‘Can’t believe it’: Grassroots win over ‘big end of town’

Champagne is flowing for the opponents of the Twin Waters West as the long-running campaign records an important win.

Lorraine Taylor, Kathryn Hyman and Tracey Hanna are just some of the residents who opposed the Twin Waters West development.

Champagne is flowing for the opponents of the Twin Waters West development as the long-running campaign records its most important win.

Sunshine Coast Council on Thursday afternoon rejected Stockland's development application for the 182-lot masterplanned community.

It had been more than 10 years in the making.

Save Twin Waters West president Kathryn Hyman said it was a win for the community and for science.

REFUSED: Councillors vote down Twin Waters West development

Blinds down by 8pm: New rules for beachfront project

Ms Hyman had popped a bottle of champagne at 4.30pm to celebrate.

"I can't believe it," she said.

"I never let myself imagine we'd have an overwhelming majority."

Division 8 councillor Jason O'Pray put forward a motion to reject the application.

He was backed councillors Rick Baberowski, Joe Natoli, Winston Johnston, Christian Dickson, Ted Hungerford, Jason O'Pray, Maria Suarez and David Law.

Cr Peter Cox and Cr Terry Landsberg voted against the motion.

Mayor Mark Jamieson did not vote or participate in the debate after leaving the meeting room due to a perceived conflict of interest.

Kathryn Hyman is celebrating council’s rejection of Twin Waters West development.

Ms Hyman said the group had presented "thousands" of documents to the council in recent years to show why it should not go ahead, including on the flooding risk.

In April 2017, the council voted in favour of rezoning the flood-prone rural land to urban residential development, paving the way for the Twin Waters West proposal to continue.

She said the group always had a focus on evidence-based information, provided from experts willing to give advice free of charge.

She estimated advice received would usually cost "tens of thousands of dollars".

"We always made sure we put together high-quality technical reports and we ensured they were substantiated," she said.

"They were always backed up by science and legislation."

Ms Hyman said the campaign was a community-wide effort.

"I couldn't have done this on my own, one academic couldn't have done this or one resident," she said.

Cr Jason O'Pray.

There were 417 submissions to the council about the application, with 132 supporting and 285 against.

Ms Hyman, who ran against Cr O'Pray in the March election and narrowly lost by 373 votes, commended the councillor for putting forward the motion to reject the proposal.

"He knew what the majority of residents wanted and I commend him for doing that," she said.

Ms Hyman said the group would assist the council as a co-respondent, if Stockland appealed the decision in the Planning and Environment Court.

But she hoped it would not get to that stage.

She said thousands of people had been involved in the campaign and that it was proof that communities can defeat "the big end of town".

She also thanked the media for ongoing coverage on the application.

"If it wasn't for the media we couldn't garner the amount of support we had," she said.

"We still live in a democracy and that really resonated today."

Power cuts homes, but no rain damage

Originally published as