. Speaker 8: That's right. Councillor Jurisevic: One of the reasons that appears to be a need for these caretaker's residences is security. Is there any other conditions that we can apply for other methodologies of security to be implemented before a caretaker's residence is approved? I.e. that all buildings are alarmed or a security system is in place? Security lighting? Security lighting. Speaker 8: CCTV cameras?
01:40:00 Councillor Jurisevic: CCTV cameras and the like. Speaker 8: That hasn't been our practice. I guess that's something we have left to the developer and the landowner to determine what's needed for their property and their business. And we'd have to write a particular code in the planning scheme to impose those sorts of requirements. I guess for me I feel that there's a need. That's probably best left to the business owner and the developer to determine what's most appropriate depending on their business and how they operate. Whether they've got outdoor storage or it's internal. Councillor Jurisevic: It seems by facilitating a caretaker's residence they were accepting that that's an accepted means of providing security on site in certain circumstances. Speaker 8: Yeah, it is. Councillor Jurisevic: The other provision in the planning scheme, I noticed that in this lot with regard to 44 gateway or 4 or 40 gateway drive, the caretaker's residence there, the proximity of this to that, is there a minimum distance that we recommend within the planning scheme between caretaker's residences?
01:41:00 Speaker 7: The Dean? Councillor Jurisevic: In one development? Speaker 7: In the current planning scheme there's no distance separated. There's no separation distance specified. In the draft scheme it indicates a minimum of 100 metres between caretaker's premises. Councillor Wilkie: Thank you. Speaker 7: Sorry. Councillor Wilkie: Thank you. Just on the point of security, the report suggests that the applicant's arguments about improving security are not accepted because of lack of surveillance opportunity, replacement of windows. Am I reading this correct in saying that actually security could be compromised? This dwelling actually, because of its layout, poses a security risk.
01:42:00 Speaker 8: The Dean, do you want to add to that one? Councillor Wilkie: It doesn't address the issues of security adequately. Speaker 7: Yeah. Yes. My assessment has come to the conclusion that this could potentially compromise the security that they're seeking in the first place. The fighting of the caretaker's residence for the purpose of providing security in the first place does not facilitate easy natural surveillance to the existing access points to the building and the removal windows proposed in the rear window have no natural surveillance during day or night because of no nearby visual contact from the rear of the building. It's very isolated and there's a wide treed drainage reserve between any potential natural surveillance points. So it has the potential to compromise any safety and security issues that they may already be having.
01:43:00 Councillor Jurisevic: From a fire safety perspective, I'm thinking of a unit complex that has had something similar here. If there were two separate occupants of the one building, one living on the mezzanine, one occupying the mezzanine floor and a tenant on the ground floor, wouldn't there need to be fire separation between the two occupants? Speaker 8: Yes. That's correct. That's right. And that issue would be addressed by the building certifier if council was to approve the caretaker's residence. And it may require some redesign or- Councillor Jurisevic: Okay. That would go down to how the building was implemented. Speaker 8: Yeah. Materials used. Yep. Okay. Mayor Stewart: Jay? Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: That was it. Mayor Stewart: Kerry, I have a question. I mean, the justification or the reason they put forward is it's for security but it will
01:44:00 also only be used part time. All the tenant stores, company vehicles and building materials on site. So from time to time. Is there any justification other than that of why there is a two bedroom, two bathroom dwelling that they put forward? Speaker 8: Not that I understand. Dean, was there anything further they put forward to us? Speaker 7: No. No further information provided. Speaker 8: Okay. Councillor Lorentson: Thank you. My only question, Kerry, is would this recommendation or refusal be consistent with decisions that we've made in the nature of the building? So, you're saying that the buildings were in precincts like the Venture Drive precincts or other industrial zones? Speaker 8: Yeah. So, we have had a recent one where there was 16 and Story Dwelling units proposed at the end of Gateway Drive, which was refused. And we're currently in appeal with that matter. There has been a number of others where offices have approved them.
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01:45:00 And I have to say we've probably erred there. We should have looked at it a little bit closer in terms of the need for those caretakers residents, so that will be held up in court to us when we do go forward with that other appeal, Gateway Drive. But it's really come to our attention given the amount of enquiries that we're getting around these caretakers residents and they're not genuine caretakers, it's caused us to have a look at them a lot closer than perhaps we were. Councillor Jurisevic: My understanding is during the discussions for the new planning scheme, one of the considerations in this precinct as an artisan zone is that someone may, you know, be implementing potting works and have artworks in the oven, for example, in a kiln or something like that and need to be on site to manage those items being in a kiln or something like that overnight. Was that... Did that go through in the draft planning scheme as a consideration for how that precinct may be utilised?
01:46:00 Speaker 8: Yes, so that is in the Venture Drive precinct in the new scheme to allow that sort of artisan approach to those sort of activities in this area. Councillor Jurisevic: So is that in essence a caretaker's residence that we were approving in this precinct? Speaker 8: No, there was never discussion about having sort of shop-top housing, if you like, if those sort of businesses can demonstrate a genuine need for caretaker's residence. Then we would look at that. But each one has to be looked at on its own merit. Councillor Wilkie: Thank you. Given the lack of surveillance of... If this was approved, a two-bedroom, two-bathroom residence upstairs in this premise, lack of windows, lack of surveillance of... Well, no one can really understand what's going on there. Was there any concern amongst officers about what it could potentially be used for? Speaker 8: Well, the concern... Councillor Wilkie: You're taking the applicant at face value. Speaker 8: Well, the concern is that they haven't demonstrated that need as a caretaker's residence. So officers are concerned that that's not what's really being proposed here, that they are proposing a detached house and we'll let it out to other persons on the property.
01:47:00 Councillor Jurisevic: My understanding with a residential-type establishment anyway is there, from the building code, there'd be minimum requirements for light and ventilation and the like. I can only see... I can only see... There's a couple of windows here in the bedrooms and the living area. Would that... Do you have any idea whether that would pass the living requirements for a... Under the building code? Speaker 8: We haven't done an assessment under the building code. So I don't know the answer to that. Okay. Councillor Wilkie: Councillor's got a recommendation before us. I've got a question. Karen's got a question. Yeah. Councillor Finzel: Just with regards to the accommodation size, they've proposed it's 79.6 metres. We normally do the caretaker's one at 65 as one bedroom. If they were prepared to go back to that size and address those needs we discussed today, would that change where we're at?
01:48:00 Speaker 8: So under the current scheme, caretaker's residence can actually be up to 155 metres. Oh, it is? Okay. It's under the new scheme that they can go to 65. Councillor Finzel: Oh, okay. Speaker 8: Bringing the size down starts to address the issue, but it's got to be subordinate. So I would expect sort of a one bedroom, small unit. Yeah. So I think there's a number of issues to address here. Yeah. Nadine, have you had some discussions with the applicant around that at all? Speaker 7: Sorry, I couldn't quite hear what your exec's response would be regarding information about the accommodation. I've had discussions with the applicant. I went back to the applicant to ask them to demonstrate the need for the development, and they were very vague on that. They didn't really give me much to go on.
01:49:00 There seems to be a perception that if they're the owner, they can automatically have an option to have one. So that really wasn't a very strong argument as to why there was a need for the caretaker's residence in this instance. Does that answer your question, Karen? Sorry? Speaker 8: I guess the issue is that it's not just around the size. They haven't demonstrated a need for the . You know, making it smaller would assist and bring it more into compliance, but it doesn't overcome the issue around, you know, is there a genuine need for the caretaker's residence. Councillor Lorentson: But there is an opportunity for a negotiated outcome in this case, that if they meet some of our conditions, that an auxiliary caretaker, proper caretaker residence may be
01:50:00 satisfied. Speaker 8: Yeah, I think the bigger issue here is need. If they can demonstrate that it is genuinely needed, I think there's room to move in talking about the size of the unit. Okay. Speaker 6: So that would require a new application? Speaker 8: Require a new application or discussion during an appeal and a change to the application. Councillor Wilkie: All right, councillors. We have a recommendation before us. Anyone care to move that? Councillor Jurisevic: Not yet. I'll move. Councillor Wilkie: Move. Councillor Jurisevic. Seconded, please. Seconded. Councillor Stewart. Quicker off the mark. Councillor Jurisevic. Seconded. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah, look, I support the staff recommendation here. This does appear to be nothing more than an attempt to establish a two bedroom unit in the industrial area above an existing shop, but more like the old mixed use type store that you used to find in the general street in residential areas in the past.
01:51:00 I don't think that's what this area is intended for. There seems to be no caretaker's residence for the purpose of added security and the like. I'm not sure if this is providing added security for the entire complex or just the individual unit. And there's no mention of any other security measures being implemented to warrant the need for, or having not succeeded to warrant the need for a caretaker on site in this case. So I'll be supporting the staff recommendation. I believe the two bedroom nature of the unit is more intended for a residential purpose than for a caretaker. Mayor Stewart: I also support that. I do think that a two bedroom, two bathroom unit here is a little more than a caretaker's residence. The reason put forward for security and not being there full time aren't justification enough, I don't think, to warrant the approval.
01:52:00 I think it was an opportunity to revisit where there is a genuine need and perhaps a smaller footprint in regard to maybe something with one bedroom and a bathroom, and one bathroom and maybe something with two bathrooms. So that's something that we can look at down the track. But I certainly think that a two bedroom, two bathroom sort of small unit style residence is not in accordance nor sort of fitting with the area and what was intended. So I'll be supporting the staff. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Mr Stockwell. I think it's important that we do send a clear message to the market that they've got this wrong. The concept that a 153 metre warehouse requires two or more people to secure occasional stock is not a valid planning grant for a secondary or a subordinate building. I think it's clear that we do want to ensure there's provisions within the planning scheme,
01:53:00 so then when there is a genuine need for a two bedroom, two bathrooms or a bathroom, In my memory, the only recent one where there was a case that we supported was a larger chocolate factory that also had some forward-facing industrial tourism element to it. But it was a large processing plant looking at exporting product, where there was processes that could be going overnight on a 24-hour cycle that you'd want someone on site to be able, if there was problems with manufacture, that you could intervene with that. So I think those larger processes, and I think the new scheme has sort of set some criteria around 1,000 to 2,000 square metres. They're the sort of things that you look at where there is a genuine need for someone to be there to ensure.
01:54:00 So I do think it's important that we do set the line in the sand, as we did for the larger development down the road, and just let it be known that caretakers, residents, and ancillary and subordinates are uses that require them, not just to create an extra place for someone to live. I do think that if we send that clear message, then we will start to see that. I think that we've got a lot of interest in those business centres, both in the hinterland and on the coast, where this nature of use is proposed and encouraged. That we do want to see mixed-use development. We do want to see people living near or above their businesses, but it's in an area where there is a higher level of amenity and where it's unlikely to affect the reverse amenity effect on adjacent industrial premises. Councillor Wilkie: Yeah. Look, common sense suggests that there's no two uses that are less compatible than residential and industrial.
01:55:00 And I commend the staff and the councillors for taking a precautionary approach in assessing this application, which would approve a two bedroom, two bathroom residence in an industrial estate. As Councillor Stockwell mentioned, it raises all sorts of issues of reverse amenity. Whereas if a councillor is given an approval to a residence, does that imply some rights to have their peace and quiet protected at all times when they're in an area where industrial type activities, with the noise and smells associated with that, is quite common and where you want that to take place? I applaud a precautionary approach to this particular application. I hope the councillors wish to speak to the motion. Joe, do you wish to close? Councillor Jurisevic: I think it's all been said, but I'm glad that Brian and yourself brought up the issue of reverse amenity.
01:56:00 Whilst it's suggested in the report that it's only a temporary capacity to be provided as a caretaker's lot, not to be lived in at all times, it does run the risk of being extended beyond that. And then, of course, yes, noise in the industrial area becoming an issue for the person that has suddenly taken up residence in the area. So, I support staff recommendations. Put the motion in favour. Councillor Wilkie: That's unanimous. Speaker 8: Thanks, Nadine. Councillor Wilkie: Thanks, Carrie. Thanks, Nadine. Thanks, Nadine. Thanks, Nadine. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Can you fix up our revenue, Tom? Speaker 6: Michael's online. Councillor Wilkie: Can you hear Michael OK? Yes. Good. Welcome, Michael. We're at item nine, the financial report. We've got Michael online for a few minutes. If there are any questions from councillors, any questions about the way the data is represented, the graphs, and...
01:57:00 Councillor Jurisevic: Michael, given that this is the first month into the end of April, into the, really into the major implications of COVID being felt, how does, I see in the report you've got some indications of how this goes for council finances going forward for the rest of the financial year? Are there any major areas of concern that we may not have addressed? Speaker 4: No. Look, in terms of the forecast position, I've probably indicated in the report there's a number of areas where revenue will be degraded. So, particularly, as you're all aware, there's a number of areas where revenue will be degraded. As you're all aware, we've got closed facilities where significant revenues come in, in particular the, obviously, the NAC, holiday parks, and so on.
01:58:00 So, look, we're looking at approximately a $2.5 million impact from COVID on our revenue through to the end of the financial year, which will, obviously, that forecast revenue will probably, instead of getting a roughly the $100 million, we're probably looking at around the $97.5 million. But, obviously, with variable costs. So, we're looking at approximately $1 million or so of variable cost savings to offset that revenue shortfall. But, also, in terms of the organisation's response to belt tightening a little bit to, obviously, manage some uncertainty and risk, given it's a one in 100 year event, there's at least a half million dollars in other savings that we've been able to quarantine to minimise that deficit position at year end. So, we're looking at approximately between a $500 and a million dollar operating deficit at 30 June. So, look, in terms of our overall cash flows, that's manageable.
01:59:00 Our sustainability is not compromised. However, obviously, going forward, that's, you know, that'll be discussed in the budget workshops in terms of what that means to future budgets and our 10 year financial plan. Councillor Jurisevic: I'm suggesting, I'm, I'm suggesting those are worse in terms of what that means to the current state's approach to reopening of facilities? Speaker 4: Yeah, well, no, they're based on, if you look at the current state's response or the reopening provisions, the reality is if the forecast that we've put together, assuming closed facilities, Okay. facilities open down at the current arrangements, it'd be a worse position given that our variable costs would be higher than any revenues that would come in. Councillor Jurisevic: Okay. I've got you.
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02:00:00 Speaker 6: So, Michael, just to explain that. So, for example, if we open a full amount for 10 people to go in there, it would actually cost more than having a close. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah. Yeah. Correct. Sorry. Sorry. So, so you're, you're looking at the best operating procedure based on the, the, the, the, the current scenario that the state are, are, are applying to us. Speaker 4: Yeah, that's correct. And the reality is that they were only announced a week or so ago. So, you know, we've been trying to react to this crisis, you know, a month ago. So it's a little bit difficult to try and rework numbers on a daily basis. So we've adopted, you know, the, the provisions we thought would be in place, and that was closure through to the end of June. But obviously there's, things are changing quickly at the moment. Councillor Jurisevic: Okay. Thank you. Mayor Stewart: Michael, it's Claire here. I have a similar question. I think I asked you last week about, you know, everyone's so keen to get back. And at what point with the staggered reopen, does the opening of these facilities become economically viable?
02:01:00 And so I guess that was my question is how are we, are we, and, and you, you're in the process of looking at that. Is that very much dependent upon those health directives from, from the state? Speaker 4: Yeah, look, it is. I think currently under those provisions, you know, 10 people at a time isn't viable. Councillor Lorentson: Yeah. Speaker 4: I think even 20, possibly not. I think we're looking more at, particularly for our facilities, obviously the J, the leisure centre and the, the product centre. We're currently analysing what that means for the holiday parks. There could be some opportunity there. However, we're sort of doing some break even analysis at the moment to see, you know, what are the minimum numbers or occupancy levels there to ensure that, you know, we don't actually lose money if we reopen. And there's a, at least a break even point where we can attempt to get these facilities open without compromising rate cuts. So, you know, we're looking at those equity and the bottom line.
02:02:00 Speaker 6: So what we're going through is the same as what, you know, large restaurants are going through at the moment. There are 8, 10, 3, 8, 10 people, probably not. But if you've got a 10, 10 seater restaurant, it probably does. So the issue for us is the scale. Councillor Jurisevic: I'm desperate of taking care of it somewhere. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: So my, my question is probably to the CEO. These decisions are yours until June 30th? Speaker 6: No. No. We're making these operationally within. So my delegation is finished. That delegation . So we're dealing with this operationally in the sense that, you know, for example, that we'll actually be looking at that and going, well, what's the best time that you can balance community needs operationally and financial needs? How do we, if we have a safe workplace for our staff? Well, that's the other consideration. So they're just working through each of those through carry content and have a look at whether it makes sense to do that. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: My question was going to the point that it won't necessarily just be a, because we're
02:03:00 a government, not a profit making business, it won't just be on whether we'll make it financially viable or about whether we think that the benefits to the community outweigh the short term loss from operation. Councillor Jurisevic: But also under delegation, my understanding is some of those decisions made did take us up to the end of the financial years. So yeah. Speaker 6: Yeah. Not in relation to opening or closing facilities. It's certainly in relation to leases and things like that. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Councillor Lorentson: Michael, in regards to cost savings, I've just got a few questions. I'm assuming that we define our buses as essential services. I'm assuming that we define our buses as essential services. Have we reduced the number of buses or frequency of buses during this COVID-19 period? Speaker 6: The council doesn't run the bus service.
02:04:00 That's run by a transit link. The only buses that we pay for are the ones at Easter and Christmas. So we actually either, if you like, will pay a transit link for that service, but otherwise we don't have any bus service that we would pay for. Councillor Jurisevic: So the only diminishment of bus services that council responsibility was the one over Easter where we did not undertake service. Speaker 6: So the only reason that they sort of repaid money out of the transport, the same with transport. Sure. Councillor Lorentson: Solar power. We've got a number of council buildings and commercial buildings with unused solar power. Is there an opportunity, A, to sell this power back to the grid or have we got solar battery storage to collect the energy that's not being used? Speaker 4: Well, there's no battery storage in place. I think that technology hasn't yet been explored by council, only sort of the last couple of years have been panels. But in terms of selling back to the grid under our pricing arrangements, any unused solar, that happens.
02:05:00 So that obviously is part of sort of like solar panels at home. And if any excess, any excess solar to go back into the grid, actually, it becomes a savings to council. So I'm hoping that's happening at the moment. Councillor Lorentson: Has council encouraged or incentivised businesses and households to purchase batteries, solar batteries? Speaker 4: No. Oh, look, that's probably not my area, so I'd have to take that on notice. Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't believe so, Amelia. And Annie, if you just have a chat to Annie Nolan about that, she'll be able to answer that. I'm pretty sure that's not the case at the moment. Councillor Jurisevic: No, but my understanding is then the community, the community organisation has been offering advice and facilitating advice to the community and businesses for those opportunities. And we've provided funding to that organisation. Councillor Wilkie: Kim's got a comment on that. There's a service that the council offers as well.
02:06:00 Yeah, that's right. Speaker 3: We haven't provided any incentives for that, but we do have a... Come forward, Kim. Sorry. Yeah, so we haven't provided any incentives. And Councillor Jurisevic's right. Zen Inc. has been promoting that opportunity for our residents. But we also have a, through our website, we have a program that provides free advice and links to providers for people who want to do solar or battery. So, yeah, we subsidise that free advice, but it's a free service to all our residents and businesses via our website. And there's been some good take-up of that as well. Councillor Jurisevic: And local suppliers being preferred suppliers. Speaker 3: Yep, local suppliers being... Yep. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Not wanting to cut out a lovely conversation. We're dealing with the financial report. I think questions and commentaries should be related to the financial report. Councillor Wilkie: Well, I guess savings. Savings related to... Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yeah, that was fine. I think it was a good one. Yeah, advice to businesses is for that. Councillor Lorentson: With no tourists, Michael, what's the potential impact on asset management and the associated maintenance programs?
02:07:00 Will there be a cost saving there? And has that been factored into our financial report? Speaker 4: Well, there's obviously two components. There's the operating budget and then there's the capital budget. The capital budget is forecast to be spent, I think we're forecasting pretty much that $30 or $29 million to be spent up to 30 June with a minor, I think, $2 or $3 million carryover of funds for unfinished projects. So, in terms of asset management, you know, a decision was made a few days ago to resurface haste management. So, there's a lot of roadworks going on at the moment, Council are probably aware of in terms of Hilton Terrace and so on. So, there's no sort of, there hasn't been any degradation of delivering capital works in terms of just general ongoing operating maintenance of facilities and so on.
02:08:00 That's also occurring. So, where facilities are being currently... So, where facilities are being currently closed, managers are taking that opportunity to, you know, undertake any preventative or reactive maintenance that was formed part of their budgets. Speaker 6: Probably have to add to that, feedback I'm getting from the outdoor staff is that we're able to get through some of the capital works programs a bit quicker at the moment. That was the question I was going to, that was the question I was going to follow on with, with regard to... The speed has actually picked up a bit ahead of some of the programs. That's good. Yeah. So, there's a couple of weeks ahead there, as well. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Weather would have been a bearing in that as well, and hasn't had the rhythm of cash at the moment either. Councillor Wilkie: Sure, yeah. Mayor Stewart: Yeah. Yeah. Michael, total cash on hand at the end of April 2020, $67.4 million. Councillor Finzel: Yeah?
02:09:00 Mayor Stewart: Sorry, yeah? Sorry, yeah. How liquid is that? Speaker 4: Very liquid. Most of that is funded, currently invested with Queensland Treasury in their cash fund, so it's effectively having it on call. Great. So, look, that is liquid cash on hand. Mayor Stewart: Great. And in regards to unity water distributions, we're at about $300,000 or a bit more a year on that. Is that correct? Speaker 6: A couple of million. Mayor Stewart: A couple of million, is it? Speaker 6: Michael, just to explain how much we get off unity water and how that's made up on an annual basis. Speaker 4: Yeah, so, look, we receive about $5.6 million a year from unity water through a combination of dividends, tax payments and interest on the loan they have with us. And that's fixed, so regardless of any potentially there operating or financial performance, those returns are guaranteed to ourselves and also the other shareholders,
02:10:00 Unity, Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast. Mayor Stewart: Is that paid annually, like once a year? And if so, when is that paid? Speaker 4: It's paid, it's a combination of payments. The tax equivalent is paid monthly. Yep. Speaker 4: The dividends paid twice a year, an interim dividend and a final dividend. And the interest payments, actually are also paid, I think, quarterly. Right, thank you. Mayor Stewart: And the $1.4 million we received in interest, is that from the money that, obviously, that we've got in Queensland Treasury and any other banks? Speaker 4: So, currently, it's pretty much all in Queensland Treasury and with some still retained for working capital in the Commonwealth Bank. Speaker 6: Cool. Thanks, Michael. If you have a look on the bottom of page 74. That's right. It's very busy. So, what that's designed to do is show you where we've got money invested at any one time.
02:11:00 So, if you look back at May 19, you know, at the beginning of that grant, you can see we had some of the Bendigo turned to Poulter, some with the National Bank turned to Poulter, some called, they've got the big blue one in Queensland Treasury Corporation, and that's where the interest rates are going down. Those are the best rates, so we've got more money into that. Councillor Jurisevic: Michael, just relating to the Mayor's first question, with regard to liquidity, all of that cash is not free cash, elements of it would be constrained, I would imagine? Speaker 4: Yeah, that's correct. There are constrained components, which is obviously reflects unspent levies and so on. Developer contributions received are currently constrained. So, yeah, look, I can't give you that figure offhand, but yes, it does include restricted components. Councillor Jurisevic: Just wanted to clarify that it wasn't restricted. It wasn't all free cash that there were restrictions to. Very good.
02:12:00 I just saw our eyes lighting up. Speaker 4: I think the thing tonight, too, is, look, at the end of it, we're still forecasting a balance of around the $44 million at year end, because we're spending around $13 million or $26 million between now and then Speaker 4: on materials, employee costs and capital. So, that will be spent over the next two months. Councillor Lorentson: Two more questions from me. In regards to operating grants and subsidies, business rent relief of property owned and managed by Council, after our last conversation, have we given any more thought to establishing a criteria? Speaker 4: Yes, so look. For providing rent relief, yeah. Yeah, we will be, obviously, the current arrangements are in place until 30 June. Yep. As part of the development of next year's budget, we are looking at applying the Federal Government career conduct provisions in terms of commercial rents.
02:13:00 And some of those assumptions will be brought to Council as part of the budget workshops for discussion. Councillor Lorentson: Fantastic. And also something I raised in our last conversation in regards to materials and services. Is there an opportunity or can I request that in future financial reports we actually separate consultants and legal fees and not include it under one head, given that development assessment legal appeal costs were almost a million bucks. So it would be just great to have that in black and white. Yeah, sure. Speaker 4: We'll take that on board and we'll rework the report to highlight those two particular cost lines.
02:14:00 Yeah. Speaker 6: Sure. Just on that. Mike, you could probably even do it in the attachment one, but it's been just broken out. That would be fantastic. On the line item there. Councillor Lorentson: Yep. In regards to legal costs, it's $159,000 above the year to date, which equals $999,000. So that's $144,000 of the million dollars budget spent. My question, this is just again a recommendation if we're looking at cost savings. Have we actually investigated in hiring an in-house planning and environment legal expert? And my other question is, who does Council give the bulk of this legal work to? Speaker 6: I can probably answer both of those. Yes. To answer your first question, yes. We have looked at that a couple of times over the years, about whether or not it would make sense to have an in-house council that counsels each other some. And it's still something I'm thinking about. I think it's worth looking at. The current work at the moment, the vast majority, not all, but the vast majority of
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02:15:00 the work goes to Wakefield Sites, Council's campaign lawyer. At some stage, Wake will retire. He's going to have an age where that's probably going to occur. And I think that would be the trigger for us to look at whether or not we have an in-house lawyer to help manage that process. Councillor Lorentson: How long have we engaged Wakefield Sites and Council before? Speaker 6: He's done the majority of Council's planning work for, I'm guessing, 30 years. Wow. Okay. Councillor Jurisevic: I think they came up in our conversation last week. Speaker 6: We've obviously used other terms as well. But yeah, I think that is the stage. I've had this discussion within the INVEC team about what point would we look at having an in-house lawyer. Councillor Lorentson: I'm sure we can entice an expert to come to NISA. Speaker 6: The trick to that, so this is how I started in local government, that role. The trick is that if you're an in-house lawyer, you can't be an expert in everything of all
02:16:00 the legal issues that council will have. And you've really got two choices when you start to look at that. You have an in-house lawyer who looks at managing the process or taking that process on as a corporate counsel for one of their appraisal. Or you want someone who's a specialist who does it. And they're two slightly different roles. So I think that's where, when we get to that point, we've got to make that choice. Councillor Jurisevic: Regardless, I would assume an element of the legal cost would be hiring of the specialist and the experts in those fields with regard to traffic and that that are part of the process. So it's not all just the lawyer. It's all of the specialists that go with each of those. Mayor Stewart: The barrister's a big cost. That's what I feel. Councillor Jurisevic: And regardless, if we had an in-house lawyer, we'd still need to hire a barrister. Councillor Lorentson: But it would be substantially cheaper or a better arrangement than what we've got at the moment. Thank you. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Just to add to the conversation, Wakefield Sykes in the late 80s joined as an in-house
02:17:00 solicitor and for quite considerable time provided the services currently done. Does now as a consultant. So it was. And there's a much, well, the court cases and the development was significantly higher at that particular time in terms of what was being proposed, including 7,000 people resourced and things like that. So it isn't, he individually has experienced a lot from both sides. Councillor Jurisevic: I'll move. Oh, I've got another question. I'm sorry. Councillor Wilkie: Any more questions? Kate's got some questions. Oh, thank you. Councillor Finzel: Michael, thank you for your report. I have a question around rates, of course, because that will be on everybody's lips and in community who are struggling at this time with job losses and the impacts of the COVID. I notice in the report, you are undertaking a cash flow analysis is currently occurring to make sure that our rate arrears ratio remains sustainable.
02:18:00 Are we looking at any processes to have in place if we have a large percentage of community that comes back at some point and says that it's impossible for them to pay their rates? How are we going to address that? Speaker 4: It's obviously a concern for me and the team, and obviously the community. There are already provisions within our rating policies to have arrangements to pay. So we do consider capacity for rate payers who can't pay their rates. So we do allow them to enter payment arrangements. But obviously, that's part of the budget process. Moving forward, Council needs to adopt the revenue policy and a revenue statement. And we'll be discussing different options there with Council and councillors to potentially
02:19:00 provide a bit more relief to rate payers through potentially looking at extending discount periods and so on. So those discussions are yet to happen. But we're looking at those options and how obviously that affects Council's cash flows whilst trying to, you know, address that. So we're looking at the challenges that's facing the community at the moment. Councillor Finzel: Thank you, Michael. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I've got a range of questions around asset sustainability ratio. I'll take them one by one. The first thing is just about the indicator and the target. So when I look at the graph on the bottom of page 75, I see in April that the result is about 20 per cent below the budget trend line. Yet when I look up on the page, it's above the budget trend line. The ratio is on track. Is that because the line of the...
02:20:00 I'm trying to look at the table now. The table's on page 69. And it says asset sustainability ratio on track. Is that because we're comparing it against the local government target of 90 per cent rather than the budget? Or is it just that a 20 per cent variation is considered reasonable at this point in time? Speaker 4: I think it's on target in terms of we'll... We'll achieve that ratio at 30 June. There's... As I mentioned, there is a considerable amount of spend to happen in the next two months. The infrastructure team are confident that if the rain goes away that we've had this morning, last night and the last couple of days, then they can... We can bring in our renewals spend upwards of our... Effectively, our depreciation of around that $18 million. So that will then, obviously, it will hit that benchmark target of 90 per cent, which is the... That's the indicator that the department of local government and QDC are looking for councils
02:21:00 to hit. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Sure. So when we talk about renewals, there's been actually a bit of debate in the community, as one might expect, in terms of bringing forward resealing of Hastings Street and Claude Batten Drive. So renewals are about investing in maintaining your assets. So it would include reseals. What else does renewals tend to cover on a consistent basis? Well, renewals is effectively replacing. Replacing assets that are there at the moment. Speaker 4: So it could... You know, you're talking roofs on buildings. You could be talking electrical equipment in buildings. We've just done a lot of renewals at our aquatic facility. So we retile the pool. Speaker 4: And so it covers all of those different elements of that. So that's where you're replacing an asset you already have. And that effectively, what you're doing is saying, well, when it reaches the end of its life, it needs to be replaced because it still needs to be used in terms of council's operations
02:22:00 Deputy Mayor Stockwell: to deliver services for the community. So last question, if, like some other councils close to us, don't meet that asset sustainability ratio and choose to invest in a whole lot of new projects, like new bikeways, if you get to rather than maintaining their existing access, what's the long-term problems that councils encounter if they don't separate their renewal budget and keep to that target of 90%? Speaker 4: Obviously, the 90% is a benchmark how, in terms of the life cycle of assets, you know, some councils may not need to spend 90% because they have newer assets and they're not due for replacement. Other councils are at maybe the back end of the life cycle and they have to spend over the 90%, but on average, 90% is sort of the benchmark of your depreciation, so renewing your assets. Look, if you start spending your cash on new assets and then you realise you don't have
02:23:00 enough to keep renewing your assets, then that's why probably 42 councils are not sustainable Speaker 4: at the moment in Queensland, because they're not looking after what they've got. And that's a challenge for all local government. That needs to be managed because there are, you know, there are needs. There is community expectation for new things and new services, but it's the responsibility to make sure that that's the council balances that challenge and continues to replace assets at a level that's sustainable and that any new assets or upgrades, your whole life cost is considered because that has a flow on impact. So, if you're going to build a new building, you've got to be active on your operating budget. Speaker 6: You probably should just add to what Michael said. You know, it's part asset management about looking after what you've got before you build something new. Because if you keep building stuff that's new and looking after what you've got, you'll
02:24:00 end up with an infrastructure that's a few years down the track. It might come to 10 or 20 years, but eventually, by building new assets, they've got to be maintained as well. If you're adding to your asset base and you're getting a backlog every year of what needs to be maintained. It's a long-term game, this one. And it's easy sometimes to make these decisions in one or two years because you don't see the impact. The impact comes to a future generation and often has that five or 10-year value. Councillor Jurisevic: But the impact on an asset is also the level of use that that asset gets and the wear and Councillor Wilkie: There's a target of investment return of 0.25% above current Bloomberg Commonwealth 10-year bond rate. The Council's getting 1.38% return, which is five times the amount. Two questions. Who sets that target? Is that a Council-set target or is that an industry target?
02:25:00 And what's Council doing to get five times that amount? Speaker 4: Yeah, look, we set the target, but it's obviously based on industry benchmarks. I think the reason that we're getting a good return, and obviously the bond rate is factoring in a lot of future things around the fact that the world economy is potentially going south at a fast rate and not due to COVID. But look, Queensland Treasury Corporation are a very strong financially, strong institution, they're capital guaranteed, they're backed by the state government. They're very shrewd operators. And the reason we're getting that 1.38% is a lot of our cash is with them. Councillor Jurisevic: OK. Thank you. Being backed by the state government's a bit of a, a bit of a worry as a turd, Michael, considering the financial state that the state finds itself in. Speaker 4: Well, look, if the state government goes under, then we're all in big trouble.
02:26:00 Speaker 6: No one's ever thought that we're investing in Virgin. Councillor Wilkie: And Michael, it's a question you might have to take on notice, Councillor Jurisevic: but under cemetery fees, I noticed in the monthly reports, Councillor Wilkie: they've been consistently above budget. So is that a question of conservative budgeting or are we losing more people than estimated? What's going on there? Speaker 4: Well, we're obviously losing more people than we budgeted for. But look, I suppose. It's challenging. Speaker 4: You know, the cemetery team, they, they only, they can put a forecast in on how many burials they'll think they'll have each year. That probably the last two or three years, burials have been under budget. So, so it's actually a bit of a flip on previous years. It's a challenging one because it's, it's, it's hard to, without doing some really detailed sort of analysis on
02:27:00 health rates and so on in the Shire, it's, it's, it's a bit of a guesstimate in terms of their budget and how many burials they have. But a lot of their burial cost is linked to their revenue. So whilst their, in previous years, their, their burial revenue was down, so were their costs. So they've balanced that overall position. Councillor Jurisevic: The question was with regard to burials. It would also be with regards to people's preference into how, how they go. If it's cremations and cremation burials or, so, you know, people's making a choice in one way, shape or form over another. Yeah. Councillor Wilkie: Morbid curiosity. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Morbid curiosity. Interesting. It's not one you put an online booking in, you know. Councillor Wilkie: Right. Right, councillors, any further questions for Michael? Someone care to put their recommendation, move their recommendation? Councillor Jurisevic: Amelia has moved it. We have a seconder, please. Councillor Lorentson, please. Councillor Wilkie: It's seconded by Councillor Finzel. Used to speak to it, Amelia.
02:28:00 No. No. Any other councillors wish to? Councillor Jurisevic: No, I'd just like to acknowledge the work the staff put in with regard to the current situation with, at all times, let alone with the current situation with COVID-19 and the additional work that is, is being put in. So I'd like to thank you and your team in particular, Michael, for, for all the, the added burden that you, you have at the moment in these challenging times. And I guess we look forward is probably the wrong word to the budget process ahead and how we, how we manage this going forward in the next 12 months. Councillor Wilkie: Yeah, no, thank you. Yeah, I'd just like to add to Joe's comments. There's no greater indicator of a local government's health than the financial reporting. It's very open, it's very transparent, it's very extensive. And thank you and your staff for your willingness to take on board new suggestions about how it can be even more detailed. So thank you, Michael. Thank you, Frank. Right, I'll put the motion, those in favour?
02:29:00 Against? Motion's carried. That's the last item. Thank you, councillors, for your patience and your discipline. That's declared the meeting closed. Councillor Jurisevic: Thank you. Thank you.