Residents of Amaroo on Mandalay at Magnetic Island take Townsville City Council to trial in Planning and Environment Court
The Townsville City Council has reaffirmed its stance ahead of an upcoming trial with residents of a Magnetic Island resort, after a long-term dispute over residential status.
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Long-term residents at an idyllic Magnetic Island resort will be able to stay in their homes – as long as a judge approves it.
Townsville City Council and residents of Amaroo on Mandalay will head to court on March 20, with a long-term issue to be put to rest.
After nearly a decade of complaints about people living in the accommodation, which only has approval to operate as a ‘tourist holiday resort’, the council was forced to act.
The council’s in-house legal counsel Emma Micola said the council wanted to make it clear that Amaroo on Mandalay’s approval would still be for short-term use, but long-term residents could stay for “the rest of their lives”.
“Going forward council will continue to argue for an order that states it is short term accommodation use but that the residents currently living there can continue to live there,” Ms Micola said.
“That is the order we have been seeking and will continue to seek on the day of the hearing.”
Now going to trial Ms Micola said the decision was now solely up to the judge.
“We are seeking for these people to be able to live there for the rest of their lives,” she said.
“It will be the planning court that makes the final decision now.”
While the chance has been accepted by most residents, the decision will go to a trial in the Planning and Environment Court on March 20 because one resident, Mark Fishburn, did not accept.
Ms Micola said the council has been the subject of ongoing complaints for nearly a decade from both owners of the units who use their units for short term accommodation who complain of other owners residing at Amaroo long-term, as well as owners who use their units as a permanent residence to pressure the council to agree the use does in fact include ‘residential use’.
It was on this basis that the council says they filed out application in October 2023.
With a statutory obligation as an assessment manager under the Planning Act 2016, Ms Micola said the the council ‘cannot simply decide to change the use’ and would need to receive a material change of use application in order to assess whether it would approve such change, of which one has never been received.
Acting Mayor Ann-Maree Greaney said that as a divisional councillor, the threat of eviction has “never been our intention”.
“Council is not in the business of evicting people from their homes,” she said.
“It’s not what we want to do.”
“This is probably just a case of where the information has been misinterpreted and it’s ended up here.”
The court heard in a session in December that residents were getting frustrated at the matter, with one resident saying via phone link that the dispute was ‘going round and round the mulberry bush’.
Judge Coker said in his summing up that the matter needs to be determined for ‘everyone’s benefit’.
“It’s been a very busy year and no doubt particularly from the perspective of the Body Corporate at Magnetic Island International Resort Hotel. A year that they wish to see behind them and see resolution,” he said in December.
Failed council candidate Alan Sheret, who has been a vocal spokesman for several of those who live at Amaroo on Mandalay, said he was standing on behalf of the concerned residents.
He criticised the process of mediation that was “attempted” by the council, who then offered a compromise which some residents “reluctantly accepted”.
“They were very reluctant, because they are pensioners … they believed their best out was this compromise to proceedings,” he said.
He says his concern now is for the long-term renters of units at the resort.
“They are people who aren’t party to this compromise, to the deal that the council is offering the owners,” he said.
Mr Sheret has also created a GoFundMe, citing the money to go towards “assistance of a professional legal team so that these elderly residents can enjoy their own homes without TCC interference.”
Mr Sheret said he has raised his concerns with Townsville MP Adam Baillie in regards to housing for the long-term renters.
A final decision will be made in a trial at Townsville’s Planning and Environment Court starting on March 20.
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Originally published as Residents of Amaroo on Mandalay at Magnetic Island take Townsville City Council to trial in Planning and Environment Court
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