THE TWEED
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www.tweedecho.com.au Volume 3 #38 Thursday, June 2, 2011
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LOCAL & INDEPENDENT
Panel approves Cobaki township’s first stage Luis Feliu
Construction for the first 916 lots in the 5,500home Cobaki subdivision on the border west of Coolangatta airport is set to start as soon as next month after the state planning panel approved them last Thursday, despite an eleventh-hour bid for an inquiry into the development. The Northern Region Joint Regional Planning Panel (JRPP) cleared the way for the start of the new township, expected to accommodate over 12,000 people, but it wasn’t without opposition as various community and environment groups and politicians lined up against it during a second public hearing on the first development applications (DAs). The lone dissenting voice of the five-member panel told media afterwards that the state government approved concept plan was ‘a poisoned chalice’ . Concerns raised over the plan included traffic chaos, with only the one access from Boyd Street in Tugun during the estate’s early stages, the lack of water-saving or reuse measures in the greenfield-site development, the impact on service infrastructure on the Gold Coast, the small size of some of the lots, and the impact on koalas and wildlife in the areas with dogs permitted on the estate. Majority panel members said the 110-plus conditions placed on the consent by Tweed Shire Council addressed many of those concerns but sustainable-development planning expert Dr Ned Wales, who voted against the DAs, told the public hearing at Tweed Heads civic centre he was not convinced.
Panel powerless Panel chairman Garry West said that arguments put forward had ‘struck a chord’ with panel members but the panel was powerless to alter the proposal and people had to ‘understand our constraints’. ‘It’s not our job to impose new policies… in respect to the concept and not our responsibility to go out of those parameters,’ he said. However, council planning chief Vince Con-
nell told the hearing the panel could make amendments to lot sizes if it wanted to as part of the subdivision process and could defer a decision in order to request amended plans. Mr West also said that the panel’s decision had no bearing on the federal government’s environmental assessment of the plan which was still being considered. Dr Wales said the plans were put forward 20 years ago and failed to adequately protect the site’s native wildlife.
Plan inadequate ‘I felt the plan was inadequate, particularly in terms of biodiversity, conservation and infrastructure impacts but others on the panel felt their hands were tied,’ he said. Dr Wales, an associate professor of Bond University’s school of sustainable development, said the outcome was a by-product of a ‘system that was failing’ but there were now attempts to repair it by returning some of the council’s planning powers. ‘Unfortunately the site plan approved was approved by the state through the now abolished part 3A process and the planning panel was handed a poisoned chalice, so to speak,’ he said. Dr John Griffin, a former Tweed council general manager, told the hearing that despite calls for dual-reticulation for the subdivision to save water, the required level of waste-water treatment would be costly and a major impediment. But Dr Griffin, who moved for the approvals, said he hoped council would address the isssue ‘before other large greenfield developments are considered’. The state Greens failed in their bid to debate the issue in the Upper House on the day of the panel hearing, with MLC David Shoebridge saying the government was just not interested in safeguarding the native koala population. ‘This is a matter of statewide relevance. Koala populations are drastically falling across the state. Koala habitat is found in the rich coastal and inland forests that are too often the target of
Cotton portrait prizes double
Tweed River Art Gallery’s public programs curator, Anouk Beck, with some of the portraits in the Olive Cotton Award. Anouk will give a floor talk this Sunday (June 5) at 11am and invites award finalists to talk about their entries. Winners in this year’s Olive Cotton Award for Photo Jeff ‘I Used To Be Someone’ Dawson
photographic portraiture will pocket twice as much prize money after some major changes were recently made to the award, opening at Tweed River Art Gallery this week. The award is now a biennial event and boosted by the extra prize money. The major acquisitive prize winner takes home $20,000 and will be announced during this Saturday’s official opening of the exhibition, which will be held from 5pm. The 101 finalists in this year’s award were selected from more than 300 entries and will be on display at the gallery from continued on page 2 tomorrow, Friday, June 3, to Sunday, July 31.
The Tweed gallery is home to the prestigious award, dedicated to the memory of Olive Cotton and her role as one of Australia’s leading 20th century photographers. The award and exhibition were held annually until 2009, when gallery management introduced the biennial format and doubled the prize money. The 2011 major prize winner will be announced by this year’s judge, Naomi Cass, the director of the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne.
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