Paradise Plant Centre

You will remember the GCCC Council approved 21 units on this site but that the developer has asked for the approval to be renegotiated up to 25. Today David , John and Judith met with the two GCCC town planners in charge of the redevelopment application. David and John had done enormous research into the Town Plan and into the development application and found dozens of apparent anomalies. They presented the community's case very well.

We had a good look at the block today and this is such a small area to have possibly over 100 people. It is most likely to be rental student housing but the proposal has been very carefully presented.

The bottom line seems to be that the developer has threatened to take the matter to the Planning and Environment Court if they don't get 25 units and it could cost the GCCC $100,000. We think this is a test case and that the cost to the community should be taken into consideration. When you look at the floor plans of these supposed one- and two-bedroom apartments, these are definitely two- and three-bedroom units - one room in each unit is just called a study. The town planners said this has to be taken on face value. If it is the same size and is the same design as a bedroom, it sounds like a bedroom to us. The town planners took detailed note of all the objections and said they would take them into consideration when reassessing the proposal.

(Interestingly, Storey & Castle, the designers of this project also were the designers of the initial QAC proposal for Ridgeway TAFE. They seem to have a gift for junk developments and also seem to be good at "bullying" to get their way as they have continually threatened the past year to take the Paradise Plant Centre redevelopment to Court.)

This will go again to the Town Planning Committee for consideration sometime around the middle of July. We will continue to work with the Councillors to minimise the effect of this proposal on our community. Our big concern is that this development will establish a precedent and then become "case law".