‘Historic moment’: World-first Surf Lakes development approved for Capricorn Coast

The proposed world-first $187m Surf Lakes development on the Capricorn Coast has been given the green light. Here’s what it means for the major project.

In what was described as a “historic moment”, the proposed World-first $187m Surf Lakes development on the Capricorn Coast was granted preliminary approval by Livingstone Shire Council on Tuesday.

Even though the proposed development did not meet some of the assessment benchmarks pursuant to the Planning Act, the council’s officers recommended that Livingstone approve the application because “there are considered to be circumstances that favour council exercising its discretion to approve the development.”

Those circumstances were outlined in a council report.

With two councillors, Adam Belot and Pat Eastwood, declaring conflicts of interest and leaving the council meeting for this matter, it was left to the remaining five councillors to make a decision.

And they all rode the same wave as the council officers, with a unanimous vote of support for approval.

The decision paves the way for stage one to commence on Yeppoon’s outskirts - including a surf lake and associated facilities, skate park, renewable energy facility, tourist park and short-term accommodation with cabins and camping sites.

Cr Nigel Hutton congratulated the proponents and the council’s officers for the work that had gone into the application and the council report respectively.

“I think that, a couple of years ago when it first came up saying that there was this idea that they’d like to try out, and they’re looking for a piece of land, and they were hoping on the Capricorn Coast because it was the home town of Aaron (Surf Lakes International founder and CEO Aaron Trevis) - who would have thought that we would have been in a place today where we could see such a large-scale development that’s going to provide jobs for our young people, going to provide jobs for workers in our community, going to provide opportunity to draw tourists from both across Australia and the World, here,” Cr Hutton said.

“It takes a lot of foresight, it takes a lot of support, but more than that, it takes an awful lot of heart to keep going.

“And I know that every time that, you know, something went wrong and that there were challenges along the way, they would have felt like ‘Oh gosh maybe this is just too hard.’

“But they’ve kept going.

“The outcome for our community in terms of having both a tourism product as well as an economic product is magnificent.

“And it is something that will put the Capricorn Coast, again, on the map, as well as being something that we can be truly proud of, for a young lad from Yeppoon who’s stepped up and is now producing and providing so many jobs for people from our community, and will provide more into the future.

“As well as, another really unique piece of product in the tourism space.

“Which we all heard from Mary Carroll and Capricorn Enterprise - it’s those unique products that are going to make a difference to our tourism mix, and this is definitely unique.”

Mayor Andy Ireland congratulated the Surf Lakes team on “a fantastic project” and also for their professionalism in working with the council’s officers.

“This is a significant project for this region,” Cr Ireland said.

Cr Andrea Friend described it as a “historic moment.”

“There’s no progress without change, and this has changed for the better,” she said in relation to the development application from Surf Lakes.

Further approvals will be required from the council as the development progresses.