Council to negotiate purchase of Mt Kynoch land

TOOWOOMBA Regional Council has agreed to enter into negotiations to purchase land at Mt Kynoch for the expansion of the council’s water treatment plant.

Mt Kynoch Water Treatment Plant north of Toowoomba. Pic: David Martinelli.

TOOWOOMBA Regional Council has agreed to enter into negotiations to purchase land at Mt Kynoch for the expansion of the council's water treatment plant.

The move comes more than two and a half years after developers proposed the $200 million, 1000 lot Habitat Mt Kynoch residential estate.

After lodging the application, Toowoomba Regional Council came back to the developers saying there was no space within the existing community facilities zone for the future expansion of the water treatment plant and that part of the land on which the housing estate was proposed had been identified "as the most suitable location".

At last week's ordinary council meeting, councillors considered a confidential Mt Kynoch Water Treatment Plant Upgrade report and voted unanimously to delegate authority to CEO Brian Pidgeon to "negotiate and finalise the acquisition of the relevant portion of the property".

In the event council is unable to purchase the land, councillors moved that council issue a notice of intention to resume to the owner of the properties affected by water treatment plant's proposed upgrade.

During the waste and water committee hearing, Cr Nancy Sommerfield asked Mr Pidgeon whether he could report back to council if it became necessary to begin the resumption process, which he agreed to.

Waste and water committee chair Cr Rebecca Vonhoff said the Mt Kynoch Water Treatment Plant was "getting on in years" and it was the single water treatment source for the Toowoomba bulk water supply.

"It's the single place where water is treated so that everybody who drinks the water in Toowoomba gets water that is clean and safe and it's really important that we make sure that it's kept in excellent order," she said.

"It's more than 40 years old. The thing with water treatment is that some of the techniques we use are literally thousands of years old.

"But in other ways some of the techniques in water treatments have advanced massively and there's a lot of innovation and we basically need to make sure we're doing the best thing for people who are going to be drinking that water.

"We've got to make sure that we can do both the upgrade and have people enjoying living at Mt Kynoch."

Habitat Mt Kynoch's town planner, Andrew Bullen, said: "The applicant hasn't received any information from council on the decision at this time".

"The applicant however continues to work collaboratively with council on a range of infrastructure matters including council's need to consider options in securing the region's future water infrastructure".

Originally published as