Straddie hotel expansion threatens public land 22 years after court ruling

Plans to expand Stradbroke Island Beach Hotel have reignited fears of environmental harm and public land loss, 22 years after a Supreme Court order.

The Stradbroke Island Beach Hotel and its units overlook Cylinder Beach.

Residents on one of southeast Queensland’s tourist island meccas fear they have lost ground after an earlier legal battle to stop a hotel and pub building on prime oceanfront land, following a Supreme Court ruling 22 years ago.

Owners of the famous Stradbroke Island Beach Hotel, perched high above the Coral Sea at Point Lookout, have applied to the local Redland City Council to extend its footprint to build an 83 sqm veranda, a 90 sqm beer garden and a 32 sqm cold room.

Plans for the extension submitted to Redland council include a note: Additional 90 sqm of increased gross floor area to ground floor, once part road closure acquisition has occurred. The blue parts include the veranda and the cold room and the orange is the beer garden.

The extension would overlook 563 sqm of bushland owned by the state government which was once part of a road into Point Lookout but has not been used for more than 20 years.

Plans submitted to the council in November show that the beer garden would be dependent on the acquisition of the state land.

The development application includes documents which reveal a request to the state government to permanently close the road reserve adjacent to the hotel.

The state bushland area, which contains old-growth native vegetation, acts as a natural buffer between the hotel and nearby Cylinder Beach.

The state-owned road reserve land is adjacent to a heritage-listed foreshore reserve.

The development application, lodged last month with Redland City Council, also reignited community concerns over the use of the public land and its environmental and aesthetic impacts.

For the hotel expansion plans to succeed, the state government public land would have to be gazetted as permanently closed paving the way for the hotel to apply to use the land.

The extension application to the council comes 22 years after the hotel lost a 2002 court battle to build larger premises on the site.

In 2002, the Queensland Supreme Court’s Court of Appeal ruled that the hotel’s prior development application, submitted by previous owners, failed to comply with planning regulations and the development did not meet criteria in an agreed Development Control Plan.

The decision found the hotel design could not be extended beyond what is now its existing footprint.

After the court loss in 2002, the former hotel owners redesigned a more modest plan, which was built in 2005.

This is the area of ground that the Straddie hotel proposes should be closed permanently so its plans to expand can proceed. Picture: RCC

Now new owners have applied to further expand the premises.

Stradbroke Island Beach Hotel was contacted for comment as was Redland City Council and the state government.

Community members have also voiced frustration over the lack of public consultation regarding the road closure application.

“The hotel has already maximised its private land for profit by building units on the site – they should have used that land for their beer garden instead,” said one resident.

“Now they want to take public land to compensate for the choices they made, and that’s unacceptable.”

The Queensland government has not disclosed the identity of the applicant for the road closure, citing confidentiality.

However, the state confirmed that adjacent landowners are the only eligible applicants.

A decision on the application remains pending, and public interest groups have started a petition against the proposal.

Members of the public have until December 12 to make a submission to the council.

Originally published as Straddie hotel expansion threatens public land 22 years after court ruling