City housing development could lead to 'landslides'

A COMMUNITY group against a housing development at a Toowoomba suburb has said the project could lead to traffic bottlenecks and landslides.

Phil Collins speaks at the meeting regarding a new housing estate in Prince Henry Heights . Tuesday, 16th Jan, 2018. Picture: Nev Madsen

A COMMUNITY group against a housing development at Prince Henry Heights has said the project could lead to traffic bottlenecks, landslides and destruction of native bushland.  

Spokesman Philip Collins said the group had spoken with engineers who had reviewed the proposed plan and said traffic could increase by about 130 per cent on the suburb's narrow one-way roads.  

"We're playing with people's lives here and to think that the suburb's current narrow roadways will cope with an emergency is ridiculous," he said.  

Mr Collins said the roads leading in to the 40-lot estate are about two metres short of Toowoomba Regional Council's recommended street width of seven metres.

Propose housing estate at Prince Henry Heights. Picture: Contributed

 "They are barely adequate to service the existing houses yet alone another 40-lot estate," Mr Collins said. 

"Panorama Crescent, which will feed traffic into the estate, is just over five metres wide."  

"It's ludicrous to think that it might be a good idea to add the traffic generated by another 40 three-bedroom residences to this road without requiring the existing road to be upgraded, costing ratepayers millions of dollars."  

Mr Collins said engineers also found drainage issues with the proposed development.  

"Storm water and drainage compliance proposals are vague and could result in soil and hillside rock layers to become unstable," he said.  

"It's not improbable to think that large tracts of Redwood Park on the escarpment could fall away into the gullies below.  

"Our advice suggests that much more than the two hectares of native bushland surrounding the estate will need to be cleared to meet buffer zone requirements."  

Shangri-La International Holdings submitted a development application to build the two-hectare estate to Toowoomba Regional Council on December 22, 2017.

Propose housing estate at Prince Henry Heights. Picture: Contributed

Originally published as City housing development could lead to 'landslides'