Council will feel ratepayers’ wrath over Mt Coot-tha zipline

Brisbanites have a long history of defending their beloved Mt Coot-tha from development, and this project may be a zipline too far, writes Marg Wenham.

IF I WAS a betting man, I might put a bit of money on a few LNP councillors losing their Brisbane seats, come the next local government elections.

Yes, yes, I know I’m not a man, and the truth is I never gamble, but those are small glitches in this thesis.

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I’ve arrived at this conclusion having taken in the anti-Mt Coot-tha zipline signs popping up around the place in my neck of the woods (Brisbane’s leafy west), certainly in the council ward areas of Pullenvale and Walter Taylor where Cr Kate Richards and Cr Julian Simmonds — council planning committee chair- turned-federal-candidate for Ryan — respectively reign.

A zipline protest at City Hall. Picture: Mark Cranitch

I’m no Robinson Crusoe holding this view. My colleague Peter Gleeson in his column the other week tipped the zipline would be a key issue in the March 2020 Brisbane council election. According to Gleeso, the anti-zipline Pullenvale locals he’s spoken with are pretty miffed and when they’ve tried to speak to Richards about it, they’re flicked off to City Hall. A couple of weeks ago Indooroopilly resident Geoffrey Dalton-Morgan opined in a letter to the editor that he’d approached Simmonds’ office four times trying to find out his position on the Mt Coot-tha development project.

“I have not had a reply,” Geoffrey opined. “Any ideas?” he asked.

Mt Coot-tha zipline sign in the Walter Taylor ward.

Well, here’s one. To the best of my knowledge, all LNP councillors voted in support of the zipline in late 2017. But here’s another. I’ve asked for you, Geoff, emailing the four councillors whose wards circle Mt Coot-tha — Simmonds and Richards, plus Paddington’s Peter Matic (chair of the council’s Lifestyle and Community Services Committee), and The Gap ward’s Steven Toomey. They were asked, simply: “Can you please advise by return whether or not you are in favour of the Mt Coot-tha zipline and why or why not?” and “could you also advise whether you believe the majority of constituents in your ward are in favour or not?”

The four replies were exactly the same. “Having spoken to numerous residents about the zipline project during the consultation, we are aware of the diversity of local opinions regarding the project,” Simmonds, Richards, Matic and Toomey chorused.

“As local councillors, we have been extremely vocal in bringing the views of our residents, for and against the zipline, to the attention of the Lord Mayor and council officers.

“These constructive and effective behind-the-scenes efforts on behalf of our constituents have ensured the recent approval by council officers included conditions and significant safeguards that will ensure the protection of the flora and fauna of Mt Coot-tha if the zipline receives State Government approval to proceed.”

Brisbane Councillor Kate Richards.

Brisbane City councillor Peter Matic at his swearing in, in 2016. Photo: Peter Cronin

Thanks but, of course, these questions that would inform residents exactly what their councillors’ positions are on the zipline have gone unanswered. Like the seven questions posed to the BCC querying the patronage numbers used to support its development application to itself.

From where, reporter Brendan O’Malley inquired last week in his first question, did the 350,000 annual patronage figure in the DA come, because a tourism expert, Dr Richard Bramley, had crunched the numbers and concluded this would mean “nearly 1000 people a day, or about one every six minutes, 12 hours a day 365 days a year” would need to take the zipline? This patronage figure was more than the number of visitors to Uluru at its tourism peak in 2005 and could rival or even exceed Cairns’s Skyrail.

“How many repeat visits do the patronage numbers assume … how often does council assume an average Brisbane resident will want to use the zipline?” was another question.

There may well be very good answers but O’Malley says there’s been dead silence so far.

Mt Coot-tha zipline sign in the Walter Taylor ward.

Not answering questions properly is a high-risk strategy for all politicians, along with obfuscation, turning issues into political footballs, engaging in wedge politics and misrepresentation. Switched on and social media-savvy voters are fed up with it.

But, also, Lord Mayor Graham Quirk and the LNP team shouldn’t be surprised at the level of heat generated by this project and the fact that for many of the 3277 people who lodged submissions opposed to the DA — 89 per cent of the 3683 total — their concerns haven’t been assuaged by Quirk and his councillors’ “don’t you worry about that” assurances of “strict conditions” applying to vegetation loss, fauna protection, noise, etc. This is because Brisbanites have a long history of defending their beloved Mt Coot-tha from development, ever since 1880 when the mountain was declared a public park. The vision of Brisbane City’s first mayor William Jolly, who expanded the reserve in which Mt Coot-tha sits, was to retain this “breathing space” in a “sylvan state” and all sorts of schemes have shrivelled on the vine of public opprobrium over the years.

But the project may also be a zipline too far for many around the mount now with short fuses thanks to the relentless approval of ugly, high-density projects on low-res land and of apartment blocks that exceed planning height restrictions, and the resultant increased traffic congestion, all of which threaten or have already destroyed their suburb’s amenity. Which leads me to remind the State Government — yet to green light the zipline’s land management plan — to get bloody cracking on approving the council’s tardy but still creditable September 2018 amendment to the City Plan banning townhouse development on low-res land.

Otherwise, Labor’s city planning credibility will be the next thing to become unfastened.