Highgate Developments receives preliminary approval for controversial Nambour retirement village, wants extension

Developers of a controversial proposed retirement village near Nambour have pressed pause for the second time on their bid.

Narelle McCarthy from the Sunshine Coast Environment Council is urging developers to rethink the intensity of a proposal for a retirement village at Highworth.

The developers of a controversial retirement village near Nambour want an extension after a preliminary council approval slapped the project with 64 conditions.

Town planners have emailed the Sunshine Coast Council on behalf Highgate Development on June 3 to "suspend the applicant's appeal period for 20 business days to allow time for the preparation and lodgement of representations".

The developers' project Grove Retirement on Savilles Road at Highworth received preliminary approval on May 19 subject to 64 conditions.

The Pitchers' lodged the development application for a retirement village on Savilles Road at Highworth in 2020.

Updated documents however show original plans for a 275-home complex had been cut back to 236 homes.

Andrew and Jo Pitcher are behind plans for a $70 million retirement village at 3-53 Savilles Rd, Highworth.

 

Conditions included restricting building heights to 8.5m, removing a proposed road crossing of a waterway and reducing proposed waterway crossings to necessary lightweight pedestrian crossings only.

Sunshine Coast Environment Council community liaison officer Narelle McCarthy said the environment council was pleased with the council's assessment level.

"We knew it was going to be difficult for an outright refusal given that it was code-assessable," she said.

"The number of conditions certainly are indicative of that particular development being incompatible with the sites values and characteristics.

"The preliminary approval at least was an opportunity to say to the developer that there's still an extensive amount of work and information that still needs to be provided to council to satisfy the issues and we would agree with that."

A block of land on Savilles Rd at Highworth could soon be home to a retirement village.

Ms McCarthy said the issues the council had identified were in keeping with the environment council's concerns.

"One of the non-negotiables for us was the retention of the vegetation and those Blue Gum trees," she said.

Ms McCarthy is hopeful the developers would use the stop period to assess the council's conditions.

"We understand that that is part of the process for them to be able to do that," she said.

"We would hope that the applicant has taken those conditions seriously and appreciate that they are reasonable, relevant and necessary conditions if they were to proceed with the development."

The plans have also attracted strong opposition from a group of nearby residents who retained prominent Coast lawyer Peter Boyce to fight the proposal.

Highgate Development did not respond to the Daily's repeated requests for comment.