Paradise Palms: Cairns appeal against golf course redevelopment ends as court deal reached
Paradise Palms boss Darren Halpin has revealed his next step to finally push the $300m Paradise Palms redevelopment to construction after a legal appeal against the project collapsed.
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UPDATE: Paradise Palms boss Darren Halpin has now revealed his next step to finally push the $300m Paradise Palms redevelopment through to a bricks and mortar stage.
The biggest battle has now been fought and won but plenty more approvals are still needed before the project reaches construction.
Current approvals are in place for rezoning and the division of the site into five lots – ostensibly to make it more “manageable” but also to make the internal road approvals process easier to navigate.
Further subdivisions must get the green light, including for 330 separate freehold residential lots.
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Distinct plans for each of the site’s sections, such as a great big water park that will sit beside a caravan and villa tourist park, will also require the council’s tick.
“The school development application is already with council,” Mr Halpin said.
“That’s going through all their approvals process now.
“The residential stage is what we want to happen as soon as possible.
“We want to get Stage 1 of residential up and running – that’s 87 lots.
“We are working on that now as well as the final designs for the water park and the tourist park.”
EARLIER: A long-running legal appeal against the Paradise Palms redevelopment has been dropped with opponents reaching a shock agreement to cease all court action.
The Save Paradise Palms group had been trying to raise at least $140,000 to fight Cairns Regional Council’s approval to rezone the former Kewarra Beach golf course in the Planning and Environment Court.
Its Gofundme fundraiser is now listed as “no longer accepting donations” after receiving just $13,055.
Court documents also reveal upcoming hearing dates have now been vacated – including a four-week trial in September.
As part of the agreement, it is understood Paradise Palms owner Darren Halpin will not pursue the group for legal costs he has already incurred due to their legal action.
Mr Halpin confirmed both parties had negotiated a settlement.
“It’s my expectation that it will go to the courts and be ratified in the next four to six weeks,” he said.
“The upshot of that is once the court ratifies it, we can then commence our development.
“I can confirm no one is paying anyone anything under this settlement.
“Until it’s ratified by the courts, there’s no deal – but both parties, in good faith, have agreed on terms.”
Save Paradise Palms president Clive Abbott said he was unable to comment on any matters relating to the development or court proceedings.
However, the dream of a David versus Goliath triumph is all but over for dozens of residents who were still raising money as recently as June 4, when a Bring Back Paradise golf day in Port Douglas reeled in $7000 towards the appeal.
The history of Paradise Palms has been littered with stories of boom, bust and now a complete transformation.
It opened in 1990 after being developed by the Daikyo Corporation – a Japanese company whose massive Cairns portfolio once included Fitzroy Island, the Cairns International Hotel (now Pullman), the $43m Green Island Resort redevelopment, Forest Gardens subdivision and Matson Resort (now Rydges Esplanade).
Paradise Palms opened to plenty of fanfare, with golf legend Greg Norman facing off with Germany’s Bernhard Langer (US Masters winner), American Curtis Strange (two-times US Open winner) and Japanese golfing icon Isao Aoki.
By 2003, it had reached the number nine slot of Golf Australia magazine’s annual list of best public access courses.
A decade later, the asset was placed into receivership before being bought by Mr Halpin and a group of investors, known as PPNQ Developments in 2015.
He ran it as a golf course – bringing back the Cairns Classic in 2016 – but dwindling patronage coupled with massive upkeep fees did not make for a good business.
Mr Halpin shut the unprofitable course in 2019 and revealed plans to undertake a massive redevelopment.
Those plans for The Palms, as it will be known, have evolved over the ensuing years to include a 330-lot residential subdivision, a Catholic primary school, a tourist caravan park and villas, water park, retirement village and open-space wildlife corridors.
The course’s closure was immediately met with protests from nearby residents who argued it should be kept as public open space, and that any redevelopment would bring down their property prices.
It became one of Cairns Regional Council’s most controversial decisions with only councillors Brett Olds and Rob Pyne voting against its approval in November last year.
Mayor Bob Manning said he “saw no reason why the proposal wouldn’t go ahead” but Cr Olds argued it flew in the face of the reason a lot of people moved to the area.
“People have set their lives up around there … there is going to be huge impact on people’s lives and now what we are saying is we are going to let the developer come in and change it,” he said.
That now appears to be a moot point with the appeal about to be dropped – a move that will also likely save ratepayers a lot of money in legal fees, excluding the ones they have already covered.
The council has been asked for comment.
Originally published as Paradise Palms: Cairns appeal against golf course redevelopment ends as court deal reached
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