Residents lose six-year battle over riverfront unit tower

Brisbane residents have lost a six-year battle against a riverfront unit tower, with Council approving the latest version of the project.

Irma Muller outside the 160 Macquarie St, St Lucia, site. Picture: AAP/Richard Walker

RESIDENTS who have waged a six-year battle against a riverfront unit tower have had their hopes dashed after Council approved the latest version of the project.

The 160 Macquarie St highrise has grown and grown over successive development application and multiple owners, but ironically neighbours have been stripped of most of their powers to block it.

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When a much smaller version was first proposed the project was “impact assessable’’, meaning residents had greater rights to notification and court appeals.

But the latest, 34-unit version is “code assessable’’, greatly limiting objection rights.

160 Macquarie St sits on the Brisbane River. Picture: AAP/Richard Walker

A delegation of Macquarie St neighbours went to City Hall only last week to present a petition, with 1187 signatures, to Council objecting to the development.

City Planning Chairman, Councillor Matthew Bourke said Council last year refused a proposal for 73 units and “robustly defended this decision in the Planning and Environment Court’’.

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“Since then, a new owner has purchased the site and put forward a proposal which reduces the height of the building by 12.5m, as well as more than halving the number of units,’’ he said.

160 Macquarie St St Lucia. Picture: AAP/Richard Walker

“St Lucia is renowned for its leafy streets and this proposal also includes the retention and protection of the mature fig tree on the property.

“This proposal also includes 77 carparking spaces, as well as additional visitor parking and bicycle parking.”

Resident Irma Muller said the building would still house the same number of people because the 73-unit project was for 73, one-bed units. The current tower design was for 34 three-bed units.

The number of carparks was similar and the traffic report estimated there would be 300 extra vehicle movements a day on busy Macquarie St.

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“People will still need to cycle past it on a bikeway the council says has one million trips a year,’’ Mrs Muller said.

“Council recently resurfaced the bike bridge over Smith Creek and the bike path is the main route from Toowong to the University of Queensland.’’

She said the site was floodprone and surrounding properties flooded in 2011, after 300 sqm of the 1200 sqm site was reclaimed from the creek in the 1980s.