Gladstone Regional Council grants developer time to overcome parking issues

The urgent need to provide more child care places for the fast-growing Gladstone community has convinced council to give a developer more time to overcome parking and noise issues with a 129-space centre proposal.

This image shows the site for the proposed childcare centre in Tank Street, Gladstone.

The pressing need for more child care places in the fast-growing Gladstone community has convinced regional councillors to give a developer more time to overcome parking issues with a large centre proposed for the CBD.

Gladstone Regional Council planning officers last week recommend the centre at 55-57 Tank Street with 129 child care places be refused on a number of issues but mainly concerning tandem parking arrangements for 30 vehicles in the 46 car spaces provided.

This image shows the site for the proposed child care centre in Tank Street, Gladstone.

“The proposed development (across the road from the aquatic centre) is likely to give rise to unacceptable impacts in relation to the safety and functionality of the access, parking, servicing, and associated manoeuvring areas,” the planning officer’s report stated.

“The design of the car park facilitates an increased risk of queuing at the entrance due to the single blind aisle proposed and therefore creates potential hazard of vehicle interactions on Tank Street.

“It is likely that, by not adequately providing for the convenience or safety of the user, there will be an increase in utilisation of on-street parking by way of avoiding the use of an inconvenient drop-off and parking arrangement.”

This image shows the design layout of the proposed childcare centre in Tank Street, Gladstone.

However, councillors argued that there was an urgent need to provide more child care places in the city.

Mayor Matt Burnett said he appreciated there were issues to resolve but was confident the developer, F5Y Gladstone Pty Ltd, could overcome them if given more time.

“Child care is so important right across Queensland and Australia we don’t want to see an application thrown out the window on a car parking and (noise) amenity issue if it can be addressed,” he said after the meeting.

“If they can fix the issues raised by planners and councillors I would love to see another child care centre right in the CBD.”

Officers said they acknowledged that child care places were currently difficult to secure in the Gladstone region, however it was “important to understand the centres under construction, with approval and under assessment represent a significant increase to the number of places available in the medium and longer term”.

Gladstone Region Mayor Matt Burnett.

Officers said 2029 population forecasts indicated 1,030 to 1,133 child care places would be needed.

“Based upon officers calculations and information provided from the several applications approved and under assessment, between 850-1,020 places exist in the region with an additional 306 places under construction and approved.

“This takes the total places to 1,156-1,326 anticipated to be created.”

The site had formally been approved for a three-storey 17 unit residential complex in July 2014.

Artist impressions of proposed child care centre for Tank Street, Gladstone.

More detail on the council’s tandem parking problem, according to officers’ report:

• The proposed development uses tandem parking as its primary means of achieving the minimum parking space numbers required. This arrangement involves the sharing of tandem parking between staff and patrons.
• It is reasonable to consider that two tandem spaces do not operate in practice the same as two standard car parks, given the access restrictions.
• The use of shared tandem parking results in an inadequate number of car parks available and encourages confusion, uncertainty and misuse of the parking space. As such it is considered that development does not provide adequate and convenient car parking to satisfy the requirements of a child care facility.