Spotlight on Sunshine Coast Blue Heart project
Emotional landowners are calling for the controversial Blue Heart Sunshine Coast environmental project to be scrapped amid claims of skyrocketing insurance premiums and a lack of consultation by the council.
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Emotional landowners are calling for a Sunshine Coast environmental project to be scrapped amid claims of skyrocketing insurance premiums and a lack of consultation by the region’s council.
The calls come as the Sunshine Coast Council has stated “general revenue” funds were used to buy land at Coolum West for the Blue Heart project with a “reimbursement” expected through the City Deal funding.
The Blue Heart project encompasses 5000ha of agricultural land and flood plain north of the Maroochy River.
The initiative aims to ensure flood storage on the Maroochy River flood plain and is also a blue carbon pilot project.
In December last year, Consolidated Properties Ltd confirmed it had sold Coolum West land it had earmarked for a Kelly Slater surf ranch to the council for $6m.
The council confirmed the sale, stating at the time the land was “secured” through the SEQ City Deal, which is a partnership between the council, federal government, state government and the Council of Mayors that allocated $35.5m to the Blue Heart initiative.
In a request for response released to this publication this week, a council spokeswoman said under the SEQ City Deal, $15m in state funding had been allocated for land acquisitions.
“The Coolum West (Consolidated Properties land) properties have been initially purchased with available council general revenue, with reimbursement from the City Deal funding to occur once the funding agreements have been finalised and executed, which is expected to occur in February/March 2024,” she said.
On Monday afternoon, about 100 community members gathered for an at times heated three-hour meeting with Sunshine Coast Council officers at the Maroochy River Golf Club about the Blue Heart project.
Some audience members lashed the council officers over a lack of consultation regarding the project, with officers responding that information sessions and webinars had taken place.
Other landowners expressed their anxiety over what they would be allowed to do on their land if it fell within the Blue Heart boundary.
Fourth-generation cane farmer Troy Apps said part of his farm in Valdora fell within Blue Heart.
He said he was still growing cane in Valdora and he feared that a Blue Heart label over the land would spell an end to any future diversification projects he might pursue.
He also said his insurance premium had “gone up through the roof”, from about $11,000 a year to close to $20,000 in a four-year period.
“I’ve been bringing more and more stuff out of insurance to bring my premiums down and down,” Mr Apps said.
He said the council needed to “get rid of” Blue Heart and allow farmers to cut their land into 8ha blocks.
“It’s a lot of money for people to come in and spend $5m or $6m to come in and do horticulture or agriculture,” Mr Apps said.
“But if we can cut it into smaller 20-acre farms people can come in and do more intense horticulture.”
He said he was “pretty disappointed” his family’s cane farming heritage would end with him.
At the Monday meeting, another landowner told the meeting her insurance premium had also increased more than 120 per cent and claimed her insurer had told her it was because of the Blue Heart project.
A council spokeswoman said council was aware of the increasing insurances for landowners in the Blue Heart area.
“As an example, the floods in 2022 led to more than $6 billion in insurance claims in Queensland,” she said.
“This has resulted in very significant increases in insurances across the board but has particularly impacted those located in flood plains as insurance companies seek to de-risk from those areas.”
Paul Brandenburg, who is a former Sunshine Coast cane grower and was asked by some of the landowners to do a review of the Blue Heart project, organised the Monday meeting.
The businessman owns an asset mapping company and has spent the past two years reviewing public data on the Blue Heart project.
In 2022, he put a submission into the council during the community consultation of the draft town plan in relation to the Blue Heart project, calling for some of the land to be turned into a sporting and tourism precinct.
Mr Brandenburg said the council had increased the “risk” of the project by buying the land from Consolidated Properties Ltd.
“They haven’t come to the final agreement yet, they’ve used ratepayer money to buy property when the agreement is not finalised,” he said.
The Organisation Sunshine Coast Association of Residents president Melva Hobson said the group supported the concept of the Blue Heart project and it did not want to see infrastructure built on flood plains.
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