Altum’s plans for GKI explained at meeting

The meeting was an opportunity for the public to ask Altum about its resort plans.

The Altum and GKI Progress Association meeting on Monday night.

Altum Property Group and GKI Progress Association hosted a meeting at Beaches Restaurant on Monday night to provide information about Altum's proposed resort development and the progress of its negotiations with government.

About 140 people attended, including Member for Capricornia Michelle Landry, Senator Matt Canavan, Member for Keppel Brittany Lauga, Livingstone Shire Mayor Andy Ireland, Rockhampton region Mayor Tony Williams, and other councillors, business owners, and interested residents.

It was an opportunity for the public to ask Altum about its plans for the island, and the assembly remained genial for its 90-minute length.

Registration for the event was free.

Below are the major points discussed.

 

Common user infrastructure

Common user infrastructure on the island would cost $46.5 million.

That money would be split between the State Government ($30.12 million) and Altum ($16.38 million).

It would include:

- Site establishment and mobilisation

- Site preparatory works

- Bulk earthworks

- Breakwall, dredging, and barge ramp

- Ferry terminal

- Sewage treatment plant

- Water supply infrastructure

- Rain water

- Batch plan and concrete equipment

- Solar/battery/generator

- Services reticulation and roads

- 50 public marina berths and government berths

- Communications infrastructure

Altum Construction director Rob McCready said the first priority was a port with a breakwall, the second was a ferry terminal within a marina on Putney Beach, and the third was a sewage treatment plant.

 

Mr McCready presenting Altum’s resort master plan.

 

Environment

A marina with a pontoon, Mr McCready said, was superior to a jetty in open water as it would provide more reliable access to the island in all weather.

He said Putney Beach was selected because it already had the necessary approvals, was less crowded and therefore better suited for commercial boats, and would not reduce the public anchorage capacity of Fisherman's Beach, which in any case was a designated Conservation Park Zone.

Since the water at Putney Beach is too shallow for a marina, he said it would need to be dredged initially and then every five years.

Because of the marina, an annual offset of $300,000 would need to be paid to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (although Mr McCready said that that "needs to be discussed" after the lease transfer, and that he would want that money to go towards improving GKI's environment).

Mr McCready said the GBRMPA completed a risk assessment for the Putney Beach marina that found three species used the area for travel and one species, sea snakes, lived there.

He said Altum was required to manage any risk involved with those findings.

The public would still be able to moor boats on either beaches, but only Freedom Fast Cats or Keppel Konnections would be allowed to tie up at the ferry terminal itself.

Altum would be required to build a minimum of 50 marina berths in the first stages of the revitalisation project.

Mr McCready said some of those would be designated for commercial operators and the State Government, but the majority would be public.

On Lot 21, Altum plans to create a 575-hectare protected area, restore Leeke Homestead, and farm produce and animals to stock the island's restaurants.

The cost of tidying rubbish and rubble on the island alone would be "in the millions", Mr McCready said, and he hoped much of it could be recycled or reused.

He also said Altum was obliged to manage weeds and the biodiversity of the island.

A decision on the problem of feral goats is yet to be reached.

 

Airport

Mr McCready said a new runway on the island, already approved, would be 1550m long, allowing planes with large seating capacity to land and take off.

He said one commercial airline practised using the existing runway on Monday.

"We have a goal to introduce commercial flights shortly, and our first destination will be the Sunshine Coast," Mr McCready said.

"There will be direct flights from Keppel to Sunshine Coast. That will benefit tourists from the Sunshine Coast wanting to visit Keppel, and will also mean that locals will be able to get a ferry over and fly to the Sunshine Coast."

 

Accommodation, hospitality, entertainment

Stages one and two of Altum's plans - assuming the common user infrastructure precedes them - include the construction of roads, communications infrastructure, the refurbishment of the old restaurant building, and 154 holiday apartments and villas to be sold 'off the plan', that is, before construction, to Central Queenslanders first.

The accommodation is intended to be three-bedroom dual-key units containing a bedroom studio and two-bedroom apartment.

Mr McCready said Altum's architecture would be "harmonious within the natural environment with plans for a maximum of three stories that are all nestled into the landscape".

There are two main restaurants planned: a yacht club, "a showcase of local, fresh seafood", and one on the beachfront with a beer garden and selling beef, tentatively named "The Yards" by Mr McCready.

All energy would be generated and stored on-island and there are also plans for high rope courses and beachside playgrounds.

Mr McCready said there was also an "unnatural amphitheatre" sitting in the footprint of the existing runway that could seat 10,000 people for events.

He said Altum would not be involved with the Underwater Observatory, which is part of a federally-owned lease, because the area was not offered for sale and had "significant problems".

Mr McCready also said he would like to build a cultural heritage centre and work with the Woppaburra people to, for example, provide tours to significant Indigenous sites.

"It is the history of the island, and we embrace that," he said.

 

Attendees of the meeting.

 

Financial and managerial capability

In assessing Altum's capability to make good on its vision for GKI, the Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy has already determined the property developer fit in terms of its project management ability.

Its financial capability, however, is still being assessed.

Mr McCready expected the results of the revised submission to be revealed in coming weeks.

"[Previously] there just simply weren't options for us to explore," he said.

"Banks weren't lending, they weren't wanting to take on new projects.

"We submitted about a month ago our new feasibility study, which has been tested and sounded with banks and financiers, and they like it. It shows that our stage one and two is [paper] profitable.

"That's the final hurdle. We have to demonstrate that the project has the ability to succeed."

Ms Lauga said the difference between the first and the current capability assessment consisted in "new finance partners and it's also taken into consideration a change in the market as a result of COVID".

"I spoke to the department today [Monday] and they're in the throes of assessing the financial assessment submitted by Altum to the State Government," she said.

"We need to make sure that if we're going to transfer the leases from Tower to Altum, that Altum has the capacity to actually deliver a project."

Ms Lauga said federal support for the GKI development would "probably be a big election issue".

Ms Landry said that during the last federal sitting week, she briefed Queensland MPs in the party room on Altum's project.

"I am in the process of organising more meetings for the McCreadys in Canberra with the relevant federal ministers during the next parliamentary sitting weeks," she said.

Without naming names, Mr McCready said that on Tuesday and Wednesday he was meeting with "key consultants and contractors that had previous experience on the island or had a history there on the island or know the project".

"We're getting them for some preliminary design work and construction cost estimates, so we can then go into detailed design," he said.

"After the detailed design, we can then go to tender."

He said Altum could start work 12 months after the State Government's approval, and would employ locals first.

He did not name Altum's financiers.