Planning & Environment Committee Agenda - 12 August 2025 Transcript

1 DECLARATION OF OPENING ¶

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2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY ¶

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3 ATTENDANCE & APOLOGIES ¶

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00:01:00 Mayor Wilkie: It's a scary motive. Speaker 4: Can I please request before the meeting commences that everyone has their phones on silent or turned off. Thank you. Confirmation of minutes. Item 4.1. Can I please have someone to confirm the Planning and Environment Committee meeting minutes dated the 8th of July, 2025. Councillor Wegener, thank you. Seconded by Mayor Wilkie. No discussion. All in favour? Thank you. Presentations, deputations? There are none. So we move straight to reports from the committee. Item 7 and 7.1, update to Infrastructure Charges Resolution. And I welcome to the table Lord, and you're online, that's who, that's okay, Morgan.

4 CONFIRMATION OF MINUTES ¶

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4.1 PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES DATED 8 JULY 2025 ¶

▶ 00:01:46· Carried 4-0 from council's minutes

00:02:00 Thank you. Can I begin just by asking if you could give us an overview or summary of the improvement progress and what the... what's been recommended to Council? Yep. Basically, the Planning Committee requires Councils to have a Charges Resolution to be able to issue Infrastructure Charges on new development, any increase in development. Speaker 7: This report is basically just a standard administrative update to match the current charges with the recently updated Planning Regulation maximum amounts, which happens usually on the 1st of July each year.

5 PRESENTATIONS ¶

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6 DEPUTATIONS ¶

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7.1 UPDATE TO INFRASTRUCTURE CHARGES RESOLUTION ¶

▶ 00:02:20· Carried 4-0 from council's minutes

00:03:00 Yeah, and the only difference with this one compared to the last few years, or all the other years, is the changing of the charge applicable to secondary dwellings, which on the 15th of May, Council... Mm-hmm. ...decided to stop charging from the 1st of July, and that's captured in the new updated Charges Resolution. Yeah, that's basically a summary of what it is. Yep. Speaker 5: And just confirming, Lord, the resolution now provides for a 6.44% increase in line with the changes within the... Speaker 7: Yeah, that's correct. It's an increase of 6.44% based on...from the previous Planning Regulation rights.

00:04:00 Council's Charges Resolution captures those increases anyway in the automatic increase provision, which is specified in the Act and in Council's Charges Resolution. Mm-hmm. So, even though we're currently operating on last year's resolution, we are still applying... Mm-hmm. ...these new rights according to the Act and the resolution increase. This...the reason we update it every year is just so it matches the actual Planning Regulation. Mm-hmm. It makes it a lot easier, a lot clearer, and especially for all the customers, so it's more transparent, so we're actually 100% aligned with the regulation.

00:05:00 Speaker 4: Ludwig, I might start with a question. So, the Planning Regulation 27 prescribes a maximum increase of 6.44. I note last year, I think, from recollection, Council also adopted a full prescribed increase at the time. Why does Council adopt the maximum rather than, say, a lower rate or CPI? Speaker 7: Well, we can't apply CPI because you must apply the rolling...three-year rolling average of the PPI index for road and bridge... Yeah. ...in Brisbane. That's stipulated in the Act. And Council can and we do charge lower rates on some items, as you see for one-bedroom dwellings and for retirement homes. That's been in keeping with Council, you know, since the late 90s, all the way to the current day.

00:06:00 Speaker 4: And can I ask, and maybe this is a question to the CEO or to Richard, how much revenue does Council actually generate from the infrastructure charges, and where does that money specifically go? Yeah. And I know it's in the report, but just... Yeah, no... Speaker 6: ...reformation of other issues. ...reformation of other issues. So, the infrastructure charge is about $2.3 million per annum. That funding assists to pay for trunk infrastructure upgrades. So, the infrastructure charges levied help to subsidise and fund trunk upgrades. So, that $2.3 million per annum is used to go into infrastructure upgrades to support the new development that's obviously approved through the process. So, it's essentially a charge on developers that goes in to fund community infrastructure, particularly for trunk infrastructure, which is regional-wide infrastructure, so not local

00:07:00 streets as such. It's all regional-wide sort of infrastructure, main streets and some parks and stormwater and things like that as well. So, it definitely doesn't fully cover the cost of all trunk infrastructure. It's only a small proportion of the amount that we spend, but it is a contribution to that. And that's part of the reason why the $6.4 million is obviously some recovery, but certainly not a full cost recovery of the real cost of the trunk infrastructure upgrades. Speaker 4: Thank you. Questions around the table? Mayor Wilkie: Maybe a question on notice. What is the percentage that's recouped from infrastructure charges? As you said, Richard, it's not the full cost of the providing of the trunk infrastructure. It's a percentage. Speaker 6: Yeah. Mayor Wilkie: And it's been set by the State Government as only a percentage for quite a while now. Yes. What is it sitting at at the moment? 30%? Speaker 6: Yeah. Lord, have you got the most accurate? I understood it was between 15% and 20%, so it's still

00:08:00 very low. Speaker 7: Yeah. That's about the maximum that we recovered. I mean, the actual State has not set it as a percentage of recovery of infrastructure. It's just set a maximum charge, which they thought that developers were happy to pay, and it's been a case in itself. It's been a case since 2011 when it, when the adopted charges came in. It has no link with the actual cost of infrastructure. It's just a charge amount set by the State that we cannot go over. If you look at our legit, the, all the projects, the trunk projects are all listed in the legit, and I think on our every annual, annual basis where we, we collect a bit. The, the infrastructure charge account for about, you know, 15% roughly, just, just off the top of my head, of the actual funds that are spent. But this will

00:09:00 get reported in the Council report when we do, when all the works that have been spent on trunk infrastructure are put into the report that goes to Council for signing off in the annual Council report. It'll have all the details in the, the infrastructure charges collected for the amount for the, for last year and all the money that was spent, as well as all the trunk projects that were spent, money was spent. And that's currently, and Speaker 6: that's currently being worked on by Finance. Yeah. And just in addition to your question, Mayor Frank, the Council has been working with other local governments through LGAQ to advocate to the State Government around trying to get a greater share of that trunk infrastructure to be, to be paid from developers. There's been a lot of work, advocacy work done over many years to try and seek to get that proportion piece higher. Yes. Because at the moment, yeah,

00:10:00 ratepayers are having to fund a good chunk of that upgrade work. And often it's the new developments that benefit from a lot of those upgrades as well. Yes. And fortunately we're Mayor Wilkie: able to attract grant funding as well from the State. Correct. The Federal Government is having to follow this work as well as use residence funds. Correct. That helps. I'm happy Speaker 4: to move it Madam Chair. One more question. If anybody has questions first. Sorry, Council. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: So I've one of Lood. You mentioned a three year rolling average index, I think you said PPI. Can you just spell out what that means and whether I was right in that you're saying that the State has set a 6.4% base on that index? Speaker 7: Yeah, basic, yeah, look the, if I can share my screen with you, share, screen, okay, alright, the section 114 of the planning act basically says it includes a provision

00:11:00 an automatic income provision that provides for automatic increases in levy charges from when they are levied to when they are paid. They then go to state what's required and the increase is worked out using the PPI which is the producer price index for a rolling three year average and the state has actually provided the, an Excel calculation to be used and that's what we've used before they've actually updated the regulation and that's what they used to actually do the regulation as well. So, and it just works out when you do the calculation, that's worked out at 6.44%. That was increased from the previous financial year.

00:12:00 Speaker 4: Thank you. I'm looking at the advocacy piece, the LGAQ advocacy piece at the moment and it's quite interesting. State government. State government did commit to annually index the caps, cap charge in line with the road and bridge construction index in 2011 and to date this has still not occurred which is really unfairly burdening, local and regional councils, yeah. Speaker 6: Particularly as we know that the cost of infrastructure has, you know, has escalated in recent years as well so those real costs are, that gap is getting wider I think is the, from 2011. Yeah. So not small, so that's a real challenge for us, more work's to be done on that. Speaker 4: Question to Richard. Can council introduce a fee or mechanism for heavy vehicle impacts? Speaker 6: I'll have to take that on notice, it's obviously a little bit different than the, the nature of this particular report as such but happy to look at that.

00:13:00 Speaker 4: Can we introduce, probably my question is, can council levy charges where development increases the type or quality of use and places additional demand on trunk infrastructure and I'm reading that from course 2.4 and I look under course 8.2 when we look at, you know, how is additional development assessed, changes in use scale and intensity of capture, so under the legislation I'm wondering if there's an opportunity for us to introduce a fee or mechanism for heavy vehicle impacts. Mm. Speaker 6: There's nothing, no head of power through the Planning Act that I'm aware of as such, obviously each proposal is assessed on its merits and obviously any of those impacts must be mitigated through the assessment process, there are opportunities to sometimes levy, infrastructure

00:14:00 agreements I guess between parties to address and offset some of those things but there isn't a mechanism embedded in the planning process. I'm planning as such to levy a charge or let's say a royalty or something of that nature for use. So I'm happy to explore that further if you would like around the ability to levy a charge. But there's nothing that I'm aware of in the legislation that gives us that direct power. Speaker 4: Thank you. I've moved. Yeah, I'll come back to you on that. I appreciate that. Thank you, Richard. And then, Will, can you move? Mayor Wilkie: I moved it, yes. Speaker 4: Fantastic. I'll have a second. I'm happy. Thank you. We're looking forward to your speech. Mayor Wilkie: Thank you. Thank you, Luke, for the report. It's very important that our infrastructure charges are aligned with changes in state government legislation. And it's also gratifying to see that the nil charge for secondary dwellings is included in this.

00:15:00 And we've not accepted the increase in infrastructure charges that could be applied there because we are offering financial incentives for people. To build secondary dwellings. So that's reflected in the changes that you've included in your report. Thank you very much, Luke. We're lucky to have someone who finds this subject very interesting and understands it so well. Thank you. Tom. Speaker 4: Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: Yeah, it's interesting that built into the infrastructure charges legislation there's a criteria for working out how much the increased costs are going to be. And that was 6.44 if we look at a three-year rolling average. And if we look at our proposed interposed bargaining agreement for next year, it's 6.5%. And what we've kept our minimum general rate to is 6.5%. So the historic concept of picking rates to CPI has no real relationship with what we do.

00:16:00 I pay staff and build stuff mostly. Okay. So I think it's just interesting that there's some commentary about, the rates, we've kept it to what it really costs us to do business. And probably what we could be doing each time we do put rates out is just work out what are the two major indices and use that one as a bit of a guide for the community. Speaker 4: Thank you for the discussion, Tom. All in favour? Thanks. And let's move on to the next item on the agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Which is item 7.2, short stay, living and home hosted accommodation, local law, operational review, 2024-2025.

7.2 SHORT STAY LETTING AND HOME HOSTED ACCOMMODATION LOCAL LAW – OPERATIONAL REVIEW 2024/2025 ¶

▶ 00:16:53· Carried 4-0 from council's minutes

00:17:00 Unfortunately, Nick has been very good and very instrumental in this space. Unfortunately, he's not here. He's not here today, so we have Director of Planning, Richard MacGillivray, welcome, and Patrick Murphy. I'll hand it over to both of you if you want to start with the introduction. Thank you. And what recommendation is before us for approval. Thank you. Speaker 5: It is unfortunate that Nick's not here. He's been a real driving force of the team for the past 18 months or so. And certainly, with this operational review, there's a lot of credit to Nick. The outcome of this review lies with Nick, so it is unfortunate that he can't be here today to talk to you about all the great work that he's done. I will try and pick up the pieces, so to speak. But going back to the beginning in February 1, 2022, is when the local law commenced.

00:18:00 It was developed to regulate and manage short stay living to reduce the impacts on permanent residents and residential amenity. It was developed to regulate and manage short stay living to reduce the impacts on permanent residents and residential amenity. It was developed to regulate and manage short stay living to reduce the impacts on permanent residents and residential amenity. After 12 months, a review was undertaken. You may recall in February 2023, a report was presented to Council, generally supportive of how the local law was operating and being implemented. You may recall in February 2023, a report was presented to Council, generally supportive of how the local law was operating and being implemented. We had some real challenges in retaining staff and we had some real challenges in acquiring

00:19:00 new staff and I must say that around that time Nick came on board as well and has driven a lot of change and a lot of improvement in the team and I think you'll see that through. Some of the actions that have been implemented is recognised in the report and I'll get to that in a moment. So initially there was a workshop that was held with councillors at which time the operational status was presented in addition to the proposed scope of the operational review with the purpose being to evaluate the operation of the local law to determine if any changes are required or opportunities available to increase the effectiveness of the local law. In terms of the current status at that time there's this figure of 5265 properties has always been put out there as number of properties. That were thought to be operating short term accommodation within the Shire.

00:20:00 That included a number of properties which the local law exempts from requiring an approval. So it was estimated initially that there was a baseline of 4000 properties requiring an approval. The current status today is 3085 properties have an approval. The team have worked through the list of the 4000 properties. And through that process 421 properties were identified as no longer operating. And have vetted that full list so that the number of approvals that have now been obtained is generally reflective of the amount that require an approval, if that makes sense. Of those 3085 properties, 2349 are duplex or multiple dwellings. That's the number of properties that have been approved. And 97% of all approvals relate to short state leading with only 3% being home hosted.

00:21:00 Since 2022 339 approvals have been counselled by property owners or by council. The majority of which were dwelling houses. In terms of compliance. 87% of properties have not received a complaint. Over the recent quarter, it was identified that 96% of complaints had been responded to within the required 30 minutes. There's been an increase in compliance activities over the journey. Such that now a total of 386 compliance notices have been issued and 169 infringements being issued as well. So in terms of the review itself.

00:22:00 It was identified to form a stakeholder group similar to the initial review that took place after 12 months. So a number of the same groups were involved and the stakeholder group consisted of residential groups, resort managers, property managers and a planning consultant. In terms of residential groups. I think there was five or six residential groups who were representing quite a large number of residents within each group. So we've had a good cross section of I suppose different industries and a good number of people involved representing a good number of people throughout the review. Certainly would like to thank the stakeholders for their participation in the review. The feedback that they've been able to provide through the survey and their engagement throughout the process has been fantastic. Thank you. So initially there was an initial consultation with the stakeholder groups, individual sessions

00:23:00 in which the current operational status of the team was presented and there were some conversations around significant issues, potential improvements and how the process of the review would be undertaken. A survey was prepared and sent out to the stakeholders which had 23 questions. The stakeholders were asked a number of questions. Some of the stakeholders forwarded the survey onto other members of their groups and whatnot and we ended up with 92 responses. So when we received the survey responses the feedback was analysed including a review of the suggested improvements and a number of operational improvements were identified from this analysis. The key themes that came from the survey were the 24-7 hotline, compliance activities,

00:24:00 opportunities to improve education and awareness, general administration of the local law and advocacy opportunities. So 31 initiatives were identified. 13 of those actions have already been implemented. So low hanging fruit, you might like to call them things that were quick wins that we saw that we would be able to implement and not necessarily wait to the end of the review. And so they have been implemented. They include activities such as collaborating with the police to enhance the opportunity for complaints that go to the police to be able to contact the relevant owner or contact person. Continuing to actively investigate all hotline complaints the next working day and this involves

00:25:00 the team listening to the calls, calling the complainant, calling the people who have been, you know, the contact person, so a real thorough investigation, changes to scripting through the hotline, inclusion of a text. Prioritising properties with complaint histories for investigation. So yeah, a range of activities have been implemented, sort of on the ground activities, which have certainly, as I said earlier, the team improvement from when Nic has come on board and when this review has started is quite significant. The team's in a, I think, in a much better space. We've got... We've got more consistent or improved data collection mechanisms in place, so it's much more reliable data over the past 18 months that we're relying on and, you know, a well-resourced

00:26:00 team that are able to be responsive to complaints as they occur and also responsive in terms of undertaking proactive compliance. So the remaining actions. The key actions to be implemented, and you'll see the report details these actions and it also has an attachment with a timeline for the implementations, is, you know, continued rigour around the hotline performance. It's a very important front gate and representation of Council to the people making complaints. So certainly ongoing meetings with the council. With the hotline, ongoing review of their performance to ensure that it meets community expectations. Significantly a review of the fee categories. We heard, you know, and for some time quite loud and clear from the resort managers what

00:27:00 they feel is a form of inequity through the fee category process and the amount of work that's probably being undertaken by the team in relation to complaints coming out of the resort. So we see that as a body of work that we need to undertake as a priority. It may take some time to work through that and to understand the different nuances of how a management regime is established in a resort to validate a different fee category. And also, you know, the importance of targeted audits, you know, being based on complaint data. Being a review of compliance with the community. The scale and intensity. And general compliance with the local law provisions. So I think that sums up the process and the report findings. So the recommendation is that note that the review has been completed and agreed to implement

00:28:00 the actions within Section 5 of the report. Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you. Patrick, a front to the councillors. I'm sure there's going to be quite a few questions. Tom. Councillor Wegener: It was very interesting to watch the report. It was very interesting to watch over the past five years, the evolution of the team, the SDA team. Because when we started, it seemed though they were trying to figure out how many there are, what to do, going all the way to when they implement fees and then put out the local law. And then the SDA people, the owners, having to deal with now making the applications, going through and making sure that all of these. But it's an enormous amount of work that's now finished. It seems. And it seems though that the team now is actually fully, there's five people that are working on it. And it is actually coming to fruition. Speaker 5: I certainly agree, Tom. And I think it has been that way for a period of time now.

00:29:00 The initial fee waiver for applications and then having over 2,000 applications being assessed by a new team for a new local law, or with the new local law, or with the new processes, new systems, was really, really challenging. And trying to work through that backlog. Because ultimately, if people were going to call the hotline, they needed to be able to make a complaint about a registered property. So a lot of the resourcing was initially focused upon trying to understand the processes and work through that backlog of work. But certainly, the team is now functioning and has a very, very good relationship with it on a daily basis in terms of how they go about their work and review any complaints from the previous night. And I must say, there's not a lot of complaints as well. I think a lot of the improvements that the team has been able to implement has correlated

00:30:00 with a reduction in the course of the hotline as well over time. Speaker 6: Can I add too, just on that, that I think when the local law came in, I understand that there was discussion that it was going to take about a three year period to sort of get it embedded and get the community used to it and getting all the applicants to understand what the process was. And here we are, just over the three year mark now, all of the properties that have been investigated, examined, have gone through an assessment and approval process. We've obviously got the team stabilised. There's been lots of proactive compliance being undertaken now. So as Patrick said, it was always going to take some time to adjust to a new process, which was the first in Queensland to be introduced. Because there were no other areas to lean on to replicate this process, Noosa was the pioneer in this. And yeah, here we are, three years on, and the data, and I think this is an important piece to look at, is the data showing some really great trends. That the hotline calls are decreasing, compliance is increasing, potentially less residential

00:31:00 dwellings are being used for short stay accommodation now. We've seen in the data there that there's 339 approvals since the local laws came in. They've been cancelled by property owners or by council, where the fees haven't been paid. So they've been removed from short stay accommodation and now potentially returned to longer term rentals. So we're seeing some positive trends in terms of those areas of impact that are coming through in the data. Speaker 4: I have a few questions. There's a proposed action that's been proposed by the City Council, and it's been proposed by the City Council for the Government to ensure that it can start attracting, whatever the guest number is, to ensure compliance with the pre-release. Just wondering, is that, is that something that can be enforced through, like, a local

00:32:00 law provision or is it something that needs to be enforced through a market planning, just understanding the value of that action? Speaker 5: Let's look at that. Yeah. Speaker 6: Yeah, so a number of the approvals, particularly those that relied on existing use rights, Councillor Lawrenson, and it's under theme for its action to be implemented, number two, did it get focused on auditing SDA bookings to ensure guest numbers matched the approved scale intensity? Yeah, so when those properties involve demonstrating existing use rights, they were required to provide all of the data and the history that they had been using the premises prior to the Noosa plan coming into effect in 2020. They had to demonstrate that continuation. They had to demonstrate how many people that they were offering the bookings to. So those approvals actually have that information captured on the local approval. And so what the team are proposing here is to do audits on all of those properties to ensure that the listings

00:33:00 match what actually their existing use rights were in terms of the scale. So the reason why that's important is we heard quite clearly from some residents concerned that a house, which might have been a small three-bedroom house, is being used with 12 guests in there. So this gives us the ability to ensure that those properties that were traditionally used for holiday leasing maintain a similar scale to what was established prior to the introduction of the 2020 plan. And they'll be able to do proactive audits and monitor and make sure that the scale hasn't changed over time to be larger than what it was originally demonstrated as. Speaker 5: Can I just add to that? That is something that may come up from time to time at the moment, and the team do investigate that. And the approval holders are required to hold a register of their bookings. And so we do seek to obtain a copy of that. We're

00:34:00 we're necessary. And often that is supported by Airbnb bookings, the booking summaries as well to validate that data. Speaker 4: So this is in reference to existing use rights, to maintain existing use rights, and also to maintain the status quo, which is the scale of development at the time of the lease. Correct. For more people, it remains a core thing. Yeah. That's correct. Leave-ins, again, there's been, it's identified in the report summary stakeholder feedback. Just questions in terms of, again, existing use rights.

00:35:00 And how do we sort independent legal advice? Speaker 6: Yeah. Look, I'm happy to answer that one. Without going into, I guess, too much of the detail around privileged legal advice, I'm comfortable to highlight that as part of the development of the local law itself, and obviously periodically through the enacting of the local law itself, and you'll be aware that we've had a couple of legal challenges against decisions made under the local law, which have resulted in an outcome supportive of the position that Council has taken. Council has engaged what I would personally say is some of the best barristers and lawyers in the state to provide advice on everything related to short stays. That advice has supported how Council has handled and managed the rollout of the local

00:36:00 law and the constant review it undertakes. So these are the same legal representatives that have defended many decisions, planning decisions that Council has had over many, many years as well, and they continue to provide and support, I guess, Council's making the best, most informed decisions that it can under the legislation. And that has been continued through the process, I guess, till now. Speaker 4: You mentioned that information is privileged and confidential. Can I ask why? Richard? Speaker 6: Yeah. So, yeah. So, Councils receive advice all the time, as you can imagine, for a whole range of different things. So, because they're relying on that advice to make decisions, essentially there's a level of privilege that's required to be attached to that, so that it's relied on, so it can make its decisions, and it's not able to release publicly as such, which is a normal understanding

00:37:00 you can imagine from a legal perspective. Thank you. Mayor Wilkie: Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to thank you. I'd like to thank you and your team for the enormous body of work that's been done to get this Council to this point in the introduction of Queensland's first short-stay letting local law. As Councillor Thom said, it's been a long journey, and there have been challenges along the way. The legal basis on which the local law is placed has proven time and time again to be very, very sound. It's held us in good stead in defending challenges and appeals in the courts, and the effectiveness of the hotline, the statistics tell a very good story. If I remember rightly, it was 3% of properties have had one or more complaints, more than

00:38:00 one complaint? Three or more. Three or more complaints. Eighty-seven percent of properties, short-stay, have had no complaints, and the remainder have had at least one. Speaker 6: Is that correct? Yes, correct. Thirteen have had at least one, and three percent have had three or more complaints. Mayor Wilkie: Because that's the pivotal point. If there are disturbances, the effectiveness of the hotline is critical. If I remember rightly, when we had the stakeholder group briefing, the statistics were that within the last year, there were three or more complaints. There were three calls to the hotline that were not responded to within the half-hour period, and fines were issued in those three instances of 820. Speaker 6: That's correct, yes. So the last quarterly update of the hotline, 96% of all hotline calls were responded to by the contact person within the 30 minutes, and on that, 4% of those occasions of infringements

00:39:00 were issued to those contact persons for not responding in time. Okay. Mayor Wilkie: Have other councils reached out to you and sought advice on how to establish a similar local law? Speaker 5: I've had a number of councils that have had conversations with us about our experiences with formulating the local law and implementing the local law, and, you know, as they seem to be working through their own pathway to understanding things like existing use rights and the resource needs and potential structure of the local law. So we've been more than willing to provide our experience and support in that regard. Mayor Wilkie: And the other thing I'd like to congratulate the team on is the regular short stay letting local law snapshots that are provided quarterly on the website. I have a question that mentions the approvals by suburb, the total number of approvals,

00:40:00 the number of calls to the hotline over the last three or four years. Currently, this year there's been, well, to the end of 25, or June 25, 136 calls as opposed to 592 calls two years ago. Number of applications refused, 97 applications refused, 46 renewals expired. It does 386 calls. It does 386 compliance notices issued, 169 infringements, which shows that your team is very active in ensuring that that law is being enforced. But it does say approvals surrendered 229, and I've heard today you're saying 339 have been approved. Can you just explain to me the difference? Speaker 6: Yeah, so those numbers there are where the property owner hasn't, so they basically haven't, they haven't continued to approve.

00:41:00 They haven't continued with their short stay approvals, so they've essentially said we're no longer, they either haven't paid the fee, and they've decided not to renew. Whereas the number referred to in the report actually includes those additional properties that Council has not issued a renewal for because they haven't paid the fee within time itself. So it's a slightly larger number. So because some haven't paid their fee within the prescribed time for a renewal, we have not issued them with a renewed short stay letting permit. So therefore, they're no longer lawfully able to undertake short stay letting. So that's why there's a slight discrepancy in that number. And we're looking to potentially update that to reflect this updated, I guess, description, which is a bit broader, but gives a broader perspective on that combined data. Mayor Wilkie: And we're all very keen to support you in the work to find, to deliver equity to the resorts that do have onsite management.

00:42:00 I understand that there is a recognition that they, because they do not, they're not a source of, a great source of complaints like individual dwellings, there is a drastic reduction in the application fee. Is it $200 as opposed to $1,000? Speaker 5: That's the renewal fee. The renewal fee. It's significantly lower at the moment. Yes. Because we haven't been able to work through all of that. We haven't been able to work through all of the multiple dwellings and duplex approvals to ascertain which of those are that are actually resorts. They're all getting bundled in together. Yes. So it's probably going to just pull that out a bit more. Mayor Wilkie: Yeah. Speaker 5: And over time, we'd like to think that that resort category, whatever that looks like, would get a lesser fee. And then, as I said, those duplex and multiple dwellings, they haven't been increasing their fee for the last two years as well. So there's some form of benefit that they may have been obtaining.

00:43:00 Yes. So that might be looked at as well, an increase in that fee, but the resorts. Mayor Wilkie: And I know you're wanting to make it as equitable as possible. Certainly. I'm very supportive of that as well. But thank you for the work to do this review. It was promised. It was looked forward to. And it gives us a really good snapshot of where we're at. And thank you. Great. Thank you. Speaker 4: I have quite a few more questions. Patrick, out of the 2,349 multiple dwellings and duplexes you just mentioned, we actually don't have a number of resorts that are captured in that diver. Is it in the Pattersons? Is it in the hundreds? Is it in the hundreds? Speaker 5: It would just be a gut feel. And it's going to be determined by what we identify a resort to be.

00:44:00 And around. Speaker 4: So it's 80% or more, 70% or more used for, strictly used for purpose built resorts, not the short term accommodation. Or it's managed under a short term accommodation. Yeah. Speaker 6: Yeah. So as Patrick said, there isn't actually a definition, I guess, a land use definition even of what a resort entails. A lot of the resorts that were originally established were, most of the time, they were sort of a multiple dwelling building or a mixed use potential building. So we've got to do that piece of work to try and separate what is a bona fide resort versus what's a sort of multiple dwelling complex that has a similar appearance, I guess, and some cases. And that's the body of work that we've promised to do as one of the priority actions out of this is sort of separate that out. But potentially, I mean, yeah, there'll be hundreds, if not maybe in the order of a thousand

00:45:00 of those that may fit that. But we need to do this body of work first before we can probably confirm exactly what meets that definition because there isn't a set definition for a resort at this stage. And that's why we've defined as a resort style in terms of what we're looking at is what's the best representation. And some of those elements that you mentioned will be relevant around the look and feel, what management processes are in place to mitigate and manage those issues as well. Speaker 4: Thank you for that, Mark. How much does it cost to manage a complaint and manage a resorts? And how much money have you been generating on our short term accommodation sector? Speaker 6: The cost of the team operating the, I guess, administering is essentially a nil cost to

00:46:00 rate pay. So it's essentially a full cost recovery model. So it's a very important element where we want to ensure the operation of the team and the funding of the team. The team is solely funded by the cost to deliver and administer the local law itself. So essentially there's no net financial gain from the administration of local law. It's essentially at a zero cost to rate pay. So fully funded through the fees it generates. Speaker 4: I think my question is probably, so 87% don't receive a complaint and 13% do. I think I've heard a lot about that. I'm just calculating. That's 401. So 401 properties are a problem and need to be invested or a problem that need to be investigated. Again, have we sort of mulled down, you know, whether the current framework we use, whether

00:47:00 it's delivering payment for money given there's 400 complaints and whether there's more efficient or better systems that can address those 400 complaints, not 2,085, oh sorry, and not address the 3,085. The problem is 400. Should we be spending money for the 400? Speaker 6: Well, the challenge you would have is how do you determine which properties are going to have problems, I guess, in the future. So whilst we've got the data based on what we know, we're not going to be able to determine that. I guess the process is really is, A, there's a registration element so we know all the properties that are a short stay letting itself, but also it's the mechanisms that are put in place to prevent and manage some of those issues arising in the first place. So obviously the rigorous process through the application assessment process ensures that those properties, and you're right, many of them we don't receive a complaint,

00:48:00 but we would like to think that a lot of those properties have put in a lot of those practices that are required under local law to prevent there being complaints in the first place. So the renewal process, whilst it has a fairly modest fee for particularly those in multi-dwelling units, $200, it gives us that ability to monitor and manage all of the complaints and issues across the Shire. So essentially it's a fee to sort of reflect where the effort is, and the complaint data gives you a bit of an indication to where the majority of the hotline issues and the effort is required from the team. But there is a more broader element of monitoring and understanding the scale and changes over time as well. So there's an element of not just the regulation and the enforcement, but there's also setting the permit conditions and administering that consistently across, which has a cost to it as well. Speaker 4: So have we done a deep dive and analysed the property types, whether it's dwellings,

00:49:00 gym places, home hosting, et cetera, properties and rates? Whether it's been expensive or cheaper, occupancy numbers, whether it's places where there's more than say two families or three families, or whether it's just a people issue. And we've done geographical distribution of the short-stay accommodation across Noosa to help understand whether there's trees. So rather than... So we can have a more focused and more strategic approach to how we address short-stays in the future. Speaker 5: I think that there is some data within the report that dissects the complaints into the property type. One of the proposed actions is to take that deeper dive into the complaints.

00:50:00 And to target a more targeted response. I think in terms of what you're... This sort of still relates to what you're asking. The cost though is the resourcing is more than just dealing with the complaints. There's a lot of administrative work that goes into administering the local law. A lot of change applications that come through. A lot of inquiries. A lot of following up. A lot of proactive work. Work that takes place as well. So it's probably not right just to focus on the number of complaints and look at that from a resourcing point of view. I think that's what Richard was saying. That the breadth of work that's required is required across the whole of the approvals for a range of functions. Speaker 6: Yeah. And to your point, Amelia, just around the data. So you're right. There's some very good data already in there. And obviously on the snapshot that we've got on the quarterly dashboard.

00:51:00 And in terms of the number of the actions, they are focused at where those... We have a complaint management database. So all the properties we know and we can analyse what the trends or the issues are. And we're able to focus our effort on those particular properties that are causing problems. And we've got an escalating compliance approach. So obviously if we receive continuous complaints about the management or conduct of a particular property. We will ramp up and escalate our compliance action. So we do use the data a lot to drive our efforts. And we'll be doing more of that moving forward. Let's just see. Nicola's got it. Sorry. Speaker 4: Yeah. Just for a moment. I've got a few more questions. So I go back to Mornington Peninsula. In the very early days of Mornington Peninsula, they had security guards. So they knew that the property had children and families. They knew the area, which, you know, there was a cluster of families with high occupancy

00:52:00 for those that had a security card that would just, over the weekends, just sort of drive around. I think that's where I'm sort of going with my question. Whether, with targeted emissions, whether a deep dive would give us that information to just, you know, red flag this. Eight people that walked into the area. I think that's where I'm sort of going with my question. Speaker 5: I know it will initially we we had security and they were only required to go out I think on one or two occasions in in the first 12 months and it was rock resolved to remove them I think we also need to look at the data to have

00:53:00 perspective on the issue of short-term accommodation and that the data at the moment is telling us that we're not necessarily having out-of-control properties in clusters there's always a human element to this and you'll get a guess or a number of guests that unfortunately won't be respectful and hence the local law and the process is there but we're not seeing the data come through the hotline to show that continually there's an area at the Speaker 6: moment in which every weekend is a problem yeah and I think just on the point of the security and whilst that was looked at in the initial part of the of the local law there's limitations on what a security card can actually do on someone's property as well so you know it was identified is that the most effective way of having someone driving around and look potentially if there may be a noise or not so I think you know the decision was made early on and

00:54:00 that's not necessarily really providing a you know really effective solution necessarily let's look at other avenues through you know through the local law in terms of improving that responsiveness and greater accountability on the the manager of the property and also in recent times and you'll see one of the actions we've been working with Queensland Police Service as well and their DTAC which is their sort of their central triaging center and they are able to assist so if if there is an ongoing escalation and someone doesn't respond within the 30 minutes as required in the local law there's the ability for a resident to even escalate it to the QPS and now with DTAC having a copy of the contact person they can escalate their efforts with that contact person as well to to provide an extra layer of support to the residents to ensure that those issues get resolved as quickly as possible yes yes we've

00:55:00 already got a an arrangement in place where if they receive escalating complaints after they haven't heard a response in 30 minutes they are able to assist as well and and they'll make a call in the first instance to that person as well and then they follow up with further action or a site visit if it ongoing and escalates but again we're not aware of any situations where they've had to necessarily be called out Speaker 4: into such data sharing agreements yeah we have an advocacy piece at the moment you Speaker 6: might be aware we put an LGBTQ motion forward to the state government and we're continuing to advocate for that data sharing arrangement you're aware Tasmania have a very good model where the state government have mandated the provision

00:56:00 of that data to local governments to manage and monitor nursing council partnered with Brisbane City Council with that motion and I think it's that was supported by the majority of local governments for that we feel that that's a really important piece to give us that data and we'll continue to advocate for that as part of this action plan Speaker 4: Nicola, Councillor Nicola, you've got your hand up, I think this is what you want to ask. Councillor Wilson: Thank you, I've just got a couple of questions. First of all good news, we're separating out the resorts, I think that's a piece of work that really needs priority focus so thank you for that. And also we're happy to see the ongoing compliance and enforcement actions. There's a couple here, continue to prioritise compliance on properties with complaint history and escalating compliance action for repeat offenders which is an ongoing action. Just wondered, for people who are still affected by, their amenity is still affected by neighbouring properties, if they're not calling the hotline will they be captured?

00:57:00 As a complaint history property, what advice can you give for people that are continuing to have issues with neighbouring properties who are potentially calling the property manager rather than calling the hotline of how we make sure that we capture those properties and take action? Speaker 5: Thanks Councillor Nicola, it's certainly important for the community to call the hotline. We won't know about a complaint or a problem property until such time as it comes to us. So whilst there might be an element of comfort or having the property manager's contact details, it certainly bypasses council and our processes. So we would certainly encourage people that have a complaint to call the hotline.

00:58:00 We've certainly identified some opportunities for greater education and awareness and I think that'll be part of the process. Part of it is to really make sure the community are aware of the hotline and its purpose and its process. Speaker 6: Councillor, if I may add to Patrick's comments too. If for some reason residents don't feel comfortable contacting the hotline, they can send an email or a request directly to council or contacting us through our normal channels. Email, phone call, coming in in person and happy to engage with those customers and take some details and understand their concerns. And the team will treat that in a similar way but obviously deal with that appropriately as well. So once they have that understanding and knowledge of there's a potential issue there, they're happy to investigate and that may initiate even further rigour around some of the challenges or issues that a resident may be experiencing.

00:59:00 Councillor Wilson: Thank you. So for people who either don't feel comfortable calling the hotline or it's something that they don't think is an immediate kind of issue but it's an ongoing problem, it's not kind of an emergency but they can make a complaint in various number of ways and that will still be captured as a problem of property, is that right? Speaker 6: Correct, yes. Councillor Wilson: Thank you. The second question is right at the end of the report, the final page of the final attachment which was about advocacy. These are the actions that can really maybe change the whole landscape in the future with state government and with the booking platforms but they're not on the timeline until next year. I know that that's because of so much else happening in the compliance space but is there any way that we could prioritise or moving those forward so that, because obviously once you start an advocacy piece it takes a long time before any legislation changes or anything. So could we start that sooner rather than later?

01:00:00 Speaker 6: Certainly, yeah, certainly we're already undertaking some advocacy already, particularly around the registration, I guess the data sharing process. Councillor, that's a really important piece, obviously started that last year with our LGAQ motion with Brisbane City Council. So I guess that work is, whilst the sort of mention has commenced, it'll largely dovetail into everything I guess STA looked at and that refers to existing use rights already. We obviously are trying to progress on the data sharing piece as the first cab off the rank because we see that there's a lot of work to be done. That is being really, really critical for ongoing management and oversight of STA. That's one of the key challenges that all local governments, not only across Queensland but across Australia have identified as a real challenge, is having really accurate data source from, you know, that's mandated through legislative provision. But certainly, you know, we'll continue to work on that advocacy piece and may be able to bring some of that forward.

01:01:00 You know, as early as sort of the back half of this year. Councillor Wilson: Thank you. Sorry, I'm going to sneak in one last one. Is there anything that Council is going to do to keep the momentum going on all of these actions? Speaker 6: What I would say is to continue to encourage people to contact the hotline if they're experiencing issues. The team are open to hear and understand if there are challenges out there in the community. That they're experiencing as a result of amenity being adversely impacted from short stays. Without knowing that, as Patrick alluded to, it's quite hard for them to respond. So if they do have that understanding that there are problems or issues, the team will jump onto that very quickly. And they've done that particularly in recent times now that they're a resource team. And I think the other thing is just highlighting the, you know, the effort.

01:02:00 The team is very dedicated and focused on making sure that this local law, as Mayor Frank mentioned, is the first in Queensland to be adopted, is the most effective and becomes the model for potentially other local governments to follow suit. We've had a number of local governments reach out in the last particularly 12 months, asking us lots of questions because they are experiencing similar challenges and wanting to leverage off the work that's been done to date in our Shire. So there's a lot of interest. And really, we want to keep the momentum going. We want to keep them strong. We want to ensure that the community let us know where there's challenges and we'll respond accordingly. Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you Nicola. My last question is back to resorts. What assurance and what timeline can we give resort owners that we are, like we'll be,

01:03:00 we are looking at ways to exceed or to provide some equity in this space? Can you give a timeline? Speaker 6: Yeah, we do have that in the timeline there. Councillor Amelia at the back there. So we're looking to commence that body of work in the next few months. And then that'll lead into early next year with the aim being we would like to have this bedded down for next year's fees and charges. So I guess have that categorised. We're going to work with the industry and the stakeholders around defining that. Because we want to make sure it's workable. I think it's important to know that there may be, you know, once we develop the criteria, there will be some that will be able to meet it. And there will also potentially be some that don't meet it. So we're trying to draw a line in the sand with that. But we'll work with industry representatives and some of them were the stakeholders as

01:04:00 part of this review work with the aim to have that ready for next year's fees and charges. Speaker 4: Excellent. That's really great news. And last question. Just to sort of on the back of what Nicola mentioned in terms of residents who don't pick up the hotline. Has Council of Tussimany been looking at just random or conduct resident surveys in hotspot areas? Just to capture just that information. What are your thoughts on that? I know the team and Patrick might step in as well, have been doing a lot of work actually Speaker 6: going out and meeting residents and doing inspections, monitoring, inspecting properties through this process, particularly where there's been some history of concerns raised from residents. So the team, again, now being fully resourced, they're doing a lot more of that work where they're going and meeting with residents, having meetings on site. And working out ways to address those issues moving forward.

01:05:00 In some cases, property owners that have had a complaint or an issue, wanting to do the right thing, have been seeking advice on what mitigation measures that they could put in place to help address so that the neighbours don't have concerns with noise and some putting in acoustic attenuation, some putting in noise monitoring equipment and the like to help mitigate some of those issues. So that they don't have issues. Some are putting in curfews for their guests around, you know, when guests are outdoor or using the pool or anything outdoor like that, that's likely to generate a noise or amenity issue. So the team get lots of those inquiries all the time around that and are working closely with parties to ensure that we can, you know, ultimately address these issues on amenity through the implementation of local law. Speaker 4: And my last question, I've been to the house of a couple of residents where they're actually

01:06:00 surrounded by a short term accommodation and I don't think there's many that is a handful. That there's one person with either side, in fact, somebody with two, three properties surrounding their property where they are short term accommodation. Has council considered maybe, I don't know, maybe, do you think, certainly, I don't know, whether it's a set of rules or whether it's, you know, code of conduct, testing or is it code of conduct must be made, treated and maybe delivered by council staff to these properties. Just to give a heads up, is one property with a small family or maybe just two people residing in an area where other joint properties, they have short term accommodation? Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely. The team are aware of that. We're aware if there are any properties, particularly where they feel like they're being adversely impacted and whether through the hotline or through contacting council, there is the

01:07:00 ability for council to look at engaging with those parties to look at putting on requirements around how they sort of best manage or respond to those concerns and issues so that we don't have an adverse impact because at the end of the day, everyone's got a right to peace and enjoyment of their property. So whilst some properties might be short stay living. They need to understand the obligations on them is to contain that noise and not have an adverse impact on surrounding residential properties. So certainly if we've got some of those properties and the team are usually aware of most of those already, we're taking steps to work with those surrounding owners to put in further mitigation measures to ensure that they don't impact other parties. Speaker 4: Thank you very much. Mayor Wilkie: Happy to move it, Madam Chair. Speaker 4: Thank you. I'll second. And there will be a motion. Yes. Mayor Wilkie: Thank you again. Please, on behalf of the council team, thank you all.

01:08:00 They're a short stay living team. They are at the coalface. They've done an enormous body of work. It's very difficult work. It's a huge quantity of approvals. They've worked their way through. I also especially commend them for following up on every single complaint call the following day to better understand was it responded to? What was the issue? And the time frame for responding. And also I'd like to repeat your request that anyone who does experience disturbance from a short stay living property to call the hotline because that's the way the disturbances can be addressed. They are addressed in 96% of cases. And if not, there's compliance action that can be taken. Thank you. You're leading, this is leading the way in the state. Thank you. In this sense, your team is a lot to be proud of. Thank you. Speaker 4: Councillor Stockwell.

01:09:00 Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I think it's good to put a few things on public record. One is this process that we're looking at, the report on today, was a review of the effectiveness and efficiency of the local law process. It wasn't a policy review. The stakeholders engaged were the most appropriate form of consultation to conduct the review. There is nothing wrong with that. There's another process going on where the general community can talk about where they'd like to potentially ask Council to go in terms of next steps. But any next steps will require change in legislation. So not only was Noosa Council the first to introduce the local law, it is probably the Council that has done the most to reduce the impacts of SBA and enablers. A combination of what we see in this report. A combination of what we see in this report. We see a significant reduction in complaints, about the reduction in the number of registered properties, and the number of properties that were refused and were previously operating

01:10:00 without the appropriate planning approval, or those that have opted out as a result of compliance action. But Noosa Council is also the, there's no other Council in the State that has done more through the planning scheme. And Noosa Council. Than we currently have in the amendments that I believe may have come back from State Government. The effect of what we've done is a gradual improvement. While I'm not saying that there is no reason to continue to be upset by it, or that the level of SBAs in our neighbourhoods is accepted. What we have to be really clear about, because there is no reason to continue to be upset by it, is that there is no other issue that has more misinformation in the public space than the SBA one. Is that there is no other trigger, or lever, that Council can pull to do the sort of things

01:11:00 that people talk about overseas. We can't say we have a maximum number of SBAs in this neighbourhood under current legislation, either planning or local law. We can't use the local law to affect any land use controls. The land use are only to be controlled by the planning scheme. But what we do see is a good news story. Is an initiative by this Council several years ago, has been in operation, has achieved impacts which is desirable, and that on review we find areas which we tweak to make it more effective. And we look at the funding model to better balance the nature of making it, as you say, cost neutral for ratepayers. So it's paid for by the industry. Now it would be wonderful to come up with a system whereby only non-compliers pay for the compliance force. But we all pay our taxes for the police force and not all of us break the law.

01:12:00 It's just a fact of life. And if government needs compliance, it's paid for by the collective rather than by those who break the law or need to have compliance action against them. So all in all, it's a good news story. It was a good process. It was very thorough. And we had the stakeholders around the table. There's a lot of them saying that they think it's working well. And that's important. That's all. Councillor Wegener: Carrying on to that, Ed, from Nicola's comments, a lot of the comments are on the table. This is something that the Council took on voluntarily. We took on the responsibility of regulating short-term accommodation in the new city. We didn't have to do that. Like Ed Brian said, we voluntarily jumped into this space and were the first to do it. And it's quite a giant leap. I think that it's going well overall. We're looking at car parking and rubbish as problems. So as we've been asking you, what can councillors do, or the rest of council, to do to kind

01:13:00 of wrap to help, is you mentioned that the local law can take an opportunity to educate guests and owners as to what to do. And I think that one aspect could be that this is a soft power, and the goodwill saying, if you're in Noosav, if you're in the Biosphere Reserve, we have a destination management plan. This is what we expect of you. We are watching, by the way. We have a very active community. And to put that positively in this opportunity to educate the people staying there, the tenants, because they may think that they're coming to a parking lot. They may think that they're coming to a party destination, when it's actually not. And put that front and forward. So just saying, I'm hoping that we can use the hard power of the local law and the soft power of the DMP and our own tight-knit community that they are coming to enjoy, where at the

01:14:00 same time they have to respect the rules, especially car parking, rubbish, all these different things, where the local laws themselves have a very hard time fixing that. It's hard to figure out which car belongs to which, as a short-term tenant, where if you let them know that at least we're watching, that's something in itself, that soft power of goodwill. So thank you. Thank you for all your hard work, and I hope that the whole community can get behind this and continue on. Speaker 4: I'll just mention, I get a lot of feedback in relation to the local law. I'll start to look next week, and it's all super positive. So please send to him our acknowledgement and respect. Sort of just quickly summarise what Brian said. What's before us is basically an evaluation or assessment of how the management of local

01:15:00 laws is happening. And I think we're doing a good job. In terms of reducing short-term accommodation properties, that's a different discussion. And we do have leavers, not just through advocacy. We actually have leavers who are in training systems, et cetera. But that's not the discussion we're having each and every day, is how are we managing, how are we going with our local laws, and are we listening? And with everything that we do, we can do better. But so far, so good. So thank you. Mayor Wilkie: Thank you. I'll close. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. It has been a strategic, focused, and targeted review, and I thank you for that. And as has been mentioned, and you've acknowledged, there's room for improvement.

01:16:00 It has come from working with the key stakeholders, including four resident groups and two independent community advocates, as well as industry representatives. And I think there's room for improvement. And I would invite anyone who's interested in seeing what are the next steps to read the section of the report that mentions the actions already commenced and the actions to be implemented. There's a lot more work to be done. As Councillor Nicola pointed out, advocacy at the state government level to change the planning framework to allow us to deal with issues that are obstacles at the moment. But otherwise, thank you. It's an excellent piece of work. And thank you. Speaker 4: No further discussion? I'll put that to you. All in favour? Thank you. Mayor Wilkie: I'm just going to spend a penny, Madam Chair. It's gone out.

01:17:00 Speaker 4: We will continue. So we'll move to the next item on the agenda. Thank you. Which is item 7.3, application for a minor change to an existing development approval for material change of use, extension to an existing shop at 12 Maple Street, Cooroy and Richard and Patrick. And Georgina. Thank you. So, Georgina, I might throw it to you. Can you give us a second? I'm going to take a second to ask you about the report and what recommendations can be put forward by Council. Speaker 2: Yeah. Beautiful. So the application we have in front of us is to extend an existing development approval for the purpose of the shop. And we are at 12 Maple Street in Cooroy. So just for a little bit of context, the extension itself is for storage purposes at the rear

7.3 132003.220664.4 APPLICATION FOR A MINOR CHANGE TO AN EXISTING DEVELOPMENT APPROVAL FOR MATERIAL CHANGE OF USE - EXTENSION TO AN EXISTING SHOP - AT 12 MAPLE ST COOROY ¶

▶ 01:17:13· Carried 4-0 from council's minutes

01:18:00 of the building. And the intent for the extension is to accommodate a small scale grocer for the intent of being a fruit market. So I suppose comparable to what we have up the road in Tewantin. As touched on before, the area of extension is at the rear of the building, and it's a dimension of 9.45 metres by 4.2 metres, achieving a total floor area of just shy of 40 square metres. In accordance with the Noosa Plans driveway and car parking code, car parking rates are based off the assumed increase in the number of parking spaces. And that's based off the increase of patronage that are useful in Coor, which in this instance for a shop is based off gross floor area at a rate of one space for 20 square metres, requiring two additional spaces. With this being a minor change application, there has been a series of prior approvals on the site. And then looking through the history of the site, there has not been any requirements

01:19:00 for onsite car parking spaces to be provided. Historically, there have been a number of spaces that have been accepted within the Maple Lane Road Reserve to the south of the development. Consequence of the size of the allotment and the existing servicing arrangement on the site, the applicant has proposed to enter an infrastructure agreement to provide car parking contributions in lieu of providing two onsite spaces, which is why we have this application in front of us today. As typically, the application, if they were able to provide two onsite spaces, they would have accepted two additional spaces on the site. It would have been normally determined under delegation. Through the course of the application, the suitability of accepting the car parking contributions in lieu of providing spaces onsite has been assessed with regard to Council's policy, the contributions in lieu of provision of onsite car parking.

01:20:00 And within this instance, it was determined as appropriate. This was largely considering the history of the site and the existing waste collection, loading, unloading of deliveries. So within context of the site, it's not considered practical or desirable from a serviceability perspective to have these spaces within the confines of the lot. In regard to Council's policy about car parking in lieu. It is important to note that this site is specifically annotated within the Shire as being suitable for accepting contributions. In consideration, I suppose, of different circumstances within the Shire where we have accepted contributions previously. It includes the Royal Mail up the road where we accepted five spaces, a veterinary practice on Mary Street where we accepted one, and Elm Street in Cooroy where we accepted three

01:21:00 spaces. And I suppose for these reasons discussed, it's been recommended for approval, subject to conditions. Speaker 4: Thank you, Georgina. Questions around the table? Deputy Mayor Stockwell: The planner in your report, you referred to it being a convenience store. The definition is a shop. Yes. The approval would be able to be used for any type of service. The convenience store, most people would think of that just as another grocery store, but you're suggesting it's a fruit market or something like that. Speaker 2: Yes. The overriding definition is a shop. In this instance, we've been, I suppose, told the intended operator would be operating a fruit market. So, small scale convenience. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: And the next step, I suppose, is in considering the car parking contribution.

01:22:00 Yes. And the next step, I suppose, is in considering the car parking contribution. There is a provision a fruit and veg market is unlikely to drive any more or less than any other sort of shop. There is no other scenario where approving for a shop with no comparison outside is going to lead to a significant increase in patronage. Is it by having a dry store area? No. No filter? Councillor Wegener: There's two buildings that seem to be a loading zone by Maple Lane behind there. Does the front building that faces on Maple Street itself, do they use that Maple Lane as a service as well? Speaker 2: From my understanding, yes, they use the rear portion that we're looking at today because that's where their waste storage currently is kept.

01:23:00 Councillor Wegener: That's where Max was with the old machine shop with the rental tool place. My question is that the nature of the tenure of Maple Lane there is owned by the same property, by the same person, it's on the same block. When they add on to that, if it's owned, they're adding on to it. So they're supposed to put two more parking spots out. So that's just a laneway, but you have to have an application to build something there, even though it's on their own property. The nature of the land use is for a laneway like that. Who owns it? Because if the front store needs it as a service driveway and for loading and unloading things, will the structure change? Will the structure that's being built impede the front block from being able to use it as a service lane?

01:24:00 Speaker 2: So from my understanding, so just for a bit of a visual, we've got the main Maple Street here. We have shop one that fronts the street and the shop that we're talking about is back here. This is internal to the property. Maple Lane is at the rear. Servicing is occurring within this area. There wouldn't be adequate area for them to turn around on site. I would imagine currently, considering the width between the property boundary and the building, I would imagine there would either be reversing on or reversing out from the site. And that should not change as a result of this. Speaker 5: So this application would have received the consent of the landowner to make the application. It wasn't publicly notified. No. I think maybe Councillor Thom, you're asking whether the occupants of the front building

01:25:00 are going to have an issue with this structure being developed? Speaker 7: Yeah. Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, I'm not sure of their awareness of the application. But as I said, certainly the landowner has consented to this application being made. No. Speaker 4: They would have... Is the landowner here? Speaker 2: We have the owner's consent for the... This is the one title. And we have the owner's consent from the landowner for the lodgement of the application. So, assumingly, they wouldn't be fully aware of that. Speaker 6: Yeah. Councillor Wegener: Like you say, it's one title. Speaker 6: And the site can still be serviced as it has been in the past, which is for vehicles to drive on and pick up rubbish and then leave the site. Yeah. Councillor Wegener: Yeah. Yeah. Could there be a condition where we say that the employees have to park on site?

01:26:00 I'm still worried about Apex Park. It is a chocolate block. A lot of people that work there park their cars there all day. And the previous J car store that was in that complained regularly about, say, people can't park to get to my shop because they're parking here to go to the... Everywhere else, they have the workers park here. They go to the playground. And so, parking is... It's a very, very tight parking area. So, that's why I'm really trying to understand that the two parking... Speaker 5: Well, we're suggesting or we're saying that it's not appropriate to provide the car parking on site due to constraints. Yeah. And that's why it accords with the policy to accept contributions. Yeah. It's with areas such as this that have been established some time ago with different parking regimes. Yeah. And different demands in the shops.

01:27:00 It does create a challenge for them in terms of being able to develop their site further. And the contributions provides that mechanism for businesses still to evolve. Councillor Wegener: Is there any way of a line almost to say, well, you know, there's all the parking on the railroad reserve and behind the RSL there. And say, well, this payment... I don't know. I almost love to see a straight line to say, park over there, everybody, because we don't want you, the workers, you know, parking here. We want to make... You know, to make sure that this is that zone. I know that they... People, they all... The tenants put out their own... Their own 15-minute parking zone, you know, stands there, probably against our regulations because they were so concerned. They had such a fight with that. They felt as though that, you know, their business is very limited by part of the parking situation. That's why I'm asking these questions, trying to really get... Making clear if there's any... Anything I'm missing. Speaker 5: Well, this money gives the opportunity for Council, I would envisage, to explore. Yeah.

01:28:00 Suitable parking within... Suitable parking. Park management. Within the area. And it would not be reasonable to tell the staff of this shop to park in a certain area where other staff from other shop have no restriction on them. That would seem inequitable and not a relevant condition as well. Speaker 6: But to your point, Tom, as Larry mentioned, the car parking management plan work that we're doing, it'll look... It'll look at the car parking more broadly, and these contributions actually contribute to potentially creating more developing, you know, improvements. Yeah. In terms of the efficiency of car parking in certain areas that have got challenges as well. So, yeah, whilst it's acknowledging a potential to not provide on site at this point, that money is able to be used to support either upgrades or improvement or identify new areas for provision of parking as well across the Shire. So... But it just takes a bit of time to obviously draw that line between, you know, providing

01:29:00 the money and then obviously where that offset is. Yeah. And then, you know, developing and creating. Councillor Wegener: Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 4: I'm just following on a little bit with the time study. And I think I raised this question before. But when we approve infrastructure agreements, do we look at the present and have a look at how many infrastructure agreements have already been approved, what the shortfall in parking actually is, and is that a consideration in terms of the future? I think we've been assessing this. We're approving the infrastructure agreements and should it be? Speaker 5: We'd certainly need to consider the capacity of, you know, car parking within the area and obviously the constraints on the site. To my understanding, there have been no infrastructure agreements entered into proximity of this

01:30:00 site. Yeah. In certainly in my time with Council, nearly 10 years. And certainly some of the investigations I've done into property over time, I haven't been aware of any. The one that was in Cooroy was on the other side of Elm Street. So the assessment does factor in the potential impacts on the surrounding area. It is noted that there is, you know, significant car parking in proximity of this site. I do appreciate that Cooroy has a lot of people that come there at different times. There are different points in time. And it can get quite busy from a car parking point of view. And understandably, the car parking review will certainly to look at that. Speaker 4: Thank you. I'm happy to move the application. Can I have a second, please? Thank you, Councillor Stockwell.

01:31:00 And thank you, Georgina, for the report. Thank you. I think that's the important thing that I take away from this. Enjoy the conversation around the table. And looking forward to, you know, trying a successful fruit shop at the back. And I can't wait to grab my fruit and veggies and bring it home. Thank you. Thank you, Georgina. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 5: Did you vote? Speaker 4: No further discussion? All in favour, please? Thank you, unanimous. Thanks, Georgina. Now move to our next item.

01:32:00 Which is item 7.4, request for another change to an existing development permit for material change of use. Visitor accommodation type 4, conventional visitor hostel to include 11 additional beds at 182 Pacific Avenue, Sunshine Beach. Hello, thank you and welcome to the bill. So can you give us a summary and what is your opinion on the approval? Speaker 1: Good morning, councillors. It's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it, the application time? But basically what's been applied for, requested for approval, is a change to an existing approval at the site. For a visitor accommodation for basically a hostel increase. The existing approval is for 69 beds at the site, within three buildings already at the site, located along each of the two side boundaries and at the rear boundary.

7.4 132007.2446.05 - REQUEST FOR AN OTHER CHANGE TO AN EXISTING DEVELOPMENT PERMIT FOR MATERIAL CHANGE OF USE - VISITOR ACCOMMODATION TYPE 4 CONVENTIONAL (VISITOR HOSTEL) TO INCLUDE 11 ADDITIONAL BEDS AT 102 PACIFIC AVENUE SUNSHINE BEACH ¶

▶ 01:32:09· Carried 4-0 from council's minutes

01:33:00 Each of the rear boundary and the southern side boundary buildings are established and are two storeys in height. The north-western building is a single storey building. The change basically requests, a lift of the 69 beds up to 80 beds. That increase in bed numbers will necessitate an additional floor across that northern building from one to two storeys. As part of that change, an increase in number of beds, a trigger for increased car parking results. So one extra car parking space is required. Two extra motorcycle spaces would be required and a number of bicycle spaces, two extra bicycle spaces, is also required. As part of that increase. As part of the application process, because the site is located within the low density residential zone. It's considered to be an inconsistent use within the zone. So that triggers impact assessment. The application was publicly notified and received three submissions.

01:34:00 The submissions related to the potential impact on noise transfer between the site and the adjacent residential area, and the potential impact on noise transfer between the site and the adjacent residential area, The impact on potential traffic at the site and the traffic generation to the local road network, as well as potential impact on views from the properties located towards the north-east of the site. As part of the assessment process, Council requested an acoustic report to be prepared to look at what impacts would result from the additional level. Particularly because the, I guess, lifting up the actual intensity of the site and creating a new level raises the potential of noise transfer at that more elevated sort of level. The initial report was prepared by David Moore. That report was prepared to address the increase in number of persons at the site.

01:35:00 And Council also undertook a peer review of that report. So the recommendations of the report were as follows. They were that basically the building which was fronting the neighbouring residential areas was to be closed. So no openings to those spaces or adjacent neighbouring premises. As well as to ensure that any sort of communal areas within the site are limited to the maximum number of persons which could congregate at any one time. So basically at this stage the site can accommodate one area. There is an additional car parking space adjacent to the extended building on Pacific Avenue. And the additional space basically results in the site and the proposal complying with Council's code for provision of on-site parking. As part of the general compliance of the actual proposal, it is recommended that the other change requests be approved.

01:36:00 Speaker 5: If I could just add to that. Andrew has rightfully pointed out that this is an inconsistent use on the site subject to impact assessment. The previous planning scheme, the 2006 planning scheme, the site was zoned detached housing. But there was a provision in the table of assessment that specified that a visitor hostel would be consistent use on this site. With a density of 320 persons per hectare. So that was the original site which is 102 Pacific Avenue. So the use was established as a consistent use. It has got a development approval. There was another change application that was made to that three or four years ago.

01:37:00 In which the site of the building that's now being enhanced. Was brought into the approval through another change. And the lots were to be amalgamated. Hence why the site is 106 Pacific Avenue. But just to clarify, yes, whilst it's an inconsistent use. It's got a lawful approval that was established originally as a consistent use on the site. Mayor Wilkie: So inconsistent with the current planning. Speaker 5: That is correct. Speaker 4: Can I ask? It was in the 2018 ordinary meeting. That's my notes. When the approval was given. Which permitted visitor accommodation. That was the other change. Speaker 5: The first change which brought in this building. And required the amalgamation. So the original approval was 102 Pacific Avenue. And now that it's been amalgamated, the property is 106 Pacific Avenue.

01:38:00 But yes, you're right. That 2018 change brought in this building. Speaker 4: And what's the currency period when an approval is given? What's the timeframe there? Speaker 6: Six years is the currency currently under the Planning Act. So they have acted on that approval. Speaker 5: So they have acted on it. Speaker 6: So it's taken effect. Speaker 5: Correct. So at that time they increased the occupancy from 48 to 69 persons. That is now in effect. Speaker 4: So they have consistent use rights and assets. Or they have it much. A lawful approval. That's correct. Thank you. Questions around the table. Mayor Wilkie: Yeah. How is the submission relating to noise? How are the issues raised in that submission intended to be addressed? You mentioned there was an acoustic report done. What recommendations have come out of the acoustic report? Speaker 1: Councillor. What was required to be undertaken to the building envelope was that the any windows.

01:39:00 Like I said. They were located fronting the residential areas which was basically the northern northwestern boundary. And also I guess the northeastern boundary. Were to be shut at all times. So you can have a window there. But you can't open the windows. So the upper level will have to be mechanically air conditioned. Those three compressors will be located at grand level. Acoustic evaluation of that particular scenario is that even if those three compressors are running at full capacity during a heating phase. The noise still wouldn't exceed the acceptable thresholds for noise transfer. The. Oh sorry. Mayor Wilkie: No keep going. Speaker 1: The pedestrian access to the upper level is from within the site. So there will be no activity on those two edges. So there won't be any passing or corridors which could possibly have some incidental noise transfer through conversations or laughing or that sort of thing to the adjacent properties.

01:40:00 Mayor Wilkie: And given that it triggers beneath for one additional car space. And two bike spaces. Does that mean that the impact on the traffic network is deemed to be negligible? Speaker 1: I would agree with that position. I mean it complies with the code. So far as the provision of onsite car parking. So the general anecdotal sort of conversations with the applicant. And by looking at sort of what is occurring at the site at any one time. The car park is normally occupied. But it's not in a situation where it's oversupplied. Or overstocked. But again. That could be just the time of year or that sort of thing. But at the end of the day. The onsite provision complies with their supply. Mayor Wilkie: Now this hostel has been a part of the landscape for many years now. Has it been the source of many complaints at all? Speaker 5: No. It has not. And just to expand upon what you were saying. There's the acoustic fencing.

01:41:00 Oh sorry. Yes. Speaker 1: Of course. Yes. Speaker 5: It's being partially extended. Yeah. Speaker 1: There's an existing acoustic fence in place. Which will be extended along both boundaries. In a minor way. But a 1.8 metre acoustic fence is required to be placed on those two residential boundaries. Yeah. Mayor Wilkie: Thank you. Speaker 4: On an onsite manager. That condition still remains? Speaker 5: Yeah. So the onsite manager condition is retained. There was a unit downstairs. There was a unit downstairs. There was a unit upstairs on this building towards the rear boundary where the onsite manager lives. And that's detailed on the plans. So that's a good buffer. And it's also good that they're in that location to monitor any potential impacts as well. Speaker 4: Excellent. And are there any formal complaint processes for neighbours post-approval? I'm imagining the hostel would have complaints processes and procedure to address the complaints.

01:42:00 Speaker 1: Can I ask a question? Speaker 5: Thank you very much and just before we move on we've identified in the recommendation that there's one of the plans is identified as needing to be annotated however that is not the case so Andrew has prepared an amended recommendation which should just amend condition 107 to striking out can we just scroll through that just that would be yeah so just striking out as annotated by council the plan shows that there's potentially three eight bedroom dorms upstairs there was an annotation included saying that it was to

01:43:00 accommodate 11 more persons but that's not was never the intent of the application and the acoustic report has reviewed the layout based upon the Speaker 4: eight bedrooms of the eight persons per bedroom upstairs it's an increase of 11 Speaker 5: people across the whole site but potentially a reconfiguration of how the rooms are used across the side that's correct and there's a condition that stipulates that to 80 persons and identifies that a single bed and a double bed it just details what it is

01:44:00 Speaker 4: Next up is item 8.1, planning applications decided by delegated authority. And I'll turn it over to you, Patrick, to give us a part of your thoughts on what's been decided as a delegation. Speaker 5: Thank you, Councillor. Yeah, the monthly report detailing those decisions that were made under delegated authority for the month of June in 2025, there were 36 applications that were approved. There were no refusals. As I said, there were no reports that came to Council.

8 REPORTS FOR NOTING BY THE COMMITTEE ¶

▶ 01:44:29

Nothing was transcribed under this heading — a stretch of the recording with no speech the model could make out.

8.1 PLANNING APPLICATIONS DECIDED BY DELEGATED AUTHORITY – JUNE 2025 ¶

▶ 01:44:33· Carried 4-0 from council's minutes

01:45:00 That's all last month. Again, a cross-section of applications, as usual, quite a high number of minor changes and exemption certificates in that month. Speaker 4: Thank you. Any questions around the table? Councillor Wegener: On 33 Seabew Terrace, Sunshine Beach, change to RAP, dwelling house, height and setback. Was that? I have to look at the height and setback for 33 Seabew Terrace. And if that does have a change in going higher than approved or anything like that? Speaker 5: I would have to come back to you on the details on that one, the specifics. The descriptor in the full details will be what the application was originally for, originally approved for. So height was obviously an issue.

01:46:00 The height was obviously an issue in the initial assessment. Being an odd number, I believe that's on the high side of Seabew Terrace. So when they're developing those buildings, you'll probably note along there that they do have significant front elevations due to the topography of the site. So it's likely that there was an exemption. There was approval for increased height. But again, this might have changed. It could have just been changes to the layout. It could have been changes to landscaping. I'm not sure. I'd probably have to come back to you on that one. Councillor Wegener: I guess I always worry about Seabew Terrace because my gosh, is it hard to get the trees up there, that little tiny road that looks like giant houses. Speaker 6: Yeah. I'll get some information back to you on that one. Mayor Wilkie: To go to Tom's point about height, can we be reassured that if there was any significant breach of height limits, it would come before us and you'll handle that, delegate? Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, the team, you're right, the team in most cases wouldn't support anything over

01:47:00 height generally anyway. I mean, that's the reality from a policy perspective. And anything, yeah, potentially we would raise with council for consideration on it. But in most cases, the staff will request that the applicant amends the design to meet the height requirements as outlined in the scheme. Speaker 4: Did you want to add anything? We actually make changes in powers of delegation with anything that triggers any community, public community interest when it comes to council for a decision. Speaker 6: Yeah, yes. Any further discussion around the table? Speaker 4: I'm happy to move this. We've got just a second. Thank you. We're looking for a discussion. All in favour of unanimous. Second. Thanks. Next slide. Welcome. Thank you, Patrick and Angel.

01:48:00 Thank you. Speaker 5: Thank you. Thank you, Michel. Speaker 4: Next up is item 8.2, the minor first part of the evaluation report. Welcome, Michel and Anita, if you would like to speak, Michel. You're welcome. Thank you, Michel. Speaker 3: So, as you are aware, council has previously resolved to establish a placemaking program and a whole of council approach to managing place. This included the development of a place program framework, commencement of a place pilot project, and embedding of placemaking and place-based approach across the organisation. Thank you. Pomona was selected as the location for the pilot and the placemaking process commenced

8.2 POMONA PLACE PILOT EVALUATION REPORT ¶

▶ 01:48:17· Carried 4-0 from council's minutes

01:49:00 in June 2023. The purpose and benefit of the pilot was to test ideas and processes within the organisation and to develop a collaborative community-based partnership and a plan. This report presents an evaluation of the placemaking program to date. Specifically, it includes an evaluation of the pilot with input from the consultants, the internal project team, and the community. It also provides an evaluation of the planning process. It also provides an evaluation of the initial implementation phase of the Pomona place plan and the embedding placemaking program for the organisation. It also provides useful insights and key learnings for the future of the placemaking process. The evaluation of the pilot is developed and the development of the Pomona place plan concluded. The placemaking pilot process has been successful. It's fostered collaboration across the organisation to deliver efficient, effective, and responsive initiatives for the Pomona community that will improve liveability and character of the village. The pilot has also provided a successful process to engage and collaborate with communities

01:50:00 to identify and address matters important to them. It has provided opportunities for local groups, businesses, and individuals to deliver actions and work together to make places better. The pilot has established a good framework and process that can be used for future placemaking and can be adapted depending on the unique needs of each community. It has also embedded a program, an organisational policy, and staff training to demonstrate opportunities for local groups, businesses, and individuals to deliver actions and work together to improve the organisational commitment to placemaking and place-based processes moving forward. The recommendation is this report B for noting. Speaker 4: Thank you very much. Questions are in the table. I have a question. Yeah, she's hungry. In terms of costs, has a cost benefit on the part of being assessed? Is there a cost benefit on the part of being assessed? How much did it cost? And was the cost, does the cost justify the, the outcomes justify the investment?

01:51:00 And how is that assessed? Speaker 3: So we haven't done an official cost benefit analysis as part of the pilot. I guess in terms of the money spent and the contribution, from my opinion, I think it has been a really successful process in that there will be ongoing benefits. I think it will be a really successful process into the future, not only for the organisation, for the community. It allows us to work more collaboratively across the organisation. Therefore, there's cost savings there. We can put, commit funds to future things that the community need up front, and it's not reactive. So we can definitely monitor that over time to see if that comes to fruition. It feeds into other strategic plans as well as operational capital works plans. So we have a bit more of a strategic focus across a particular place or location. And I think it's, it's starting to embed that philosophy of, of us working with community

01:52:00 a lot more effectively in the future. Speaker 4: So in terms of this program being rolled over to other locations, will there be, at the moment, from consultants as much, say, remixed placemaking, or has a template to be established or learned in some way? Speaker 3: There's definitely been a template and learnings established. I think for us, it'll just be, every place is different. Smaller places could be less resource intensive, particularly in undertaking the process than like a larger, a larger place. But I think we've got enough learnings to preempt that and potentially use internal resources. There's probably a little bit of upskilling required to complement what a consultant will bring in terms of design of documentation and all those things. Those types of things. We always, we always benefit from, you know, sometimes having engagement run by a consultant, that third party separation.

01:53:00 Sometimes the community feels that it's separated from us, therefore it's, it's kind of transparent, even though we would run a transparent process regardless. So there's, I guess there's pros and cons to each, but I think over time, we certainly have the capacity to develop those skills to run in house. Thank you. Mayor Wilkie: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. From what I saw, it was a great engagement process, a lot of, a variety of different activities that people could engage in and express what they loved about Pomona and have that recorded. You mentioned in the report a whole lot of learnings. I'd like to ask, I know they're all very well articulated there, but you, you both, well, you, Michelle, were involved intimately. Yes. On a personal level, what was the greatest thing that you learned? Speaker 3: I think it was... Mayor Wilkie: And what would you do differently next time? Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, I guess the learnings were really around explaining what place and placemaking

01:54:00 actually is to the community. I know when we went out on engagement, we could probably preempt and have a lot more, what is placemaking, what is place, and what is the planning process we're undertaking, so they don't get any confusion with other things that are happening. You know, we had the SEQ original plan come out. We had the tail end of some planning scheme amendments, so there was a bit of confusion around that. We had feedback from some of the community orgs saying, you know, because when we met with them, we gave them all that information, so we said, potentially, if we'd done that with the community and had a bit more explanation around what place and place planning was, that would transition a lot better in people understanding the process and what it meant. And managing their expectations about what can be delivered through the process as well. Councillor Wilson: Yeah. Speaker 3: Obviously, I guess being open, listening to community is really, really critical and important, and we did get things a little bit wrong, but we tried to, you know, be flexible and

01:55:00 actually adapt throughout the process as well. And just learning how community works. How the community receives information, the different methods required, how much notice they need in engagement to come to these things, that was a key learning. I think they're probably the main things. I think just being consistent and being out in community is key, like actually being out there. You know, there is a lot of discrepancy, from my experience, being out in community and what you hear direct from community versus social media. Yeah. So, for me, it's dealing with that direct community, and they appreciate you being there, and they value that as well. So, and another thing, too, was really, if you're going out into location, it was really important to have people that actually live in that location on the engagement team have that understanding. Because people ask, are you from here, do you live here? So having someone from that location as a staff member on the engagement team was really

01:56:00 critical and that validates that. Yeah. They have the same experiences as other community members. So they're probably the key things. And I guess from an organisational perspective, just really being collaborative and working across the teams and communicating at each key stage what was happening. The internal working group is an invaluable internal working group. Putting together the short-term implementation plan now, because of that ongoing communication, I think has made that a much more smoother process. Yeah. And everyone kind of, there's no surprises. Everyone knows what their expectation is and what their responsibility is in delivering those actions, because they've been informed the whole way through the process. So. Mayor Wilkie: Livability is central to what we're trying to achieve with active processes like a placemaking. We like to think, and we hope, that communities will become more livable as a result of these

01:57:00 processes and the work that comes, flows out of it. And what's, you know, what we're trying to do. Yeah. And what needs to change to improve things. You mentioned in the report that we lacked a baseline to measure that against. And so there was a livability survey done in 2021. What are we hoping to see in the livability survey that's proposed for 2026? And how will we, how will we regard that in relation to other, the findings that we've got in relation to other trends that are happening in society generally about community sentiment that might be heading in a different direction? Speaker 3: Yeah. I think there has been a trend, I guess, in that community sentiment against, I guess, government. With any survey we'll have to factor that in. It would be hard to say. I guess livability is more, the survey is not about council services as such. It's about people's experiencing, experiences where they live.

01:58:00 And what they. What contributes to their overall livability. What we. And then we use that information for the services we deliver to actually channel that and tweak our investment. It allows us to really drill down to what individual communities value. And I guess with that livability survey, it also measures the community rate, you know, that out of 10. So we can continue to go back and compare the results with the, with another livability survey early next year to see if particular things around, you know, the, you know, the high level. So around open space, connectivity, those types of things. We can measure those over time to see if they're changing or not. And then, you know, it might be opportune then to see if they are changing. Why? For the better, for the worse. You know, it provides us to really drill down and tailor the questions we want to ask community. Rather than going out really broad brush, we can start then to drill down and tailor exactly what's happening within that community over time, which is great.

01:59:00 Thank you. Speaker 4: You mentioned, Michelle, it's great to have a staff member deputy to Pomona. Can I ask, were all the respondents during the engagement process, were they all Pomona residents? And how is that data sort of collected and recorded? And was it relevant? Did you only want to switch to Pomona residents or wider, broader community? Speaker 3: So the majority of people that did, I think around 85% were actually residents. They also worked in the town as well. We did get people coming through that were visitors, but they, you know, were regularly at the markets and things like that. They didn't live in Pomona, but come to the markets and those types of things. So I think they're really important, too. It's not just about Pomona as a village, but what services Pomona provides to that broader community as well. So I think it, I think we need to capture all those, but the majority were from Pomona.

02:00:00 So that made that, you know, in terms of that feedback from the survey, very validated in terms of the actions they were putting through were from that community, majority. Yeah. Speaker 4: The Pomona Chamber of Commerce, they were significant contributor in the engagement process and part of this plan. They're no longer active. They've been combined with the Coral Chamber. Yep. My question is, will there be a process to re-look at the priorities and ensure that they still reflect the business community needs, et cetera? And also ensure, like, that whatever the Pomona Chamber of Commerce advocated for there, they still remain relevant. Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't see, I don't see that. I don't see the relevance changing. I think there's, it's still important feedback. We can go through the Coral Chamber and actually speak to those. There's actions around that the Chamber was assigned to, which we could potentially, you

02:01:00 know, we would touch base with some of those business people in community and, and see how they wanted to approach that moving forward. So we were definitely going to contact the Coral Chamber and, and, you know, to continue on with those actions for those Pomona businesses that's in the plan. Speaker 4: Yeah. My, my last question is, is the hard work about to start? And can you just talk to us a little bit about the Tewantin as well? Who's going to be leading the, the action or implementation plan? Yeah. Speaker 3: So, I guess, we will lead that initially, as I said. I think it's going to be the town council. I've been putting that together and we'll be finalising that hopefully next couple of weeks and then going out to each of the groups. I've chatted with a couple of groups already around that, but I think it was important to go through those short-term actions and see, you know, who's doing what, what our

02:02:00 commitment was around those actions firstly, because community are interested in that. But the town team is very much a community organisation. It's not our organisation, but I've put, I've contacted, I think Nick Cook is the coordinator of the town team. Yeah. Hayley. I've sent them messages saying if they want any assistance from us, more than willing, I'm happy to go and work with them. So, once I finish the implementation, I was going to, I'm going to organise to go and meet with them definitely to go through the actions and see what they feel like doing. Nick's contacted me separately through Cooroy and Pomona Lions about some little worker bees, both in Pomona and Cooroy, so that kind of is a really good place action to start to kick off a town team if you wanted to recruit additional people to do those types of things. So, we're, you know, coordinating what could be done around that. Yeah. So, there's lots of little things happening that build upon the broader plan, which we

02:03:00 can definitely support and help coordinate moving forward. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I'll have to move the recommendation. Mayor Wilkie: I'll second it, Madam Chair. Yeah. Deputy Mayor Stockwell: I think it was, it was a good pilot. It, I think, you know, we've had the report about the plan and about the feedback from the community, which I believe was a ringing endorsement of the process. This is a bit more of a planner sitting back and saying, did we plan right? And it had a lot of useful information in there, insights. A couple of key things that I got out of it that I think there was a suggestion of having a little bit more time up front just to work with the community stakeholders to make sure that the proposed consultation was fit for purpose and locality, time, place, type. I think that's a good initiative. I think there was another key thing that came out was perhaps we haven't got the capacity internally if we're looking at some of the smaller communities and making the scope of those smaller community pacemaking fit the need rather than, you know, promote as a sort of mid-scale village.

02:04:00 Whereas Kin Kin, Boeree and Poyne may need a lesser investment, but get it done sooner. That's my take. Councillor Wegener: Councillor MacLeod. Speaker 4: Good question. Councillor Wegener: Was the pacemaking mandated, if I understand, by any chance? Was this our own initiative? Speaker 3: It's our own initiative. It was Council's initiative. Yeah. Yeah. Councillor Wegener: I'll speak for that. Yeah. Local government can be fun. There's... You know... You asked some roles. Well, we... Musa has stepped into these roles. I mean, there's roles, race and rubbish, which, you know, that's what you're supposed to do. But things other than that, like the J, the Leisure Centre, the Aquatic Centre, all these sorts of things where local government steps into these areas where it doesn't have to. But we do, as elected representative, you know, do this. And the local laws is a great example of that. We didn't have to do that, but we did it. And the placemaking as well.

02:05:00 So this is... It's a wonderful thing that we're doing, and it really shows the value of living in New South. So just thank you very much for taking us here and making the livability experience for New South Walesers even that much better. Thanks, Tom. Speaker 4: I'll just add, in my travels from community to village to village, there is so much interest in establishing their own plan in all these communities. And I think my take home is that we have the expertise, we have the passion, we know... We have the know-how. And no one knows their community better than the people that live there. And it's... They love the community. And it's... And the best outcomes, often, are when we allow community to lead. So I'm excited. I think there's lots of learnings. And I really appreciate the report. There's the good and the bad. And I was all there. And we need to explore that if you are committed to do better.

02:06:00 But thank you. And I'm excited to see this roll over to communities, particularly the smaller ones. Scoring Point, Kin Kin, Poojoo, et cetera. I'm really excited about what this can be developed. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. No further discussion. I'm going to throw this for a vote. All in favour, please. Thank you. Unanimous. Thank you. Thanks Michelle. Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 4: Thank you. And I think we're almost... We're almost there. Speaker 2: We are. Speaker 4: So there are no confidential sessions. So I now see the meeting closed at... 11.38. 11.40.

9 CONFIDENTIAL SESSION ¶

▶ 02:06:53

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.

10 MEETING CLOSURE ¶

▶ 02:06:58

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.