Where Windansea court case will be won and lost

Battle lines are drawn for a legal showdown between members of a boardriders club and property owners who don’t want a clubhouse on a beachfront nature reserve.

Happy Windansea Surf Club members Tim Carter, Brad Williams, Terry Landsberg, Tim Hindley and Mark Kemen celebrate with juniors Casey and Ryder Kemen in 2017 after Sunshine Coast Council voted to allow the club to lease a section of public land at Buderim St to build a clubhouse.

Battle lines are drawn for a legal showdown between members of a Sunshine Coast boardriders club and property owners who don’t want a clubhouse on a beachfront nature reserve.

Those appealing Sunshine Coast Council’s 2019 decision to allow Windansea Surf Club to build a hub at the end of Buderim St in Currimundi have consolidated their legal arguments.

Their grounds for refusal include the development having an unacceptable impact on ecologically important areas.

They also state the development is in an inappropriate location having regard to community expectations and will have impacts on visual amenity.

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Other reasons include clashes with the Sunshine Coast Planning Scheme and no planning need for such a development.

Fisher MP Andrew Wallace and Windansea Surf Club president Terry Landsberg dive in after Mr Wallace announced funding for the construction of a new clubhouse.

Meanwhile, Sunshine Coast Council, which has chosen to defend its approval of the clubhouse, has also laid out its reasons why the development should go ahead.

The council said there was a community and town planning need for the development due to Windansea having been established since the 1970s and having more than 100 members.

It said Windansea Surf Club had a significant connection to the beach directly in front of the site and the facility needed to be built in an appropriate location.

The council said its combined efforts with the club to find an appropriate alternative location had been unsuccessful.

A technical drawing shows where Windansea Surf Club hope to build a new clubhouse at the end of Buderim St in Currimundi.

Among other reasons it noted there was strong community support for the clubhouse, which it said was evidenced during the application process when it received 308 public submissions in favour of the development and 23 against.

Windansea has chosen to base its arguments on those put forward by the council, adding extra reasons including an approval last year of a $140,000 Federal Government grant to help build the clubhouse.

“(It is) funding that will directly benefit the community and the opportunity to obtain the benefit of that funding should not be wasted,” the document stated.

The appeal has been set down to be heard in Maroochydore District Court over five days in November.

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