Barlow Gregg VDM Pty Ltd v Bundaberg Regional Council

[2010] QPEC 89

[2010] QPEC 89

PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT COURT

JUDGE ROBIN QC

P & E Appeal No 2568 of 2008

BARLOW GREGG VDM PTY LTD	Appellant
and
BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL	Respondent

BRISBANE

..DATE 27/08/2010

ORDER

CATCHWORDS

Integrated Planning Act 1997, s 4.1.52(2)(b)

Minor change where road pattern on a greenfields site is changed - increased lot yield in a staged development

HIS HONOUR:  The court makes an order in terms of the initialled draft, which is acceptable to both the appellant/developer and the Council.

This was a conditions appeal, essentially, about infrastructure conditions.

The development application, which seeks subdivision on a 9.19 hectare site in Wearing Road, Bargara was code assessable.

The parties resolved issues but there is now raised for the Court's consideration an issue whether changes proposed to the development constitute minor change for the purposes of section 4.1.52(2)(b) of the Integrated Planning Act 1997.

Redesign of the subdivision, which is to be constructed in three stages now, has made possible an increased yield of lots from 66 to 74.  That, essentially, is achieved not by reducing the sizes of lots but by a commensurate increase in the total area of lots with approval from the 6.4 hectares originally proposed for stage 1 of a 94 lot development to 7.3 hectares which will now have three stages within it.

Stage 1 is intended to contain 26 lots.  As one would expect, it includes the lots to be produced with a frontage to Wearing Road and those with a frontage to a new road running parallel to it to be constructed within the site.  Stage 2 is an extension further within the site and stage 3 will complete the development of the whole site in its eastern part.

The original plans indicated as future development the western 30 per cent or thereabouts of the site.  The plans now proposed do not indicate any intention for future development but provide two large lots, lot 75 along the western boundary of the site of slightly under a hectare which may well become a road reserve, and lot 74 between that area and what is the subject of the current development application - it is lot 74 - and I think it was said almost two hectares.  There may well be subdivision of that area in the future but this is speculation.

The current plans suggest a stepped edge to development in contrast to what is in the approved plans which was essentially a straight edge, although that was achieved by edges with slightly different bearings; the northern and southern ones apparently parallel, the adjoining one slightly inclined.

There is a change proposed to the road pattern in that the access from Wearing Road to what was clearly intended as a road providing connectivity to the undeveloped land to the south is now moved further to the east.  There will be only one lot to the east of it as opposed to four originally proposed.

The through road, as it might be called, will essentially be superimposed on the top of a T-shaped double cul-de-sac to be reached from the formerly proposed through road.

The projection westward of the stem of the T will provide a new east-west road through the development running parallel to the internal road first described above and also a new road further to the south, also running parallel through the site east-west, which had always been proposed.

Those changes, it seems to me, have the beneficial effect of providing more lots where people can establish homes.  They are potentially concerning in that the footprint of development increases but that is within the site and unlikely to have implications outside it because they are on land which is likely to be turned to residential use anyway.

On a greenfields site such as this, the changes in the road pattern do not have the effect, in my view, of making a change other than a minor one.  I have not noted above that the original southern and the newly proposed central roads within the site are now to be connected, which will have the effect of dispensing with the third and last of the cul-de-sacs proposed in the original design.  I do not think that has any effect on the minor change aspect.  There will now be three roads through the site with stubs connecting with lot 74 and perhaps providing some indication of what one can expect will happen there.

Order as per initialled draft.

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