Crowd asked to fund fight against huge Brisbane townhouse project

A BRISBANE residents’ lobby group has turned to crowd-funding to help fund its court battle against the developers of a large townhouse project.

Kenmore residents are fighting a townhouse project. File photo of a house under construction

• Project could add 200 cars to Moggill Rd

A KENMORE residents’ lobby group has turned to crowd-funding to help fund its court battle against the developers of a townhouse project on Margaret Ct.

It is believed it may be the first time a Planning & Environment Court appeal will be partially funded through online platform gofundme.

The Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) said developers could tax deduct lawyers’ fees and costs for experts but “common garden residents’’ had to pay with post-tax incomes.

“There’s only so much you can raise by cake stalls so crowd-funding makes a lot of sense to fight big developers,’’ CEO Solicitor for the EDO, Jo Bragg, said.

“EDO clients have used crowd-funding to fight the big coal cases, such as Adani and New Acland, but the challenge for the people of Kenmore is to engage the wider public to help them in the same way.’’

Kenmore Living member Tim Vallance estimated their appeal would cost a minimum of $60,000-$80,000.

Four families near the 96-unit Azure project had already spent about $10,000.

“We had a lot of people object so we wanted to gauge what the response would be if we tried setting up a gofundme page,’’ he said.

“We’ve spent just over $10,000 and the next stage could cost the same again.

“And then it gets really expensive — $20,000 each for expert reports and once you get to court there are barristers you need to pay for.’’

Mr Vallance said Azure, like all developers, was allowed to negotiate with Council after its initial application for 104 units was refused, but they could not.

Peter Cumming, Council Opposition Leader, said the situation had been even worse when Campbell Newman was Premier as he had changed the law to make the losers in a court case pay the legal costs of the victor.

While that had been overturned, people were still faced with having to find upwards of $200,000 to fight a typical, week-long case.

“There have been the odd examples where people with legal qualifications have gone to court, but people generally are put off by the expense,’’ he said. “Some of the big legal firms do pro bono (free) work but usually only for charities.

“The onus is on Council to get it right in the first place, in which case there would be no grounds for appeal.’’

Residents claim the Azure project will create traffic chaos on Moggill Rd.