Scrapped Wharves project likened to South Bank

Deputy Premier Paul Lucas has denied being inconsistent in his planning decisions after canning the Howard Smith Wharves project on a flood-prone bend of the Brisbane River.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk yesterday asked if the Cross River Rail project and the new ABC headquarters at South Bank, both in flood-prone locations, would have been given the green light if Mr Lucas employed the same logic.

An aerial view of Howard Smith Wharves during January's floods.Credit: nearmap.com

Yesterday Mr Lucas, as Local Government Minister, ruled against Brisbane City Council's Howard Smith Wharves project because the site under the Story Bridge was inundated in the January floods.

Last night Mr Lucas said he was being consistent in his rulings on developments around the flood-prone heart of the city.

He also noted council had bought out developer Mirvac's bid to build a new residential tower on flooded land at Tennyson. It will instead build parkland.

"The state government is being consistent and Brisbane City Council needs to be consistent with their own decision in relation to Tennyson," he said.

"If the council owns land itself, surely the same rules should apply.

"They should go back to the drawing board to look at things that don't involve putting hotels in the middle of a place that was inundated totally by flood."

Cr Quirk described the decision as "pure politics" and said Mr Lucas was holding back Brisbane's post-flood recovery.

Alice Street, where the yet-to-be-constructed Cross River Rail project will have a major underground rail station, and South Bank, where the ABC's new building is being built, were also flooded.

“Under Mr Lucas's logic, the Cross River Rail project will never proceed because rail stations are located in flooded areas such as the Royal on the Park (Alice Street) and the soon-to-be-completed Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre extensions and ABC building at South Bank would never have occurred,” he said last night.

Projects at South Bank are approved by the South Bank Corporation, not the government or council.

Cr Quirk said the government was well aware that council had raised the flood level for new development in response to the flood.

“Since the flood, council introduced a planning measure so that any development must have its habitable floor level up to one metre above the level of the January 2011 flood,” he said.

Mr Lucas last night said all planning matters had to be assessed individually.

"Each matter has to be considered on its merits and, most importantly, in light of what we now know about the January floods," Mr Lucas said.

"It is not a question of banning development anywhere ever, but what is appropriate and sensible.

"As I indicated in parliament today, the BCC showed that they clearly understood this in relation to the Mirvac development at Tennyson.

"The problem with the Howard Smith Wharves site, unlike South Brisbane, South Bank or the CBD, is that it was essentially totally inundated."

Photographs issued last night show the site was flooded, except for a small section where part of the hotel would be built.

However photographs of the Alice Street entrance to the Cross River Rail project - which has special-purpose flood doors - show it was similarly covered by flood water.

Mr Lucas said the government was being consistent.

"This is a completely different thing, when you have essentially the entirety of an area, like Howard Smith Wharves, flooding and then want to stick a high rise hotel on it," he told ABC.

"If the council thinks when you have 100 per cent flooded land it should be developed willy-nilly, why then did they acquire the Mirvac site at Tennyson to stop it being developed?"

Cr Quirk will write to Premier Anna Bligh this week to ask her to intervene, however Mr Lucas insisted the decision was his to make, not Ms Bligh's.

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