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00:00:00 Deputy Mayor Stockwell: ...back to them, but has a set of skills and experience that could be used to address the role in front of that group. So, as you go down that list, it may vary. Speaker 3: For me, I think 13 might be too large. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: For me, I think 13 might be too large. Having a better understanding of the criteria would help, maybe, in my mind. Speaker 4: Council, the other thing that you need to do before Monday is... Council, the other thing that you need to do before Monday is... We have two councillors that need to have a conversation and hopefully by Monday you'll work out which two you want to... Councillor Wegener: So I'm wrong to be asking about the legitimacy or the size or the membership or that's not an issue for any of you? Speaker 4: Well I think if you're going to do that you've got to do a full check on all of them. We've gone through and looked at one of the membership fees for any group, we've gone through and looked at one of the membership fees for any of the groups.
00:01:00 What we asked in the nominations, when they nominated, identified which groups they represented and we take that at face value. Any other questions? Councillor Finzel: Through the Chair, I just note in the Executive Summary that these recommendations have been assessed on the staff. These recommendations have been assessed by the staff who have recommended that the CRG form part of the CRG. So I'm just wondering how did the staff go through that process? They've given us an answer so I'm just a little bit confused here where we're heading with the questions. So were you satisfied with the process? Speaker 7: Yes, so Councillor Finzel, what we did was we assessed all of the applications that came in and we had a set of criteria that came in. Yes, so Councillor Finzel, what we did was we assessed all of the applications that came in and we had a set of criteria that came in. We looked at, we had a set of criteria that we nominated, in terms of the experiences of what they would nominate in person, the sector that they would represent, and if they had any specific expertise.
00:02:00 In terms of what they will actually bring to the group, the sector that they were representing and if they had any more energetic or transport, or like any of those renewable energy. Or transport related to those eight things in the Climate Change Response Plan. And they were all assessed, and that was our recommendations and there were three members on that list. And we went through and discussed at length the applicants for the FIPPA nominate for this year. Councillor Finzel: And in that process through the Chair were you, were any concerns raised? Speaker 7: There were some discussions about, there were some discussions about, you know, what right, the representations of the group, whether we got the SPIPPA right, whether we had even the geographical area of the new society adequately represented. And so that's why we've made those recommendations on what we did. Speaker 4: Can I just add one more thing? And so when it came to me, I haven't looked at it at all, I also haven't looked at it during the mix.
00:03:00 The River Response Group, that issue came up there. The River Response Group, that issue came up there. So I'll just be pretty clear, I didn't do it because it would be pretty close. Councillor Wegener: I hope it doesn't get bogged down. I hope it doesn't get bogged down. We can actually move it, and the last thing of course I want to do is actually slow the process. Our last question is, we know that our grant funding for two climate change and energy projects in terms of working collaboration, is that the $310,000? Speaker 10: They're the ones, there are two grants that are, they're the ones, there are two grants that are related to this. Speaker 7: One is for the pilot project with the Sunshine Coast Council. And the other one is for a group with a number of councils in the south east, Queensland region, to develop an alliance between the councils specifically related to greenhouse gas issues.
00:04:00 Councillor Wegener: There's so much there, so much to talk about coming up. There's so much there, so much to talk about coming up. Speaker 3: So, can I have time to move the motion that is, because of the significance of that motion, moved by Councillor Finzel and seconded by Councillor Wegener, all in favour? Thank you. So the next item on the agenda is a minor issue. It's a minor issue. It's a minor issue. It's a minor issue. It's a minor issue. It's a minor issue. More amendments, short stay letting and home host accommodation, public consultation is also adopted and we have Anita, Anthony and Chris here with us and if we can start perhaps by a little bit of an outline of what this item covers.
00:05:00 Speaker 10: The purpose of this report is to submit a final version of the proposed local law to a new prescribed activity for short stay letting and home host accommodation and a range of package of supporting actions and requests for new resources including external resources. So the proposed local law seeks to regulate the ongoing operation of short stay letting and home host accommodation. It's undergone an extensive legal review, public consultation, stakeholder engagement and state government consultation over a two year period. It was made available for public consultation in the most recent round of from 9th April to the 28th of May for an extended period of seven weeks.
00:06:00 Four weeks longer than our policy requires. Four weeks longer than our policy requires and this was the second round of public consultation. The first round was back in late 2019. We had 650 written submissions, we had 650 written submissions. And here quite extensive engagement and enquiries through various portals being your safe home and social media. A particular note, we had 300 submissions which were made by residents, 66 home hosted community groups, 166 home hosted operators, 163 short stay let operators, including one legal property owner, 23 letting agents, 23 letting agents, one industry group, made submissions,
00:07:00 8 on site managers, 1 industry group, 2 online platforms, and a range of other site specific and other submissions. Overwhelmingly the most significant issue was around complaints management, particularly around the complainant interaction with a contact person and issues that may arise around privacy conflict and actually resolving the complaint. As well as record keeping. In response to the range of issues which are outlined in attachment 5 and grouped per stakeholder grouping of life issues, a number of minor local law deal with complaints management and it's proposed to establish a 24 7 complaints hotline and complaints register to act as an
00:08:00 intermediary between a local law firm and a complaints register. Secondly, it's proposed to trial on a 12-month basis security services to observe and record activity at properties where required, and that will be reviewed to see its effectiveness following that period and how it works to support the compliance team. And then with regard to the local law, there's a range of small amendments which respond to specific issues raised in submissions, specifically with regard to exemptions to remove park ridge from the exemption, as they have an approval for and have both permanent residents and visitors on site are predominantly permanent, whereas previously they were identified as being visitor only, require additional information with the site plan to look at adjoining windows of properties, door openings, outdoor entertainment areas and vehicle parking.
00:09:00 To amend the contact person location to be within 20 kilometre radius of the property as opposed to a 20 minute drive, it's more measurable. It includes security firms as a contact person option to deal with complaints. And then in response to having a 24-7 hotline, renaming our contact person notice to be a more standardised approval notice. And include the approval number on that sign, so it's clear that the properties have been approved. Include the management of boats, trailers, jet skis and the like as part of vehicle management. And include the amenity impacts, not just in the vicinity, but also adjoining residents. And then a range of other smaller amendments dealing with compliance with the Building Act, two year timeframe for keeping registers, clarifying waste management where there is no kerbside collection and a few minor editorial changes.
00:10:00 In addition, sitting outside the local law, in terms of communication and education with the sector, proposed to prepare a good management guide of short stay letting and home hosted accommodation to support the requirements and how to meet the requirements in the local law. So that will cover things like how to, how to, you know, respond to the code of conduct requirements. By looking at the arrangement of outdoor areas and impacts on amenity, noise, you know, limiting their guests to use of outdoor areas after a certain time and the like. And they will develop a dedicated web page which will include all the information and an approvals register with a list of all the approvals to make it transparent and other information to do with the hotline, et cetera. And then look at education and lobbying the REIQ around providing education for short stay
00:11:00 managers and advocate to the LGAQ also about looking at issues around short stay letting. And we'll also look at establishing a multi-interest stakeholder group following a period of implementation to see how the local law is working. So just in summary. A cost benefit analysis has been prepared which informed the public interest test report. The benefit of the provisions in the local law outweigh the costs. We will need new dedicated internal and external resources to support the implementation of the local law. Internal a new team. We already have funded two permanent positions. We will need an additional two temporary positions for the initial three-year period. Initially this can be funded within the existing three-year period.
00:12:00 22. Final versions of the proposed local law are attached to the report which incorporate all of the amendments which were publicly notified with the changes for Council's adoption and we're looking at a commencement date of February 2022, 1st of February, to allow us time to implement the change management structures required, establish a new team, train and get up and running external resources and a lead time for the industry to be made aware of their requirements and that's what is put to Council today. Speaker 4: That's all? Sorry, don't go over the five minutes. Council's the biggest issue on this round of meetings so it's probably worth spending a bit of time and there's a lot of material. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Sure, and Linda Gurdin had already done so, could you just note that Councillor Lorentson was in the gallery as well? Yeah, I've got that. Speaker 3: Okay, so this item has also been proposed to go to the General Committee but do we have any points of clarification or questions or further information?
00:13:00 Mayor Stewart: And the other question, just on, I've got a few actually but I'll start with one and then everyone else may have others. Just on page 13 of our agenda, it says proposed local law requires all properties undertaking short-stay living or home-hosted accommodation to obtain a one-off approval which would be the subject of annual renewal and then we come to the cost benefits. It says we have the potential to stop at a group or holder providing such accommodation for non-compliance. So I guess at what, when is it, is it three strikes and you're out or when do we throw down the gauntlet and say you guys have had five complaints, you've had two complaints, you're out. We've had three breaches. Speaker 10: Yeah, I guess the first step would be identifying that there has been a breach and then undertaking compliance action by issuing a compliance notice. This is our normal process under Local Law 1 which gives them time to remedy the issue.
00:14:00 If they remedy the issue and there's no further complaints with regard to that issue, then I guess the case is closed in that regard. If there's further compliance issues around that compliance or they don't comply with the notice, we can issue a first fine and then look at, if there's still ongoing issues, then we can look at issuing a show cause notice, which would be a proposal to suspend their approval or cancel it. So there's a process under Local Law 1 which needs to be followed. I guess it would be a case-by-case basis depending on what the issue was. Through the show cause notice, we outline what the concerns were that they were continuing to have compliance issues. The operator then has the... Right to reply to state why they should or shouldn't be suspended and that will be considered in our final decision.
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00:15:00 But also there's an opportunity with the annual renewal where there's been an issue with a particular property to not renew. Mayor Stewart: Yeah. Speaker 10: Yeah. Mayor Stewart: So all of that would be taken into account. Yeah. So if you're a serial offender... That's right. You have the opportunity not to renew it every year. Well... You don't have to renew it for the next year. Speaker 10: That's right. That's right. Mayor Stewart: Okay. Just in regard to the state, it was mentioned here... Sorry, just bear with me. On, say, page 13, the proposed local law would throw a whole lot into the consultation pending the outcome of the statewide approach. New South Wales has just come out with a statewide framework. So that's what we're looking at. Is there the opportunity, and I know feedback from the state is what we're looking at at the moment, but is there really the opportunity to advocate strongly for a statewide framework
00:16:00 or even to have the state pony up for some of these costs? Because in New South... It just seems to be far more, I guess, across the board to see if it was a statewide framework rather than we're having to expend a lot of great payer money on this. Is there that opportunity? Speaker 10: Yeah. So I guess I say in the report that we continue to work with the LGAQ to look at, I guess, a broader approach, statewide approach to dealing with managing short stay letting. The state had just reconvened their meeting recently last week and made it clear to me, the state planner, that they're not looking at a statewide approach at the moment, that they feel that the planning framework and local laws framework that, I guess, are at the disposal of council. Councils will deal with the local issues, it's their position right now, but it's something that we can continue to, I guess, advocate for.
00:17:00 Mayor Stewart: Thanks. Thanks. I've got a few more, but the others... Councillor Wegener: Frank, do you have anything to add to that? Because you were, you've been talking to the seat where the meetings where they discussed these things. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Only to reinforce that that's the advice they were giving. I just have been to the Mayor's recently. I've been to the advisory group, which is a mix of industry and local government and state government. I, I suppose, stress that it's still a significant issue for our Shire. The state suggested that in, during the COVID times, they haven't received any concerns outside of our Shire. Councillor Wegener: This, this program seems to be so good that is there a possibility that, that this could be intellectual property that Newsy can license? That's a good question. Speaker 4: I'll answer that. One of the things, one of the great things about working in local government, Tom, is that we all help each other. And we get given a lot of other informational policies or reports from other councillors,
00:18:00 and we tend to, from councils, and we tend to share that with others as well. So I wouldn't have thought that there'd be a lot of money in this. If other councils want to copy our local law, it's a public document, they can do so. So we've done the same. We've connected with Mornington Peninsula Council to pick their brains, and they've provided us with a lot of information as well. So I don't think the, the keeping this as intellectual property would be a great idea. Councillor Wegener: And then, starting on page 62, attachment number five. Gee, that's well written. I just, I find that, you know, if anybody needs to know more about it or want to pass it on, the attachment is a summary of key issues. It's brilliantly, clearly written. It's really super easy to read, like the rest of it. So I want to congratulate you on the entire package. But let's especially thank you for that. And then the attachment five. Thank you. Speaker 4: Councillor, is there any other information you're going to need for Monday? It's a big issue, and it needs to go to the general committee quickly.
00:19:00 Mayor Stewart: I, I, it's a legal question. I guess page 39 and 43 of the agenda, can we, is there a definition of in the vicinity of the premises? How broad does that go? Speaker 10: Um, no, there's no definition of that. It would use the, the Macquarie Dictionary normally where it's not defined to, to define language. But, um, I guess, I don't know. Generally speaking, we've looked at the impacts being within about 50, um, meters, and that's how the AEC report's been written, which takes in generally adjoining and probably one extra. Yeah. Um, however, the vicinity could be broader than that in terms of the impacts, depending on what, what's going on at the property. Um, but that might be, um, one measure that we can use, which is consistent with the economic impact assessment. Mayor Stewart: You might, because I know we've had some complaints where we've had short-term living
00:20:00 come up and, and they haven't been, they've been like down the road or a fair way away. Yeah. So I just wonder if, if we, maybe there's, if we do need to specify, I guess, or have a, a tighter definition. I'm not sure. Just, just, as you said. Speaker 10: Well, I guess the, um, residential amenity impacts can be wide and broad. Um, and we wouldn't necessarily want to put a framework, a, a measure on that as to who we think is and isn't impacted on by that. So I think it's probably suitable to keep the, the general vicinity in the vicinity of measure. Speaker 4: Probably have to depend on the individual circumstances. Yeah. Well, you know, a rural residential area might be different to an area of units or things like that. So, um. Mayor Stewart: Oh, in those canal front homes, obviously. Yeah. And always travels across the canal. That's right. And down. So it's not actually right neighbouring. Yeah. Or streets. Speaker 10: And I would say that's in the vicinity of. Yeah. Yeah. I guess anyone who feels impacted by it is in the vicinity of. Mayor Stewart: Yeah. Okay. Councillor Wegener: Um, the economic implications, um, it seems though that this is, you, you have two permanent
00:21:00 people, but then there's going to be other people being pulled in, um, that there's going to be sort of a fluid situation, you know, kind of responding to how busy, how many more people you need. And Trej, are you okay with that? Like just saying, okay, well let's, let's, let's pay for it. Let's get it right. Okay. Speaker 5: So the piece of work we've obviously done over the last few months, working with the needed to estimate those costs, um, and the staff resourcing is, is based on obviously our estimates of the demand and the number of properties and the work that's done with, with Mornington as well as in terms of the resourcing there. So with the top, with the timing being adoption and implementation go live in February, it gives us an opportunity between now and 30th of June. If we need to refine those costs or that resourcing requirement coming in the next financial year, we've got a bit of fiscal flexibility to achieve that. Councillor Wegener: Yeah. I hope that the community focuses on the, the, the, the goal of the product and not the funding that we're looking at that can, you know, detract, bring it up real.
00:22:00 Councillor Finzel: Yeah. Yeah. I've just got a question with regards to the parking. So it says adequate provision must be made for the parking of the vehicle. And they must be stored in a manner that does not cause nuisance or an inconvenience to the joining premises. So I'm just wondering how is that going to work with a non-compliance issue around the parking? Are they coming back to the planning scheme to look at the approval from any number of occupants in the property or how, how is that going to be policed? Speaker 10: Well, I guess there's two things. One is have they met the planning scheme requirements for, um, for their own dwelling? And any additional uses on the site? Secondly, there's the legal, whether a car park, uh, car, a vehicle is parked legally. Um, and that's a matter for our local laws offices. So we can't, we can't, the local law can't, um, restrict, um, where people can and cannot
00:23:00 park in the street as long as they're legal. Um, and I guess a nuisance may be that they're not parking across someone's driveway or on their lawn. Mm. Um, but we couldn't regulate parking or parking numbers in the local law because it is a town planning matter and it is a matter for the planning scheme. Speaker 1: Through the Chair, um, I guess the other thing you, the other area that we put more work into is the education side of things and the good practice. So I think obviously parking and, and waste management and, and all those good things you hope are done that are not included or restricted by the local law will be in that education piece. Which will accompany a lot of this as we roll out over the next few months. So I think parking certainly, and the, uh, the behaviours around that will be more encouraged rather than, I guess, apart from our local laws enforcing, um, parking regulations will be more of an encouraged behaviour. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Mm.
00:24:00 Councillor Finzel: Um, and just another question on page 20, just regarding the forecast, the operation costs. Um, in the table, we've got corporate overheads coming in for 2022. Mm. At the amount of 88 there. What, what comes under corporate overheads? Like what, what is that expenditure for? Speaker 5: Through the Chair. So, um, in terms of the principles of full cost pricing, what we do with any activities, we consider what are corporate overheads. So whether that's, uh, this activity or another fee for service, corporate overheads is the cost across the organisation in terms of inputs from records, customer service. Um. Payroll. Payroll, finance, IT. It's all those internal corporate costs that if, if you were to take this activity and pull it out as a separate business. Yeah. You'd need that, you'd need that investment as well. Okay. Speaker 8: All right. Thank you. Speaker 5: So it's already, it's already built into the budget. It's not an additional cost that. Good.
00:25:00 We're having to fund. Councillor Finzel: Yeah, that's great. All right. Thank you. And I notice it does go down as the years move ahead. Speaker 5: That's right. So as the, as the staff resulting drops. Yeah. Councillor Finzel: Yeah. Speaker 5: As does the support for that. Mayor Stewart: Terrific. Thank you. Just to confirm Trent, sorry. So the, the, these costs, which will, over the next few years, obviously not this year because it's, it's, we're not, we're not actually charging people, but will this come out of, from an application bid and a transit free accommodation rate base going forward? Will these costs be out of that? Speaker 5: So the intent is that obviously with this, the recommendations report, there's no fees and charges proposed at this point in time. Speaker 8: Yeah. Speaker 5: With this report. But coming into the 22, 23 budget, there's no fees and charges proposed at this point Council has the opportunity to assess and review its fees and charges as well as its general rate rating structure in terms of how it funds those activities.
00:26:00 So at this point in time, the recommendation is to defer that discussion until the budget process. It'll allow for, obviously, us to fine tune and review whether our cost estimates and our resource requirements are in line with what we'd expected. It also gives us an opportunity to build up, obviously, starting in February, coming through to the beginning of peak season. Councillor Finzel: Okay, thank you. Speaker 3: I've got a question. I'm thinking this is the first local law of its type in Queensland, and therefore it's probably the first public interest test of its type in Queensland. Is that correct? Speaker 10: To do with short stay letting and home hosting, yes. Speaker 4: There's quite a lot of public interest tests for all legislations, so other local laws have done the same thing. This is the first one in relation to this topic. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: And I suppose on an end point, there's been a lot of debate in the community about the benefits and the costs, and I think I've only got to the executive summary of the cost-benefit analysis, but there's a paragraph in there that's incredibly powerful, and it says,
00:27:00 Potential beneficiaries within Noosa Shire from the proposed local law include 10,610 residential properties consisting of an estimated 26,525 persons, and as such represent a significant portion of the local community. The benefits of the proposed local law on resident health and residential amenities are estimated as $9.56 million per annum. And that should put that debate to bed. Later in that, it talks about 86% of these short stay operators outside the Shire, but the key issue is that's what the impact is, and that's why we need local law. Speaker 3: But no further questions. Do we have? A person who'd like to move, then maybe refer to the general committee, due to its significance. Councillor Finzel, Councillor Stewart is seconder. All in favour? That's unanimous. Thank you.
00:28:00 And as we switch over, we move on to item number three, which is an other change to a development approval for multiple development units. I've got it right behind me. Times 25 and 8, so 30 Haysing Street moves ahead. Thanks. We have our Minister of Development and Travel, Kerry Coyle, joining us, and this matter's also being asked to be referred to the committee. But Kerry, would you like to give a broad outline of the item before we commence? Speaker 9: Sure. So just a basic outline. This application is a proposal to change, to basically amalgamate two of the existing units, demolish them, amalgamate them, and build one new unit. The proposal... The proposal will result in an additional 44 square metres, so a fairly minor increase in GFA, but well within the planning scheme parameters for the site. There is an additional storey proposed, and it's currently a three storey development, or three storey units, and there will be a fourth level proposed as part of that, but again, well within the scheme parameters for the site, and remaining under the 15 metres.
00:29:00 Some of the primary considerations in the assessment are around pricing. And what this redevelopment means for other unit holders in the complex, and it's officers' assessment that this will actually result in some improvements in many instances. There's some issues in the development where privacy, between some units in particular, is quite poor, but officers have carefully looked at and worked with the applicant on setbacks and privacy screens, as well as planter boxes, and setting back, and things like that. To achieve a reasonable level of privacy between units. Speaker 3: We have questions. Councillor Wegener: Gary, it seems to me that this could have happened a long time ago.
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00:30:00 I'm going to try to frame the question as, is this just a block of land? Are there just basically blocks of land that anybody could do anything with basically within the planning scheme at any time? Or is there any sort of force behind the community or the corporate body, the body of the property? Are there any rules that go along that you're supposed to actually stick to a certain type of house when you buy into that larger block of land? Speaker 9: Yeah, so the Hastings development was built as one development, is my understanding. After it was built, it was titled. So each of the individual buildings sit on their own lot. And then there's common property, which is over the driveway, essentially, between those. So in lodging an application, because the development is fully contained in those two lots, it does not impact or change in any way common property. They're not required to seek owner's consent.
00:31:00 So they essentially, or body corporate's consent, they can lodge the application over their own individual lots and do a change. Councillor Wegener: Is that a weakness of the body corporate? Should they have considered that? The fact that somebody's going to come in here and upset the apple cart in this way? Speaker 9: I guess this was built in the 80s, so perhaps they didn't envisage it at the time. But it is planning law that they're not required to seek body corporate's consent because there's no material change of use to the common property. The change that's proposed is over private land. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: And if, for example, the body corporate bylaws included a clause, say, which is common about requiring the consent of the body corporate to change the external appearance of the lot, that still wouldn't be something we could consider as in a planning act? Speaker 9: No, that's exactly right. They would have to take action under the body corporate, not part of the assessment the council needs to make for the application. Mayor Stewart: Thank you. I've got a question for Kerry.
00:32:00 This is an impact assessment development. But we've received, all councillors have received a number of objections from people in the area. What weight was, and they've said that three times, they've tried to put it through body corporate and it was unsuccessful. What weight was given to the owners, I guess the other owners in the complex and their wishes? Speaker 9: Yeah, so we did receive 16 submissions, so quite a few people have raised concerns around the proposal. That's great. The reasons that they raised in their submission, the reasons for their objection, and whether, I guess, officers consider they are reasons for refusal or not, or whether the proposal has adequately addressed the scheme requirements for the site. Mayor Stewart: And so they weren't adequate enough reasons? Speaker 9: No, we didn't think the issues that residents raised were reasons for refusal. Speaker 4: There's a good summary of those in the bottom, starting at the bottom of page 98 to go through.
00:33:00 Speaker 9: Page what's that again? Speaker 4: Bottom of page 98 on to page 99. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yeah. Very interesting timing in that this was from the early Gabriel Poole design designs, which was probably one of the ones that introduced the concept of lightweight construction into Noosa as part of the looking deal with Noosa. And my conversations with residents involved and others is that they see this as a little bit of standing up for the Noosa brand and the Noosa hymns. Um. But without any further protection of that look and feel within planning legislation, or with, you know, like some would say it's modern heritage now, is we are limited to just assess it against the criteria within the scheme. And what you have said is, well, it is obviously a very significant difference in the look and feel compared to it, but it still complies with the provisions of the planning scheme. That's basically where you've ended up, don't you? Speaker 9: Yeah, exactly. You know, the existing Hastings development is a fabulous development, and I understand their sentiment to it, but the proposal, the proposed change is consistent with our scheme.
00:34:00 And if you look around the rest of Hastings Street, it is consistent with that built form that is supported by the scheme. Councillor Wegener: So it sounds to me, between the lines, if we refuse this and they went up to court, went to the court, the planning court, we would lose. Yeah. Speaker 9: It's officers' assessment that this proposal complies with the planning scheme. So that would be my expectation, that we would not do well in court. Okay. Councillor Wegener: If the rest of the people wanted to maintain the buildings the way they are, they would have to, the opportunity would be to buy this person out and keep them in that way. But that, is there any other alternatives for that? No. Speaker 4: Other alternatives? But the people who've made a submission on this could take it. If the council approves the application, they can take what's called a submitter's appeal.
00:35:00 So they can actually appeal to the court if they're so inclined as well, against council's decision to approve it. So that's another option. Councillor Finzel: Yeah, just a question through the chair for Kerry. Can you just explain how the individual is able to build this new building? On the block, regarding the titles and how that works? Speaker 9: Yeah. Councillor Finzel: Because it gives the appearance, it's just a whole resort style, but in fact, the buildings are different. Speaker 9: Yeah. So what exists on site is, after the development was built in the 80s, at some point in time, it was separately titled. So there are individual titles, private titles, over all the buildings. So it functions like an ordinary block of land. Yeah. That we see in the street.
00:36:00 So because this proposal is only materially changing over that private land, and there's no material change to the common property, the application is able to be made and assessed as an individual property. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Thank you. I'll ask this question. So the interests of the body corporate are managed under a different act, and if the body corporate, which is represented by the committee elected at each annual general meeting, does not approve this change and have a leave under local law, there would be a dispute under the tribunal rather than under the Planning Environment Act. Is that right? Speaker 9: Yes, that's right. There are avenues under the body corporate that they can take action. Councillor Finzel: So for clarification, we don't really consider the body corporate meetings that were in three times they voted it down. No. The tribunal is their only course of action.
00:37:00 Deputy Mayor Stockwell: We can't consider other criteria outside the planning scheme. And so if there's criteria within the bylaws of the body corporate, that's outside the planning scheme. The body corporate to sort out. Yeah. Speaker 9: Yeah. Okay. We don't administer the body corporate laws to common. Okay. Councillor Finzel: Thank you. Councillor Wegener: So you said that the community there, the body corporate, they could get together and take us to court for approving that. That's what a good body corporate could do? Speaker 9: Whoever has made a properly made submission is able to lodge an appeal in the court. I'm not quite sure if the body corporate has done so, but certainly the submitters are able to lodge that action in court. And it's not necessarily against council. We'd be probably joined in the appeal. But the appeal would be primarily with the applicant. Okay. Speaker 3: Okay. If there's no further queries, we'll move to the motion. Could I just ask one more question?
00:38:00 Councillor Finzel: Yes, you may. How many then complaints did we get? Proper complaints? Speaker 9: There were 16 properly made. Sixteen all together? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Mayor Stewart: All from that area? No. All from just that development? Speaker 9: I understand that's correct, but I'll just confirm for you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 3: Okay. Does anyone like to move the motion? Moved by Councillor Stewart, seconded by Councillor Wegener. All in favour? And we move on to item four. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: One that's not being approved. Mayor Stewart: The one. The one. The one. The one. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: The one. The moan is I understand it's two, Speaker 9: and two, and three. So we have Carramar looking to provide two small little units, each 27 square metres each for their staff in the approved car park, new car park on the site.
00:39:00 So fairly minor. We consider it quite ancillary to the approval. We think it complements the existing use. We're not going to raise any impacts for surrounding properties. And as I said, I think we're going to see it occurring quite a bit more. Mayor Stewart: Officer Kerry, this is just a good idea from Carramar. Is there the ability for them to ask them all or them two? Speaker 9: Well, there is. That's all they have asked for at this point in time, but they may come back. Their site is fairly full of development in terms of providing aged care, so they may be constrained in that regard. We've considered this one as minor and ancillary, but if they came back for 50, we may not consider it as minor.
00:40:00 Mayor Stewart: We're just wondering why, if they had asked the two, if that was all they could do? Speaker 9: That is all they proposed to us. Yes, okay. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: In memory, there's a flood line down a bit further down that block. Speaker 9: Yeah, the site is quite constrained. It's got the flood line and also a rare crayfish, from memory, on site. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: They were very happy when they were there, since I haven't found that. Speaker 9: So, yeah, an area that we need to look after. Mayor Stewart: Move, cancel. Speaker 3: Move, cancel. Councillor Stewart, seconded by Councillor Wheeler, do you want to talk to it, Councillor Stewart? No. No. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I'd just like to reiterate, I think it's a marker of the future, and particularly with our social services and essential workers, particularly in the aged care, where I know this is not the only establishment that's having great trouble retaining staff, because staff are losing their leases and not being able to find anywhere else. Yeah. It was in recent computing distance to get there, so I do think this is one area of planning that we will see it develop,
00:41:00 Speaker 3: that a lot of businesses, as you say, will consider whether providing onsite worker accommodation is the way to go in the future. So, full support. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yeah. And the fact that it's nice and small, it's only bought temporary at this stage, that it also proves that the current support for the use of tiny houses to meet, Yeah. that need for very affordable housing. So I support it. Anyone else? I'll put the vote. Speaker 3: Unanimous. We move on to item five. Also being requested to go to General Committee, but we do like to give an outline of the application for another change to a different, Deputy Mayor Stockwell: to a development approval for multiple housing type two, few places in operation work to include short term accommodation situated at one and two, slash, 10 Hill Street, Sunshine Beach.
00:42:00 Thank you, Terry. Speaker 9: Yeah. So this application is an impact assessment application. It's a proposal to utilize an existing duplex, two of the two units, each for short term accommodation. So they're seeking approval for use of the duplex for short term or permanent occupation. In each of the duplexes, they're looking at eight people per dwelling unit. So they're seeking approval for use of the duplex for short term or permanent occupation. So they are two bedroom units and with a quite a large sort of media study area. So they're looking at eight people in total for each dwelling unit. So 16 people on the site. The application is recommended for refusal for similar reasons officers have raised previously for conflicts with the scheme. But there is an additional reason that council should look at, and that's around car parking. So our scheme would require five parking spaces. On site in total for the use of this duplex for short term accommodation.
00:43:00 They have four parking spaces on site. There's there's a double, there's two garages and two carports. The applicant suggests that they can fit another space in the driveway and therefore satisfy the car parking requirements of the planning scheme. However, this is recommending to council. That that is not satisfactory for the reason being that this development was actually designed for the car parking on site to be able to turn around on site and exit into Hill Street because Hill Street is quite a major road network, carries a lot of traffic. So we say that parking reversing out of the street would not be desirable from that point of view. So that's, I guess, a primary difference with this one and some others we've seen. I would also point out that there are limited visitor accommodations in proximity to this duplex, too.
00:44:00 Speaker 4: Council, we've probably been around the mulberry bush on this one a few times. I also, for Monday, will have available, if the council, their views about whether it should be approved, we'll have conditions of approval, but it would be different, slightly different conditions if we, council, wanted to approve from our standard conditions on this one. If the council wanted to go down that path. Speaker 9: Yeah, well, I guess it would be good for council to have a discussion about the car parking and what council considers. If council agrees with officers that it is a real concern, council would have the option to either refuse the application or you could look at limiting the number of occupants on site to better address the car parking issue. So that's something that could be considered. Mayor Stewart: Kerri, if we were to do that with the four car parking behelds. What is the number of occupants that they can provide? What is the number of applicants that matches that?
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00:45:00 Well, sorry, number of people, occupants. Speaker 9: I haven't quite turned my mind to it, but if we think about two spaces per unit, I would probably suggest six occupants per unit rather than the eight that's proposed would be more appropriate. Mayor Stewart: So 12 out of the 16. Speaker 9: Yeah. Mayor Stewart: Thank you. Councillor Wegener: In case the councillors make a motion for, you know, for conditions. Yeah. Could one of the conditions be the $24,000 in lieu of a car park, you know, which is standard in Hastings Street and other places? Speaker 9: That is an option under the policy for council to consider a contribution in lieu. But it would be important that we enter into an infrastructure agreement with the applicant prior to council deciding the matter. I'd also not recommend a contribution in lieu of on-site car parking in this instance. I think contributions in lieu work very well where you're in proximity to a centre, where there will be more access to available public transport and the like.
00:46:00 But when we're locating in what is essentially a residential area, I wouldn't recommend that approach to council. Speaker 3: Any other questions? Yeah. Just a question. Councillor Finzel: And have you raised this with the applicant prior to the meeting today with regards to parking? Speaker 9: I'll have to ask the... Okay. I'll come back to you on that one. Okay. Thank you. Mayor Stewart: So, Kerry, so they're only two bedroom each? Speaker 9: They're two bedroom and what is also like a media study room, which was approved as a bedroom when the duplex was approved. And it's quite sizeable. So I imagine that's why they've gone for the eight persons, because it's larger than a typical bedroom. Mayor Stewart: But six would be three bedrooms? Speaker 9: Six is what we would typically see in a three bedroom unit. Yeah. Mayor Stewart: And that would satisfy potentially the CalPi. Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll just... If you don't mind, I'll just... I hadn't turned my mind to it before today, so I will come back and just confirm that
00:47:00 for you. Yeah. Mayor Stewart: Thank you. Speaker 3: Are we done? Councillor Finzel: Yeah. Speaker 3: So, thank you. We have a mover of the motion to refer it. Mayor Stewart: I'm happy to hear it. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Thank you. No submissions in this one. All in favour? That's unanimous. Speaker 3: So we then move on to item six, which is another application for an other change to Deputy Mayor Stockwell: a development appeal for multiple housing type two duplex to include short-term accommodation and operational work at two city-age park visits to Sunshine Beach. If we can have an outline on that. Speaker 6: No, this is very similar to the previous application. Okay. In so far as it's seeking another change to one of the two duplex dwellings on this site
00:48:00 to be used for both permanent and short-term accommodation. Similar to the other application, it's two bedrooms plus a rumpus room. The applicant is seeking that there be six visitors to the site. It is being recommended for refusal as per previous... Similar to previous applications. And also, this one has issue with car parking as there's only one car space available to this unit. And yeah, being three bedrooms and seeking six visitors, we consider that to be insufficient. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: And this site, from recollection, there was a fair degree of negotiation about the car parking arrangements because they come straight off the street. So... Speaker 6: When the duplex was approved... Oh, yes. Yeah. It was approved for two covered car spaces and there was a carport as well. Subsequent to that, there was an application made for a further car space.
00:49:00 Council was not supportive of that application due to the appearance that they would have to the streetscape. That was subsequently appealed. And through that process, there was an amended design put forward that removed the additional car space. But made available a motorbike cycle space instead. Okay. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: And just on this one, and I'm reflecting on the comment about the tandem car parking. We don't pay consideration to the road rule that says you're not allowed to reverse out the hill road, do we? Anybody first? I'm just thinking because... Well, certainly... It's the driver behavior. They'd have to reverse in. So it wouldn't really matter. It doesn't matter if there's a duplex there. Speaker 9: Yeah. Certainly, just about every house in the Shire would be reversing out into a street. And our new planning scheme supports duplexes to reverse out into the street where it's not part
00:50:00 of the major road network. If it's part of the major road network, then on-site turning is required. I might be wrong. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: That might be a really old road rule that other people have. Speaker 9: I'm not sure. I'm not familiar with the road rules. That one. Anyway. Speaker 3: Any further questions? So, just for something different, I'll move the motion. Councillor Finzel: I'll second. Speaker 3: Thank you, Councillor Finzel. All in favour? We move on to item seven. This is an application to reconfigure a lot into two lots at 9A Jirrima Crescent for over. Speaker 4: Can I still remember this one? Speaker 8: Yes. Speaker 6: Cool. Okay. This is a different site. Speaker 4: Thanks, Brett. Patrick, just a quick outline. Speaker 6: Okay. So, it is an application that seeks to reconfigure the site from one into two lots. The application was made in the 21st of July last year. So, it's assessed under the 2006 scheme.
00:51:00 It's a battle-axe lot, currently a battle-axe-shaped lot. There's an existing dwelling on the site at the end of the access handle. This is seeking to retain that dwelling and create an additional lot to the rear of the site. And that will be accessed by way of an access easement through what would be lot two. That access easement dissects the riparian buffer. It requires works, some earthworks, some fill through the low-lying areas and additional culvert. And as the site is also subject to the... The bushfire hazard overlay, there's a requirement of the state planning provisions for suitable access for firefighting vehicles to be able to attend the rear of the site. That results in clearance of vegetation within the riparian buffer. And yeah, the application is not supported because of the impacts that it will have on
00:52:00 the riparian buffer. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I've got a question. I've just thought of it. I've got a question. This is on a different mapped waterway to the last application on Jirrima Crescent. It heads backwards into the more, the rim of vegetation. You talked about a low-lying area. Is it a, like the other one, more likely to be a sort of temporary wetland that flows in high waterways? And what's its condition? I don't think I saw in the report anything about the actual condition of the mapped area, of the mapped water. Is that something that you're aware of? Or is it something we could find out? Speaker 6: I'll probably have to go back to more detail. I didn't have carriage of this application, but I did attend the site at one point. So I'd like to do a bit more review before. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Just from my knowledge, just in terms of, because obviously the primary impact on that riparian corridor, from looking at it on information, it does look like it's a reasonable condition
00:53:00 and quite, you know, a lot of native vegetation without the dams that were in place and the other ones. Speaker 6: That's right. Yeah, there's a lot more grasses and trees in that location, yeah. Speaker 9: Yeah, so the environment officer that we had at the time of assessing this application is not with us anymore. But we could certainly do it. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I was going to say, if he is, he's drunk a lot. Speaker 9: We would perhaps have to do another inspection with our new environment officer to get you that sort of detail. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I think that's a huge, just a knowledge if he hasn't made any notes of it. It just doesn't appear to be a degraded, or of course, just from what I can see on imagery. Speaker 6: What did you see on that? Well, there's certainly no dams in that area. It looked like it was in, yeah, much more natural condition. That's fine. Mayor Stewart: I've got a question, Patrick. The applicant's bushfire consultant contended, on page 163, I don't see it's critical or necessary to clear the driveway. But here it's clear to all trees, entirely to the driveway, just looking at the fire
00:54:00 risks and hazards. What did council's bushfire consultant say in regard to this? Speaker 6: This was only reviewed by our environment officer at the time, who had experience, I suppose, in assessing bushfire issues and the requirements of state planning policy. Mayor Stewart: So we didn't have that. We didn't have a bushfire expert on this. Speaker 6: No, we have not. Speaker 9: No. Our previous environment officer has had training in fire management. And so he undertook that review. Councillor Finzel: Through the chair, I've just got a question regarding the development not meeting the minimum lot size on page 155. How does it not meet the minimum lot size? Speaker 6: Under the 2006 planning scheme, the requirements were for lots of trees to be planted in the same size and size. This small lot is 1.85 hectares. It is noted that under the new planning scheme, that requirement is reduced down to 1.5 hectares.
00:55:00 Speaker 9: So we'd meet the new scheme requirements for lots size. That's not a significant issue. Oh, okay. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: None of the issues could be addressed by reducing the lot size because it's a real lot size. That's correct. Yeah. Speaker 9: There's a minor amendment in the reason for refusal. It just picked up in the typo. Speaker 4: It was just an additional word. It didn't make sense. Speaker 9: No. Speaker 4: I was going to say implement something, but it didn't make sense. Okay. So when we get to Monday, we'll have that as a wording. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yeah. Speaker 3: So if there's no further questions, does someone want to move it? Councillor Finzel: I'll have it moved. Speaker 3: We move on to planning applications signed by General Manager Starry, I think I need to go first because I'm the chair though then you have to go through the process of appointing a chair.
00:56:00 Are we going to have a second instance where one councillor becomes councillor as well? Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I councillor Stockwell informed the meeting that I have a prescribed conflict of interest in this matter in regards to item 1 application ID 51986.3023.0B, sorry. Buying Tarni Design Pty Ltd in April 2021, I engage in the Tarni Design Pty Ltd design my private residence at Loring Point for an amount of $4,510. This arrangement is currently active. As a result, I'll now leave the meeting room while the matter is considered and voted on. Speaker 4: Councillors, my suggestion is that we continue with the conflicts of interest and at the end of that process we'll determine who remains and who can make that decision. So are there any other conflicts of interest? Mayor Stewart: I councillor Stewart informed the meeting that I have a declarable conflict of interest in this matter as I have a close personal relationship with Craig Anthony Tyndale and Michelle Tyndale listed in the report at item 99 application number SPS21.
00:57:00 Although I have a declarable conflict of interest, I do not believe a reasonable person could have a perception of bias because I believe council's consideration of these applications are not to approve or reject them. They are only for noting that the decision has already been made by staff. Therefore, I will choose to remain in the meeting room. However, I will respect the decision of the council and the council members. I will take the decision in the meeting of whether I can remain and participate in the decision. Speaker 4: Any other conflicts? One more. Councillor Wegener: I wrote this a long time ago. Could I change this just to condense it down because I think we'll be reading it every meeting? Speaker 4: My suggestion would be that if you have all of this wording already provided to the minute staff that we use this today and if you want to change it in the future, you would change it at that time.
00:58:00 Councillor Wegener: Okay. Thank you. I have a declarable conflict of interest in this matter due to my association with Andrew James St. Baker, listed in the report item 10, application number SPS21-0263. I am a surfboard manufacturer, and Mr. Baker is the owner of Thomas Surfboards and the Thomas Factory. I believe Mr. St. Baker has a fantastic influence on manufacturing in Noosa. In council, I have often congratulated Thomas Factory and have discussed the emerging enterprise business zone, which Mr. Baker supports. During the campaign, Mr. Baker allowed me to put an election chloroplude at the Thomas Surfboard Factory. I occasionally beat Mr. Baker in the surf and had two discussions of the Noosa Biosphere, the history of Noosa, and the Bring Back the Fish campaign at his house, which is right above the surf break. Although I have a declarable conflict of interest, I did not believe the reasonable person could have a perception of bias because I believe I do not have a close personal relationship with Mr. St. Baker.
00:59:00 And council's consideration of this application. It is not to approve or reject it, only for noting that a decision has already been made by staff. Therefore, I will choose to remain in the meeting room. However, I will respect the decision of the meeting on whether I can remain and participate in the decision. Speaker 4: Councillor Finzel, it's my great pleasure to advise you. I'll just outline the process if you like. Because you're the remaining councillor who hasn't got a conflict of interest, you automatically assume the chair. You don't need to go through a vote for that process. You become the chair of the meeting and we'll note that in the minutes. You now have the ability to determine the remaining conflict of interest, the two requests to stay in the room. Because under the Act, even if there's not a quorum, the remaining councillor who doesn't have a conflict of interest can make that determination.
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01:00:00 So you have the ability to make the determination on both Councillor Stewart and Councillor Wegener's conflicts of interest. So my suggestion would be... If you take them in order, if the bell may, so perhaps deal with Councillor Stewart's request to stay in the room. If you want me to give you any advice, I'm happy to do so. That's your call. Councillor Finzel: Given that this has come under the group delegation, I'm happy to say that I believe Clare Stewart should stay in the room, that it is in the public interest that Councillor Stewart participates and votes on this matter, because Council believes that although Councillor Stewart has a personal relationship with Craig, Anthony Tindale and Michelle Tindale and Sean Patrick Hunt and Kirsten Renee Schatt, Council's consideration of these applications is not to approve or reject them, but only for noting that a decision has already been made by staff. Therefore, a reasonable person would trust that the final decision is made in the public interest.
01:01:00 Speaker 4: Okay, we'll note that that is the decision that you've made as chair. Then we'd move on to... Councillor Finzel: And for the same reasons, I believe that Councillor Wegener can stay in the room, that it is in the public interest that Councillor Wegener participates and votes on this matter, because Council believes that also, although Councillor Wegener has a personal relationship with Andrew James St Baker, Council's consideration of these applications is not to approve or reject them. But only for noting that a decision has already been made by staff, therefore a reasonable person would trust that the final decision is made in the public interest. Speaker 4: Okay, we'll note that decision has been made by you. You remain as Chair now, and the other two councillors then can participate in the consideration of this report. So just back to normal, if you like. We have a report here from Kerry, and maybe ask Kerry if she's got any bit of an oversight of the number of applications.
01:02:00 And the activities are there, and we can get a vote on those recommendations. Councillor Finzel: So thank you, Kerry. Do you have any comments you'd like to make with regards to the application? Speaker 9: I think the most noteworthy is that we have finished assessing all our superseded scheme applications, which staff were very happy about. So there may be a couple on next month, but primarily this will be the last of the major what we've assessed. We assessed 313 for the 12 months since our new scheme commenced last month. July. Of those, we did approve 217 short-term accommodation, and the rest were refused or withdrawn or returned. So that was a mighty effort, I think, by staff. I would agree. Pleased to get through that. Yes, okay. Councillor Finzel: Well, thank you, and thank you to all the staff that have worked so diligently and extra hard in that space. And I think we're all pleased that that's moved on.
01:03:00 And we can get back to the business before us, so thank you. I'd like to bring this today that we, who wants to move the motion that we accept the recommendation? Not on the staff? No. Seconded by Wegener. Speaker 4: Moved by Councillor Stewart, seconded by Councillor Wegener. Yep. Councillor Finzel: Thank you. Seconded by Councillor Wegener. Thank you. Councillor Finzel: Who's all in favour that the council note the report, and that the applications which have been decided by delegated authority carried all, thank you. Speaker 4: Thank you, well done. I'll get Councillor Stockwell back in. Yes, thank you. Councillor Finzel, I think that's only the second time in my life that I've agreed that I've seen that occur, where there's only been one councillor left to make the decision.
01:04:00 Speaker 7: It's getting close, isn't it? Speaker 4: It is. Was there any dissent with the decision? Speaker 8: No. Speaker 7: No. Speaker 4: It was unanimous. Speaker 3: Unanimous, yes. So we're on to item nine. Development of assessment fees and charges variation for first agenda service of June. Do we have a short? Speaker 9: Yes. Have we all gone down? I guess in the last six months, January through to June, there were five. Five requests for fee variations, all fairly minor in this instance. I guess the primary one of noting would be the last one on page 172, where officers did make a mistake on an application and did not change one of the conditions of approval which was intended. So the fee was waived in full, given that was our issue. Speaker 3: All good? Councillor Finzel: Yes. Yes. Speaker 3: Does someone want to move that one?
01:05:00 Move Councillor Stewart, second Councillor Finzel. All in favour? The next one is the Peregian Beach District Hub. Thanks, Kerrie. Councillor Finzel: Thanks, Kerrie. Speaker 3: That has been requested by the general as well, I believe, this morning. We've got Chris and Anthony here. Come on up. But we will... Take the hot seat, Chris. There you go. Get out of the hot seat. If you can give us the headlines of the report and save some of your ammunition for next Monday. Speaker 1: Yes. I guess for the first time, we valued the social impact, so social return. So we'd like to think that that gives a lot more depth to what impact we're having from the ratepayers' investment on the hub. So the executive summary really summarises the key findings from that report. That report in detail calculates the creation of 41.5 jobs valued at $3.5 billion.
01:06:00 That's $3.7 million, and then obviously breaking that into direct, and likewise, all the other add-on impacts of the hub, so development of digital products and services by our clients and networks, and then obviously calculating some of the capital investment, and critically taking the value of the networks that we've built, and I call them school programmes, but youth programmes. And some of those have actually been more mature-age attempts. So in total, in summary, for the financial year 2021, a value, an independent valuation by Vaxa, who have helped us gain, I think, probably about $4 million worth of funding over the last year, Noosa Trails and FireTech. So that's that group. So they did the valuation and did all the research into how you calculate social return on investment.
01:07:00 So $4.8 million for the 2021. And financial year is the independent impact value. And then if I just summarise, I guess, what have we invested to get there, there's a whole lot of capital investment, but for this year, in summary, the numbers are showing a deficit for the COVID impacted year of 31,000. But if you look at the detailed explanation, there's a couple of things happening under there. One is that actually our co-work revenues are ahead by about 50,000, if I recall the number. The number there is actually excluding our Tech One sponsorship that we've had over the last few years. It came in after the financial year closed of 50,000. So I would contend that actually most of the numbers are ahead of budget on the revenue. It's a timing issue. It's a timing issue, because we do expect the Tech One sponsorship to come in for this year as well. So net, if you include that, obviously, is a net positive of 20,000.
01:08:00 There is expenses ahead, mainly in, we didn't budget enough for air conditioning maintenance. That's probably over by 10,000 to 12,000. And also some of the work that Deidre, who most of you met, I think, around doing those ecosystem builds, which is funded from the state government. We've recognised some of that revenue in previous years, and the Tech One sponsorship goes towards that work as well. So in summary, the financial show, 31 deficit. But if you include the timing of the 50,000, we're ahead of budget or we'll call that close to budget. And that was pretty difficult in the COVID-impacted year, most critically for the first time we valued the social impact. Thank you. Speaker 4: Councillor, when Anthony said that's the first time we valued social impact, that probably relates to us as an organisation, not just the Digital Hub. It's actually a really good piece of work in terms of being able to use that as a template
01:09:00 for what else we can look at our social impact. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: There's a $31,000 deficit. We can expect $4.8 million return in social impact for whatever you put up next year. Speaker 1: Well, we'll go bigger than 4.8 social impact. Can't rely on the deficit at this point. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I'm happy to have a $31,000 deficit if it means we have that much impact. Yeah, that's right. It's really clear that I know in the past, sometimes we've had councils that have been very interested in the nuts and bolts of finance. And to me, that's a very minimalist approach. What we want to do is, how much is it costing to have an impact? And what this really clearly shows is what we've all been having a warm interplay for the last couple of years about. It just shows that this has a real value to our community and not just to our economy. Absolutely. Speaker 1: Through you, Chair, just commenting on that. I think we're at the maturity level now where we can do this work. I think it's fair to critically assess the setup costs in the early stages.
01:10:00 But I think, you know, I want to thank councillors and previous council for their patience. I think in as we've matured and given Chris the opportunity and the team to build that impact, because you don't do that in year one, year three, we're now in and there's no doubt that I'm very, very proud and comfortable where we've got to. And now we're in an expansion mode. So yeah, I think we're at the maturity level where we can actually say, here are the social impact measures up until probably this point, it wouldn't be an easy kind of measure to undertake. Councillor Finzel: I just have a question regarding sponsorship revenues moving forward. Hmm. How are we reaching out to try and increase? Speaker 1: That's a good question and good enough for you, Chair, for Chris to answer. Councillor Finzel: Noting that you've lost, you've probably lost revenue. Is that right?
01:11:00 Speaker 2: Yeah, on the sponsorship side, really just a timing issue on the timing of the invoicing on the sponsorship amount. It came in again this year, but we really weren't able to get it into the financial year accounting. So that take one sponsorship and support is still in place and to the question, how do we expand it? I think sponsorship really is about, it's about surface area. What I mean by that is a brand or organization, the days of sort of just handing out tens of thousands of dollars. Sponsorships are long gone and then sponsorship is usually one of the first things that goes in a budget during tough times. And I mean, we are in relatively tough times. So you really have to genuinely deliver some value to the sponsor. There's no more sort of gratis handouts.
01:12:00 So that's about creating surface area that genuinely benefits that sponsor. And that's really just about developing a series of compelling projects and activities that, you know, reflect well on a potential sponsor to have an impact on their business. I think we're just at the point now where we've got beyond our core business where there isn't that much surface area. We've now got some interesting projects and programs where someone like Tech One is really starting to get some benefit from the PR value of being associated with that. So by perhaps an example from the last few months, we held a sort of PR launch for our AI cadetship program a couple of months ago. Where Tech One's sort of Sunshine Coast lead came along, handed out some of the equipment that that helped us procure and so forth. And that created quite a significant sort of PR opportunity for them across social media
01:13:00 and so on. And then we had an event last week in Cherbourg working with the community there, which Tech One is a partner and sponsor on as well. And they weren't able to attend, but the resulting media has again kind of given them quite a lot of positive PR. And that's stuff that they can put a dollar value to in terms of getting a return on the sponsorship dollars that they've put in. And I think it's about creating more opportunities like that. And that really just comes with, you know, improved capabilities and opportunities for us in our own organization to create compelling programs and create the surface area that, you know, brands want to be involved with. We've now got a conversation going with a couple of other technology companies who are interested in these things. And I imagine that that's an area that we can grow in the future.
01:14:00 But I think we should just, the takeaway from it is, you know, if it weren't perhaps for Council's strong relationship with Tech One as a special customer that adopts their technology earlier and so forth, probably wouldn't have been in a position to get that kind of a sponsorship. But now we're sort of starting to earn it in a real way. And I think we'll continue to do that with Tech One and others and grow that element of what we're doing on its merits. Councillor Finzel: Yeah. That's good. So through the Chair, just wondering when we can expect a report back then on the invoices, given it was the timing and it's not in this report. When can we expect to see those dividends? Speaker 1: Through the Chair. Can I clarify that question? Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Are you talking about the fire tech sponsorship which we've said we've already received, the $50,000? No, no. Tech One. Councillor Finzel: The 50k below budget of the sponsorship revenues that I've just been told was due to the timing
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01:15:00 of the invoices? Yep. So Tech One. What time? Tech One. Or what report? When can we expect to see those figures in a financial report? Speaker 1: So the, through you Chair, the $50,000 will be represented in this financial year, the 21, 22 financial year. And I guess I'm also saying that it is our intention to actually get this year's Tech One sponsorship as well. Speaker 8: Yep. Speaker 1: Because that was last year's carryover. Yep. And it's not represented this year. So we still are confident that we'll have a sponsorship from Tech One for this financial year. Mayor Stewart: Yep. Speaker 1: And we'll certainly work to try and get it into the June deadline. Okay. So it'll either be 50 that you'll see this year, or 100, or that the 50 might roll into throughout the year. So that's that. You'll see it in the financial figures for the end of the year. Councillor Finzel: Okay, great. Thank you.
01:16:00 Speaker 8: And I didn't find anywhere in the report, in dollar terms, what is, for example, every dollar spent at the digital club, what does that equate to in terms of community benefit? Have you done that, Dan, or not? Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: I think if we just pull up the exact sum, the simplest way of looking at it is, and this is certainly where I'd like to get the simplistic mathematics to in our own minds when we think about this project, is what is the net cost to council here? In other words, take the core business, take the EBITDA of the core business, which I think we said at this stage is a deficit of 80. Is it 80, the controllable EBITDA?
01:17:00 Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Negative 80? Speaker 1: Controllable is. Let's just confirm that. And that is, yeah, it's a year-to-date actuals is 110, current budget, it was the sponsorship. So let's go for on budget, $70,000, $70,000. Okay. Speaker 2: So if we could think of that as a sort of net deficit, which, and to be fair, the financial performance of the hub is improving year on year on year, 18 months of COVID, shutdowns, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know, they've made the trading conditions a little tougher than they would ordinarily have been. But anyway, let's just take the net net of a negative cost to council, cost to the rate payer of, in the order of 70 to 100K, let's say, for, if we're prepared to believe the veracity of the independent report and the robustness of its calculations and so forth, for a total.
01:18:00 So. And I think we should think of this as a socio-economic return, not just a social return. Calculate it to be. Speaker 4: $60. Speaker 2: Yeah. Calculate it to be $4.8 million. A dollar in, $60 out. Oh, yeah. In terms of socio-economic benefit. Speaker 4: One dollar gives you $60 return. Speaker 8: That would be great to be included because that means probably more to me than all of these numbers. Question to CEO Brett. Do you think this could serve as a really good template for organisations like TM and other organisations to understand their real worth? Speaker 4: We're a bit off track in terms of looking at the digital hub. But I think the answer to you is that the, this template, the attachment, instead of councils having a look at that, I really urge you to go into it, the social return on investment valuation. I think it's a really good template that we can use as well.
01:19:00 And whether that's used by third parties, that's up to them. But certainly it is a really smart piece of work in terms of assessing the value of the organisation, sorry, the value of the community of the service that we're providing. I think we're going to be able to use this in other ways as well. Councillor Wegener: Is that, is that just template? Is that, was that one of, out of one of your brain children, Chris? Or is this, or is this just, you know, look at that, the standard class businesses directly? Through the Chair. Speaker 2: I think we should give credit to the full lineage. And this is detailed in the, in the document. The person who first brought us, brought our attention to this was Kim Rawlings, who did some pioneering work at Knox, the previous council that she was with, where they were trying to come up with a robust framework for determining what the socio-economic
01:20:00 value was of certain investments that their council was making in Victoria that didn't necessarily have direct revenue benefits, but was crucial to the, to the community and to the economy. And we've benefited a lot, not only from Kim's experience in that area, but the many people that she introduced us to. Where we could get, where our external consultants were able to get benchmarked research from and data from, so that they could apply a totally independent approach to this. Things like, you know, to what extent do you attribute the value of the investment to the outcome? Concepts that you'll see in there, like dead weight attribution and so forth. Dead weight being something that would have happened anyway. How do you reduce that so you're not over-claiming the benefit of the investment when a certain proportion of it would have happened organically anyway? So you'll see from that framework that it's there.
01:21:00 And to the great credit of this council and the previous one, there's always been a notion with the digital hub, and it's evolved more and more over time, that it isn't just a question of what the EBITDA and the financial performance is and the cost to ratepayers. There has been this notion of social capital. But I think the fantastic thing is we're now in a position where we can take a more robust analytical view of what the actual contribution is in an independent way, where if you look through the detail of it, it is actually the beneficiaries that are sort of ascribing the attribution of how much value it's generated for them personally. So rather than saying, you know, we think it's X, you've actually got the beneficiary saying, this is how much I would attribute, this is how much would have happened anyway, this is how much it's assisted us, you know, incrementally from that. So Kim really deserves the credit in terms of helping us move to a more sophisticated
01:22:00 way of thinking about how we do this and then giving us contacts so that we could adopt best practices and we're just kind of cooking up something of our own. Yeah. Councillor Finzel: So does that rely on a report back from the recipients back to you to inform you? Speaker 2: It's a very comprehensive survey, which is attached in full in the addendum there. We surveyed three different stakeholder groups, one of which are members at the Digital Hub. Others are industry participants who aren't really members, but attend all of our industry functions and activities and so forth. And the third are parents and students who've been involved in our capacity building program. So three sort of robots. So we have robust surveys that we developed for each of those groups, and you'll see the response rates are very, very high in percentage terms and in actual survey completion terms. So the data is robust. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yeah. That's right. Who does a Silicon Geeks like to fill a form for certain actors?
01:23:00 Speaker 2: Getting anyone to fill a form in these days is not an easy thing to do. So when I see those completion rates, I'm extremely pleased because it would have been a shame to go to all that effort, have low completion rates, where people can easily poke a stick into the data, say, look, you only had. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Most surveys, if you get over 20%. Yeah. Speaker 2: And these completion rates are much higher than that. So to get a decent sample size, you've got to work quite hard. I would say you have to have quite a lot of social capital to get surveys completed in the first place. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: They feel ownership of the outcome. Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's important to read the appendix around the responses. Look at that and whether you think, is there sustainability and longevity in the work? Because I read all these responses and feel, well, we're making a difference. So it's anything from the parent of the school, of the student, or it's the business said, I couldn't have done this without this help or the mentoring.
01:24:00 I think if you went through, how we've calculated it and kind of go through the appendix, which is some of the raw data. They said this. They said this. You add that up. I went through and added up for myself. Yes, it feels right. But that to me is the test. It's if you go through that and go, yeah, that makes sense. And it is making a difference. And the intervention is the calculation. So I read it as well around, are we over, you know, are we double dipping? Are we overcompensating? So that's kind of that's a conservative number to the conservative deadweight attribution, drop off and displacement. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yeah. See, I always saw people calling me deadweight. I'm thinking in terms of Monday, have you, you, you tend to generate some pretty good
01:25:00 audio visual stuff for the, um, the hubbing and stuff like that. Is there anything new that council and the community hasn't seen that might form part of your overview next Monday? Speaker 1: Um, do you mean visually? Yeah. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Audio visual type thing, but it doesn't want you to go to any additional, but there's something there that. You have something existing, not creating something new. Speaker 6: Can I come back to it? Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. We'll just take over this Monday. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, just progress on the five feet living lab. Um, just the bushland lab where we're going to have drones, robots, IOTs, insulating that. How's that going? Speaker 2: Going well. We, we've established the, what we're calling a network of smart nodes that have cameras, um, and, and the IOT, uh, connectivity for sensors and things like that. Um, the cameras have already been used in anger. By the disaster management team, um, and have helped, um, uh, with the range of, of monitoring
01:26:00 tasks when we've been doing prescribed burns, um, which has been a fantastic validation. Um, and in fact, um, QPWS have asked for access to them so that they can remotely monitor things. So that's proven to be a good little pilot trial. Um, we take delivery over the next few weeks of people counters and traffic counters, which are going to allow us. To, uh, better manage things like understanding, um, uh, the, the, uh, um, uh, understanding what the potential evacuation risk is of certain areas where there to be a, uh, a disaster event. So for example, understanding, and I mean, we, we haven't yet gone and covered the place in those senses, but we're sort of prototyping or trialing, um, if we were able to, to, to count, uh, vehicles moving in and out. Uh, you know, if we were able to get, uh, a vehicle moving in and out of a given kind of choke zone, um, from an evacuation management perspective, you then know what, what the task
01:27:00 ahead of you is from a vehicle perspective, but similarly in a place like the national park to know how many people you need to evacuate, um, uh, out of that is a really important piece of data. So those are some of the first sensors that are arriving. You'll be familiar with the fact there's a, you know, Chippmageddon out there. So it's very difficult to actually get any kind of semiconductor based sensors and technology on time. So we're lucky to be able to get this. The next one are a series of weather stations, which will go in over the next six to eight weeks, which will give us microclimate data across a range of different zones in the Shire. So those are the first cabs of the rank in terms of data starting to come in. And then we've figured out what the optimal position of our various smart nodes are, and we've just applied for some more funding to be able to kind of, let's call that consolidate that activity and go from temporary tilt poles to proper poles with, you know, DAs attached to getting the poles put in place and so forth. So yeah, good progress on that.
01:28:00 Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Okay. We, the, the... The installation on McCain Park after the lookout on the current tabling, that's one associated with this system? Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and that's one of the, one of the temporary sites that we had to sort of test out both the vantage point, but also things like what's the community response, how do we need to manage comms around this, all that kind of stuff. So it's been very instructive in terms of that. And then lastly, just on the drones, I know that some, there's an interest in that particular area. Very interesting trial. The drones that we've acquired in the North Shore burn that was done a few months ago. And I could share an amazing video which used the thermal capabilities of those drones to determine things like, is there subsurface burning going on? So you, you know, you do a burn, and when the burn appears to be extinguished, is there still, for example, subsurface burning going on?
01:29:00 Things like that. Yeah. So the, the thermal capabilities of the drone are amazing. And as an additional asset for the council team and the QPWS team to manage something like that and have that situational awareness has been extremely valuable. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: The infrared is probably standard now, but early works 10 years ago were more of that infrared, also being a good indication of recovery, about how the vegetation is recovering after fire. Speaker 2: And just lastly on that, we've, I think we've trained six, I think it's six. Yeah. Yeah. That's part of the project in terms of being able to, to. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: And the commercial drone license. Speaker 2: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And access those drones that we've now acquired and used in, in various parts of council. Councillor Finzel: And Chris, do you see this as an opportunity then to, for residents to benefit through financial things like insurance on their properties if we implement this type of technology so that, like, it reduces the risk of fire? Is there, has anyone looked in that space?
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01:30:00 Speaker 2: Haven't, haven't yet considered that. But that's an interesting idea. Speaker 4: If we, we, we. We'll already, the, the insurance council. The insurance, they make their own assessments. Yeah. Yeah. Councillor Finzel: Yeah. Do their research. But do we feed any information back to the client? We haven't been, it's a really good point. Mm. Speaker 1: It's a good point. So 3G, I think on that point, I think, 3G, I think what we're talking, I mean, this is a cross-council kind of benefit, and so James, Craig, and Chris are probably driving, are kind of the drivers, but there's a, there's a group, so I think it is fair to say that let's share some of that, you know, pre-Christmas or just early in the new year around that disaster management benefit in, from fire tech, because this really is coming partly, most of it's coming out of the fire tech, $2 million, which is, you know, living lab and the actual big data center type thing. So I think with James, if we take it from a whole of council benefit, and we, obviously, we're trying to drive digital innovation and, and the culture of change across the organization, and so I think that's maybe the context for a council update is, is, is around the, the fire tech and disaster management use of technology, and that we just roll that out, that bit more, and James can lead a lot there.
01:31:00 Speaker 2: Perhaps if I could just add one last thing there, I think if you look at the, at the report of the last year, and certainly the last three years, I'd say the three sort of main stakeholder groups that, that the digital hub has worked with and benefited have been the members, the, so, so sort of technology companies, digital professionals, et cetera, digital industry groups of the industry, not just the members, and then parents and, and, and students. I think the fourth stakeholder group that is starting to emerge through these kinds of projects is council itself, so I think that's where, you know, in a year's time, I'd like to, I'd like to add to this report what contribution has the digital hub made in sort of progressing this concept of a smart biosphere in terms of improving things like data that might help us do our jobs better as a council, that might improve our, our own capital with our, with our community, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
01:32:00 I think that's, you know, we, we, we, we will earn our way towards, you know, over the next year in particular and have some decent data around that in a year's time. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I think, I think Brett probably owes you guys a bottle of wine because he probably would say that one of the earliest things I had, I, I had done when I first got elected was start lecturing him on the need to report on outcome and impact rather than process and activity and, you know, obviously your, your social impact is so important. I think we're all at ease now that he's satisfied. That requirement, but it is, it's really important to understand that how we, you know, if we were a bullet, we'd want to see the impact of our investment and you've demonstrated that really clearly and really well and I appreciate it.
01:33:00 Speaker 2: Thanks very much. Thanks for your support. Councillor Finzel: And will that be feeding back through our climate response plan? Are these guys on that group? Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Would that be a question for Anthony? Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think both the CHAP and the climate response plan have, you know, monitoring, so I think use of technology and monitoring are part of both of those, and the network that Chris alluded to around being rolled out, that sensor network and IoT, that is really a great opportunity for monitoring climate, sustainability, natural area, you know, the health of our natural areas, I guess, so yes, it's embedded in there, we've still got a lot of work to do to say, where is it and how do we do it, and do we have the resources. Councillor Finzel: And is anyone from that group on this selected community reps or not?
01:34:00 No, they're the community representatives. Oh, they haven't been on. Oh, that's a shame, like some of those parents. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: You know, being a community reference group, you always add and delete as needed. You can have other people come. You can have someone on for a particular topic to talk about. Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's great. Speaker 1: And through you two, I think it will rely on our officer level coordination, project coordination to really ensure that what Chris and Hub can bring and Firetech and Jeff can bring actually comes through that group. So I think certainly at an organisational level, we need to ensure that the project structures ensure that we get that intelligence and resources in there. But I think it's a good point to probably look over time whether we actually bring in some community expertise around the adoption of tech within our climate change response plan.
01:35:00 Speaker 8: That'd be great. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 8: Thank you. Thanks. Speaker 3: I'm happy to move that motion. Second. Thank you. And that brings us to the end of the meeting. The meeting is closed at 11.10am. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank you, Anthony. Thank you. Well done. Councillor Finzel: Thank you, Mr Chair.