Before the first item ¶
00:00:00 Speaker 4: Okay, online? Good morning everybody. Welcome to the Planning and Environment Committee meeting on the 11th of February. Our chair of this meeting is overseas at the moment, he's online. So I'm starting the meeting as the CEO, we will appoint a chair in a moment. First I'd just like to acknowledge that we're meeting today with Kabi Kabi people and pay our respects to the elders of Kabi Kabi past, present and emerging. Attendance's apologies, I'm going to leave it to Councillor Lorentson, who is the normal chair, he's overseas but he's online. Councillor Lorentson, can you hear us? Councillor Lorentson: Good morning. Yes I can, loud and clear, good morning. Speaker 4: And Mayor Frank Wilkie is overseas as well, but he's not online, so he's an apology for this meeting. So that's our attendance, this is now to, we just need to appoint an alternative chair for this morning, so I can hand that off.
1 DECLARATION OF OPENING ¶
Nothing was transcribed under this heading — a stretch of the recording with no speech the model could make out.
2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY ¶
Nothing was transcribed under this heading — a stretch of the recording with no speech the model could make out.
3 ATTENDANCE & APOLOGIES ¶
00:01:00 Speaker 5: May I nominate Brian Stockwell? Speaker 4: Would you like to accept that? Councillor Lorentson: I picture second, I picture second, thanks. Accepted by Councillor Lorentson. Speaker 4: You're accepting that, so put it to the vote. In favour. All in favour. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Brian Stockwell. Thank you Mr CEO. So we first item on the agenda is confirmation of minutes. Do we have somebody who'd like to move those? Do we have a councillor? Seconder? Councillor Lorentson: I picture second, thank you. Councillor Lorentson. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I presume there's no discussion. All in favour? Councillor Lorentson: Yes. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: And that's unanimous. We then have no presentations, no deputations. So we move on to reports for consideration of committee. And the first one is a material change of use 210154.2. And it's an application for a minor change to develop approval for home based business, meat processing facility at 82 Patterson Drive, Kinbella.
4 CONFIRMATION OF MINUTES ¶
00:02:00 And Andrew, are you going to give us that? Yes, that's right. Speaker 1: Thanks Councillor. The application has been received to make a minor change to the home based business use which is currently approved to the property. The site's contained within the rural residential zone and is approximately 7,800 square metres in area. So it's currently approved with a large dwelling house and an existing shed at the property which is used for the home based business, which is located in the north western corner of the property. About probably 70 metres from the property. From the Patterson Drive cross over to the site. The applicant has been, is requesting the change to the approval because the existing approval requires that he is the only person to be involved within the home based business and at the moment he is finding it, I guess, difficult to manage the, I guess, the workload
7.1 MCU21/0154.02 – APPLICATION FOR A MINOR CHANGE TO DEVELOPMENT APPROVAL FOR HOME BASED BUSINESS (MEAT PROCESSING FACILITY) AT 82 PATTERSON DRIVE, TINBEERWAH ¶
00:03:00 involved with running the home based business. And the additional staff, up to two persons at the property, would assist him with the actual, I guess, the processing of his business, which involved, which involves collecting harvesting deer, bringing that back to the property and processing the carcasses. He's entitled to process up to 10 carcasses per week and basically that physical extent of work he is finding difficult to do. So he has applied for a change. He has applied for a change to a deletion of one of the conditions, which limits no employees at the site, such that he can employ up to, have an additional two persons at the site to assist him with that, that sort of a workload. He is also requesting to extend, he had requested to delete the other condition, which was a lapsing time period for the use of two years.
00:04:00 So he has applied for a change to a deletion of one of the conditions, which limits no So they are the two sort of elements which he has requested to amend with the approval. And basically at this stage, the impacts of the actual, the additional number of people at the site have been assessed to be considered to be manageable, in accordance with the home based business tolerances for a number of people involved with the home based business within the rural residential zone, and is recommended for approval. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Thank you. Now this item has been a reflection of some of the issues that have been raised in the general committee. But do we have any questions that would help councillors in terms of getting their head around the issues for next Monday's general committee? Speaker 5: A quick question. One of my silly ones, which is the word entitled. So they are entitled to these things. Is that actually the proper word? Because they have a condition which allows them. Authorised. Authorised. That's the word I was looking for. Anyway, yeah, there's just a difference between authorised and entitled.
00:05:00 I'm just that slight. Correct. Thank you. Councillor Lowton. Councillor Lorentson: Just a few questions. And mainly arising from a letter that was sent to all the councillors recently from the neighbour. I just wanted to run through some of the issues in there, Andrew. And I'll start with, and you're a little bit blurry. So first of all, and I know that you spoke about the distance. And I know that you spoke about the distance. How close is the meat processing facility from the neighbour's fence or boundary line? Speaker 1: From the actual. Councillor Lorentson: I think you've mentioned it, but you're just a little bit vague. I can't hear you very clearly. Speaker 1: I guess the actual distance between, I guess, the dwelling and the actual meat processing facility would be approximately 50 metres. I could.
00:06:00 I don't. I would have to. Probably. I don't know. Probably come back to it with an exact dimension from the boundary of the site to the shed. Councillor Lorentson: I would appreciate that, Andrew, for the general meaning. That would be great. Speaker 1: Sure. Councillor Lorentson: In terms of the extra two employees, you mentioned that that's within the criteria of a home based business. Can you tell me how many car movements per day? How do you do that? How does that change the number of car movements per day? And is that a consideration for this application? Speaker 1: The number of car movements would involve, maximum car movements would involve basically two staff arriving at the site in the morning within the permitted hours of operation of the home based business, which is between 8 and 5pm. So they would arrive after 8am.
00:07:00 So two car movements to the site. For the two employees, they would work up until, I have verbally been told by the owner of the site that they may not need to work till 4pm. They may finish at 2 o'clock. They may finish at 3 o'clock. The idea of having the people of the additional staff at the site is to assist him with his business efficiency. So he, the latest that they would leave the site would be 4pm. So two extra traffic movements from the site in the afternoon. So during the course of a day, four movements. Councillor Lorentson: The applicant has asked how will council prevent non-compliance and enforced conditions? And I've understood there has been a number of complaints in the last say, nine months. And can you maybe explain how they've been investigated? So the first thing I would say is that we've had a number of complaints in the last six
00:08:00 Speaker 3: months. Just mindful that complaints are protected under privacy. I'm not sure how I can answer this question. Speaker 2: Yeah. We probably, councillor, we have to be careful under privacy around details of specific parties and the nature of the complaints raised. We can talk generally around that staff have done audits and investigated a number of complaints over the past six months. We've had a number of complaints in the last two years and have investigated and no evidence has been obtained to substantiate those complaints. Recent audits have been undertaken prior to an assessment of this application and found that the home based business was operating in accordance with its approval and was in a very tidy and appropriate state in terms of the inspection.
00:09:00 So we haven't found any substantiated breaches despite multiple investigations and audits undertaken over the past two years. But we are mindful around the proximity of the home based business to surrounding properties and ensuring that the impacts from this particular operation are minimised to the maximum extent so it doesn't cause an adverse impact on amenity. Does that assist at all? No. Councillor Lorentson: No. I appreciate that response. Yes, it does. Speaker 2: Thank you. Councillor Lorentson: Again, I'm just referencing an email sent to all the councillors. Again, it goes back to just how do we monitor and enforce the conditions. So in terms of increased traffic and noise, how will that be managed and how do we, you know, how do we enforce compliance of that?
00:10:00 That there isn't going to be increased traffic and noise. Speaker 2: My comment, councillor, would be that the home based business code provides some tolerances for activities and obviously in the rural and rural residential zones, the home based business code stipulates up to six persons involved with a home based business can be supported under the planning scheme. In this case, this will, I don't know. And look, the fact is there's an existing approval. This is including two additional employees driving to the site and from the site within daylight hours. The impacts that officers have assessed have considered those impacts to be minimal, but have required some conditions there to ensure that that's managed. And there is also an extension of a sunset clause on that. So Council can review during the next four year period
00:11:00 in terms of evaluating whether that should be continued to a later date as well. So there's sufficient measures in place to manage. Like all permits that Council issues across the entire region, the obligation for compliance rests with the applicant. Council does undertake occasionally audits, proactive audits, however often will respond to concerns or issues raised by the public and will investigate and take appropriate action in relation to complaints of breaches that have been identified or detected. Councillor Lorentson: Thank you. This is a question, just out of curiosity, a question that I'd like to ask is, in terms of harvesting of the deer, when does that occur and for what time and frequency? How often and what time does that happen? Speaker 1: Council, the approval allows the owner
00:12:00 to harvest deers once a week. I believe that from discussions with the owner, the areas which the deer is collected is west of Gympie. And his times of leaving the property and coming back from the property varies. He could be back at the property 11pm. He might be back at 1am. It's a little bit uncertain to confirm exactly when that can happen. Speaker 3: So, there is a condition on the approval that authorise the processing of 10 carcasses per week with harvesting to occur a maximum of one evening per week. So, it aligns with what Andrew said there. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I just have one with the suggestion that I'll go in sunset clause. I've made the report that once a week,
00:13:00 one of the reasons they didn't want that to continue was the cost of application. To remove the subject clause in this next suggested period of lapses, is that another minor change in use? Is that a supply or is it? Speaker 3: It would be a change to the condition. So, it would involve a minor change application. At that time, we can assess the application fee that is paid. There is a prescribed fee, but the applicant can seek for us to modify that. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: You can. I'd like to describe the minimum $1300. Is that right? If you could. Speaker 3: For a minor change, I think it's about $2000. But yeah, they could certainly request us to review that fee at the time if there was a limited assessment required. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Okay. Councillor Finzel's also doing an online review. Councillor Lorentson: I have some further questions. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Also, a request has been made by the applicant in terms of the access handle. So, the condition at the moment reads that it must be densely landscaped.
00:14:00 And we've been provided with pictures. Is there... The applicant has requested a seven foot or a nine foot fence along the boundary. And I think we've had some discussions about whether that is appropriate. What is considered a reasonable condition or not? And what is a more reasonable option to be included as part of the condition package? Speaker 1: Yes. I believe that was the neighbour councillor, not the applicant for this application. Councillor Lorentson: Oh, excuse me. No, excuse me. You're correct. Speaker 1: Yes. That's all right. That's right. I mean, there's an existing sort of buffer landscaping area on the southern side of the driveway. And I believe there's some additional landscaping within the neighbour's property along that sort of that driveway boundary. There has been some planting added to that landscape buffer by the owner, which was to
00:15:00 satisfy conditions of the approval, conditions 19 and 20. That has occurred already. There may be some areas within that sort of existing buffer landscaping, which could be improved to assist with providing a visual separation of the driveway more successfully. Not that it's not already screened. It's already heavily screened, but maybe there are some areas, you know, at the lower level, which could be screened with some lower level planting, which may assist with thickening up and making that completely sort of visually separate. Councillor Lorentson: And my last question. Is impacts such as just mental stress, anxiety, again, the applicant has written to us, and
00:16:00 their mental impacts are real. Is that a, how is that measured, how is that monitored, and is that considered ? Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I think once again, Councillor Lorentson, you may have meant to say the nature of the impact. I don't know if the neighbour had written to us, or I don't know if they have said anything. Councillor Lorentson: Oh, excuse me. The neighbour. Apologies. The neighbour. Speaker 2: Well, I'll respond to that, Councillor. So staff will assess the application under, against the planning scheme. Because this is a minor change, it's a bounded assessment in relation to the extent of what the changes are. Staff do assess very thoroughly and diligently. The nature of the impacts, and whether they fall within the tolerances, I guess, set by the planning scheme. So they seek to ensure that a fair decision is made to manage and balance the assessment
00:17:00 of the application, and also make sure that those impacts are managed appropriately and in accordance with what the scheme is seeking to achieve in terms of desired outcomes. Certainly, you know, if there's an opportunity to do that, that's something that we will always encourage that, but it can be difficult in certain situations where the relationship between parties is not able to work through any of their concerns or differences. Councillor Lorentson: I have got one more question, and I'm just referencing the original permit, and the original permit, we've got conditions that says very quite clearly that the approved use must go ahead and be operated and conducted by permanent resident or resident, and no employees are committed. Can I ask why, given that the, our own NUSA plan, home based definition includes three,
00:18:00 up to three employees, why was that condition put in, if it can be overridden by the NUSA plan? Speaker 3: That's a good question, Councillor. At the time that this application was originally assessed, I wasn't, I'm not too sure if that condition was included as part of the officer recommendation, I'll probably have to come back to you on that, but it certainly was a hotly debated application amongst the Councillors, and there was considerable community interest into the potential impacts of this use, so at that time that condition was included. It's noteworthy that the applicant didn't seek to appeal that condition in light of
00:19:00 the allowances within the scheme. Councillor Lorentson: Thank you. Thanks for all my questions. My recollection was because that was all that was applied for at the time. Yeah. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: As I mentioned, Councillor Finzel has joined us online, although not part of the committee, can ask questions, and you have your virtual hands up if you'd like to. Councillor Finzel: Thank you, Mr Chair for the acknowledgement, and thank you to the staff for the report. Thank you for the questions that have been brought to the staff. They have made things a little clearer. Just with the impacts, to ensure they're managed appropriately, in terms of the neighbour sending the email to all councillors, which I've said I'd advocate on behalf of the neighbour, with regards to the fact that there's been an increase in the number of councillors from the neighbour around the possibilities of a fence around the boundary to mitigate all the impacts that have been discussed in the report and today.
00:20:00 We've talked about increasing vegetation, which was conditioned on the last application and approved. I do wonder if the neighbour feels that is not sufficient, not sure how we measure those impacts. How do we go about looking at the possibilities of the fence to mitigate impacts? Speaker 2: Councillor, there is an existing fence that exists at the moment. The employees will be coming during daylight, so light is unlikely to be an issue at all. Really, it appears the nature of the concerns being raised are about light. It's about the visibility of vehicles attending the site. As our assessment planner has been to site when the equipment and machinery has been on operation, it's been confirmed that it's not audible from outside the building. It's extremely acoustically treated and the noise from the operation does not emit beyond
00:21:00 the building itself. What we've discussed, or what's been discussed and assessed, is that some further screening to make sure that there's no damage to the building itself. The ability for there to be limited visibility of the adjoining the subject site's driveway at all to limit the visibility of actual vehicles arriving to the site we believe will help address some of the concerns raised around activities happening on the site. Even though there are only two vehicle movements arriving additionally in the morning and in the afternoon, we consider that to be reasonable to assist in trying to minimise those impacts to the maximum extent possible. But do not believe that a fence replacing an existing fence will address anything apart from cost a lot of money without any additional added benefit.
00:22:00 Councillor Finzel: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your response. Just on the matter though, it could, despite what you've answered the question around vegetation, could that condition be put forward under the planning scheme? Speaker 2: The condition for a fence, a new fence? Councillor Finzel: Yes. Yes. Speaker 2: It could be, but our advice from an officer level would be that it would be unreasonable to require an owner to remove the existing fence. And replace with a new fence. And that's our responsibility from an assessment point of view to make sure conditions are reasonable and relevant in relation to the proposal being considered. So, yeah, so that would be our advice to council to consider. Councillor Finzel: Thank you for that. However, there is room if the neighbour and the applicant choose to negotiate an outcome around a fence.
00:23:00 That process is available to be followed. Speaker 2: Yes, civil arrangements with neighbours exist at all times regarding boundary fences and party fences and walls and things like that, absolutely. Councillor Finzel: Thank you, and if I may, through the chair, just one last question please. Sure. Thank you. Just to clarify, all home base from a state perspective is now code assessable. Yes. Can you talk to me a bit about what that means in terms of staff eligibility on site for home base business? Speaker 3: So there was a recent amendment to the planning regulations late last year which prescribed that all home base businesses will be code assessable.
00:24:00 There's also a provision within the regulations that says a planning scheme. Yes. Can't limit the number of people on site to less than two. So they set up an outcome saying that two is the minimum number or, sorry, that two is an acceptable number, but they also say that a planning scheme can't contravene that by having less, by having one. However, a planning scheme can allow for more. Thank you. Speaker 3: Thank you. Does that answer the question? Councillor Finzel: Yes. Thank you. I was just seeking clarification to see how this decision we make will affect this application now into the future. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Thank you. If there's no further questions, Councillor Lorentson, you indicated you'd like to move this item to general committee. General. Councillor Lorentson: Please. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yes.
00:25:00 Because... Councillor Lorentson: Due to the significance of the matter. Thank you, Councillor Stockwell. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Thank you. And Councillor Wickham, would you like to second it? Councillor Wickham has seconded. And I don't believe we'll need any discussion. All those in favour? Yes. That's unanimous. Thank you, sir. We now move on to item eight, which is reports for noting, and it is just the one, a planning application decided by delegated authority. Patrick, can you run through? I'll have you on this one. Speaker 3: Yeah, I can do. Thank you, Councillor. So the report details those applications that were decided under delegated authority for December 2024. You'll note that there were 39 decisions that were made by officers under delegation. 38 of those were at approval. There was one application decided by Council which was approved. And then there's an addendum to the report which details all the relevant applications. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Thank you. Do we have any questions?
8.1 PLANNING APPLICATIONS DECIDED BY DELEGATED AUTHORITY - DECEMBER 2024 ¶
00:26:00 Councillor Lorentson: I do. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Stockwell. Yes, go on. Extension certificates. Richard, can you explain? I've done a little bit of research on it, but I don't think I've ever seen extension certificates appear under our delegated authority, planning decisions by delegated authority. Can you explain extension certificate and what circumstances, or under what conditions are they made? And what conditions were they released? Speaker 3: Yeah. So we actually have been identifying exemption certificates for an extended period of time on this report. So what you'll see in this report is there's three exemption certificates that were issued. There is an allowance under the Planning Act for Council to issue what is called an exemption certificate, which means that proposed development, which technically requires a plan to be issued
00:27:00 as an approval, is given an exemption from requiring that approval. So what happens is they provide us with plans of what's proposed and we'll do an assessment. The applications that we're getting have related to some changes when the Noosa Plan 2020 first came into effect, that there were a couple of changes to the scheme which we say were errors. One being that the old scheme allowed for land that was in the landslide hazard overlay to be accepted development in circumstances where a geotechnical report was provided and that the recommendations of the report were undertaken. There was just a change to the wording and I think an and was removed. So it triggered the geotechnical landslide hazard overlays for requiring an approval. Also some of the flood.
00:28:00 Similar with the flood overlay, it was triggering under the new scheme where it wasn't in the past. So in circumstances like that, the Planning Act allows for an exception certificate to be issued. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Thank you. I noticed the one refusal for a land variety, Mr Heads, was amending the number of bedrooms to existing value in SDPA. What's SDPA? Speaker 3: Sand Droom. Sand Droom. That's the problem area. Okay. So material change of use was original. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: And that was, was it just increasing the size of the house or was it something else that led to the refusal? Speaker 3: That house had quite a history. It was approved for significant size house and after they got an approval for the material change of use in the Sand Dune problem area, they put an application in for multiple dwellings which was refused. Subsequent to that there appears to be conversion of the dwelling into multiple dwellings. There was some compliance history going back quite a number of years, this appears to have raised its head again more recently, the applicant sought to resolve the matter by doing some works to the dwelling, to change it from a six bedroom to nine bedroom dwelling, but review of the plans still identified that it was multiple dwellings, so that application's been refused and we'll be undertaking communication.
00:29:00 Communication with them about converting the dwelling back to a dwelling, noting that it has recently sold, and there is an owner likely to make modifications to the dwelling. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Has it got any short term leading approvals on that side? Speaker 3: No, there was a short term leading application made and that's been refused. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Okay, and the last one for me was the change to the Kabi Road application, other changes included an underpass.
00:30:00 Speaker 3: That's actually should not be on the report, so I hadn't picked that up, that's the council decision, so apologies for that, that should not be on the report. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: So does it make any difference to the recommendation that probably doesn't, does it? Speaker 2: That was the name of, title of the report, wasn't it? Speaker 3: That's right. From the original, because it was a change. But I think Council stopped us saying the report that's, is featuring a list of delegated. Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, it wasn't delegated, yeah, it needs to be removed. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: So I'll move an amended, amended resolution. Resolution? I'm sorry, yeah.
00:31:00 No, that's right, it needs to be removed. Yeah. And as written, packet one for the report with the deletion of MP20MCU, other change. Okay. To approval impact. Councillor Finzel: Sorry, MP20? Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yeah. Yeah, 20MCU. Actually, just say, rather than want to tell you to come up, 12637BA59 Kabi Road to Tharabasca. Councillor Lorentson: Sorry. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Right there.
00:32:00 Speaker 6: Yeah, okay. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Do I have a second for that? Council Wigner, does anyone else wish to discuss the resolution? Do you have a question? No. Sorry. Okay. I've put the resolution. Those in favour? Speaker 5: We'll second it. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yes. Are you here, Signe? Councillor Lorentson: Sorry. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yeah, no, you were the second, I was the second. Councillor Lorentson: I thought Stockwell. Well, Councillor Stockwell moved it. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: That's unanimous. Okay. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: So the next item on the agenda is a matter report for consideration in confidential session. It's about an environmentally levy proposed land purchase. Okay. So can I have someone to move that we close the meeting to the public?
00:33:00 Councillor Lorentson: I think she'll move. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Okay. Council Warrington and seconded by Councillor Wegener. All in favour? Yes. That's unanimous. Speaker 6: And we'll just wait for the...
9.1 CONFIDENTIAL - NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE - ENVIRONMENT LEVY PROPOSED LAND PURCHASE ¶
01:03:00 Councillor Lorentson: Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any others wish to put the motion? No? I put the vote. All those in favour? Councillor Lorentson: Yes, thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: That's unanimous. Okay, thank you Dave, thank you Ben. Speaker 4: Thank you councillors. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Thank you David. And that brings us to the close of the meeting, so at 10.33 we close the meeting for this month. Thank you all. Speaker 6: Thank you Chair. Councillor Finzel: Thank you Mr Chair and staff.
10 MEETING CLOSURE ¶
Council's recording ends before this item. Where a meeting resolved to close its doors, that is what the end of the recording means — see what council discussed in private.