Scape success

By Sonia Isaacs

A MOOLOOLAH-based landscape business has received national recognition with a substantial win at the inaugural Husqvarna Champion of Champions, Australian Landscaper of the Year awards. Following on from their Queensland state award win late last year, the Harmony Landscapes team took out the top gong at the national awards night held in Brisbane last month.

The winning project by the sixmember team was the Immanuel Lutheran College playground redesign. Winning the commercial construction category ($500,000$1 M) the family operated business reimagined, designed and delivered a multi-faceted nature play inspired space that had the national judges commending the Harmony Landscapes team for their “landscape construction excellence.”

Business owner Emarys Pratt said the win was an unexpected honour, and he credited the vision, hard work and dedication of his team for achieving at both a state and national level for the project. He said it involved a bespoke, highly complex and technical design that required a high level of planning and logistics, and he was thrilled with the award.

“It was a privilege to be recognised for this project and although challenging to construct, it was wonderful to be able to create a funfilled nature inspired space for children to enjoy for years to come,” Emarys said.

In describing the project, Emarys said the design featured sandstone blocks, natural timber logs and a watercourse, along with a large play tower and

Say hi to the Zonta team

additional rope tunnels, bridges, nets and balance ropes. He said the project demonstrated the need for a high level of integration, with the playground incorporating numerous aspects and features such as in-ground water storage tanks and other filtration devices that required both custom designed elements and demanded a great deal of attention to detail.

Judges praised the project as a “very deserving winner” and acknowledged the design challenges, as well as the high level of planning, problem solving, and execution required to deliver the successful outcome.

“Safety, accessibility and inclusion issues were considered, and the contractor has achieved design intent with their construction resulting in a truly amazing outcome loved by the broader school community,” said the judges comment online.

Backing Beerwah East

THANKS to GC&M for raising awareness of this very important development topic. As you reported Stockland is seeking a Commonwealth environmental approval for Halls Creek, or as it has now been named by the developer “Aura South”.

It’s important for the community to have a good grasp of the background facts and what this could mean if such a speculative development were to be approved.

Firstly, it’s a large site by regional standards; Halls Creek spans over approximately 1,400 ha and sits between the Pumicestone Passage and the Bruce Highway, south of Bells Creek Road. It’s important to know that the land is and has always been zoned for rural and conservation purposes and provides an important buffer to the very sensitive ecology of the Pumicestone Passage and Ramsar Wetlands. It also significantly contributes to what is known as the interurban break, which provides a ‘green belt’ or vegetated break between the Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay and the highly urbanised greater Brisbane district.

It’s important to remember Stockland purchased the land knowing the development of the land for residential purposes is prohibited.

Given the existing regulatory framework for this land, Stockland’s attempt to receive Commonwealth environmental approval of this land has no identifiable legal basis requiring the application to be considered at this time.

The development is prohibited under existing Planning Regulations and is inconsistent with the planning framework.

In addition, any development in Halls Creek would fail to meet the State Government’s Urban Footprint Principles set by Shaping SEQ – The South East Queensland Regional Plan 2012. Basically, by trying to get environmental approvals without an overarching supportive land use plan, we have to conclude they are expecting to muscle in a change in the rules to suit their own time-frame and ambitions!

Contrary to being’ developed’, a key council intent for this land was for it to be rehabilitated to provide balance and offsets for the impacts of the 20,000 lot Caloundra South (Aura) development.

On the subject of impacts, we are all experiencing or at least witnessing the spiralling congestion on our regions road network; well if this development where to be approved, it takes little imagination to anticipate the added congestion of thousands of more cars on our already struggling road network (it’s not anywhere near any planned rail services).

The alternative future land supply is ‘Beerwah East’, which is already in the planning scheme and provides important ‘adjacent’ land supply as well as a critical secondary market of consumers to support the economies of our country towns.

Beerwah East, would provide sufficient greenfield housing supply well beyond 2046 and have capacity to house more than 50,000 people. Its development will also absolutely and critically support the Sunshine Coast Direct Line rail corridor which runs right through Beerwah East and in turn ultimately provides direct public transport access to Caloundra, Kawana, Maroochydore City Centre and Brisbane.

Halls Creek needs to be protected as part of a green belt for future generations and I encourage the community to stay informed on this matter. I also encourage you to contact or write to the Minister for Environment and Water. The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, and our regions state and federal members to express your views or concerns.

By unifying around our values we can better ensure the outcome for Halls Creek (or Aura South) is one that’s best for the social, economic, and environmental values of the Sunshine Coast community and its future generations.ns.

Cr Rick Baberowski Division 1

Give us a break

Following on from my letter there needs to be a focus on what we will actually lose of our environment.

The land on which Stockland is wanting to build thousands of houses is actually part of the inter-urban break. It exists to provide a distinct break between suburban Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast and critical environmental ‘breathing space’. This break distinguishes two very different areas and someone had the foresight and guts to say “hey, we are not the suburbs we are not “outer Brisbane” and this break is important as it was established many years ago.

Here we have wetlands and a merging of Pumistone passage creeks and waterways. This is not an area suitable for housing and especially where flooding is more prone to occur. This is the Sunshine Coast and the rules are different here. Moreton Bay has unfortunately become part of greater Brisbane - the Pine River used to be the boundary between outer northern suburbs and semi-rural areas but that LGA is now part of the 5 or 6 LGA’s that

It’s amazing to me that although a community and council don’t want this development - all the developer has to do is take it higher (state) but if that doesn’t