George Weston Foods takes council to court to force decision on 1100 lot estate in city’s north

A second property developer has taken Toowoomba Regional Council to the Planning and Environment Court to secure a decision on a years-old development application in as many months.

An artist's impression of what homes in the Northgate Vista development would look like.

George Weston Foods first lodged a development application seeking preliminary approval to establish a 1100 lot masterplanned Northgate Vista project on land north of Griffiths St in November 2016.

Almost four years on, the company has now filed an appeal in the P & E Court seeking its application be approved.

GWF’s legal action follows Teedale Pty Ltd’s similar application over its Eustondale master planned estate, which had also been under assessment by the council for almost four years.

Of the major residential developments currently before Toowoomba Regional Council, two are now seeking approval through the courts as the assessment process heads into its fourth year.

A third project, the 1000 lot Habitat Mt Kynoch housing estate, remains under assessment after two and a half years as the council negotiates with the developer over land required to expand the Mt Kynoch Water Treatment Facility.

Another project, the Fernleigh 1500 lot master planned community at Westbrook was lodged in July 2016, and after a three year assessment process was cut back to 400 lots and approved in August 2019.

The developer has since put the project on hold.

At a meeting between developers and the council in late September, Fernleigh’s Geoff Kath raised concerns about land supply in the region.

Toowoomba Regional Council planning and development committee acting chair Cr Bill Cahill said the council had been working extensively with George Weston Foods to resolve the outstanding issues for the application.

“Council is disappointed the developer has proceeded down the legal path when the parties had been working closely to resolve issues to ensure a quality outcome for both the developer and the wider community,” he said.

“Council had not moved to issue a decision on this development at the request of the applicant who had indicated they wished to resolve issues themselves rather than have council officers potentially recommend the ‘conditioning’ of a part or full approval.

Cr Cahill said generally speaking, it was well recognised that larger, more complex applications took a longer time to process.

“This is generally as a result of the developer needing to resolve issues related to such matters as land not being zoned appropriately, land proceeding ahead of its planning horizon and therefore not being serviced by critical infrastructure or taking account of critical infrastructure, or land exhibiting a number of complex constraints i.e. ecology, bushfire, contamination, access/traffic, incompatibility with surrounding land uses etc,” he said.

“This particular application involved a range of complex issues including land contamination, limited access, acoustic impacts from adjacent uses as well as compatibility issues with adjacent industry.”

Cr Cahill said it was important if council was approving land for residential purposes that the critical issues were resolved to ensure the health and wellbeing of future residents of the development.

“The development approval process under the State Government’s Planning Act 2016 is an applicant driven process,” he said.

“Local Governments are in the hands of developers, particularly in relation to response times and information provided, in support of applications.

“When incomplete or inadequate information is provided in support of an application, this delays overall assessment times of an application.

“Additionally, some applicants have requested that council not potentially issue ‘conditional approvals’ instead desiring to work through outstanding issues themselves. It is noted that a range of outstanding issues had been with the applicant to respond to for the past six months for this application.”

Cr Cahill said the council strived to support economic prosperity of the region.

“Our staff strive to work collaboratively with developers to resolve issues instead of recommending refusals,” he said.

“It is council’s obligation to appropriately assess and consider the impacts developments will have on the wider community to ensure that developments integrate with the surrounding land uses and do not cause adverse impact on those surrounding communities.

“When applications are lodged with council complying with the statutory requirements and addressing all relevant issues, council endeavours to assess those applications promptly.”