Tuesday 29 January 2008

There's no iconic place

They rubbished Douglas Shire's push for the Iconic Place legislation at last week's Cairns City Council meeting, and the Councillors failed to endorse nor support it.

This was the first slap in the face and a measure of the contempt this Council has for understanding and embracing the unique Douglas and Mossman area the encompass the world heritage Daintree rainforests.

In a stunning rebuke of the proposed Bill, Mayor Byrne said it already has development controls in place like the CairnsPlan.

"If a Council have an effective and robust [CairnsPlan] planning scheme, then there is no need for additional protection of this so-called iconic places legislation," Byrne says.

There has been so many "Material Change of Use" presented to Council that this kind of claim is laughable.

Byrne believes it will add "more bureaucracy to a complicated planning process."

"How can the contemplate this and take people back 20 years," Councillor Pezzutti said. "It's a joke!"

Douglas Shire Mayor Mike Berwick says he fears for the future of the region shire after Cairns Council voted to reject the Queensland Government's iconic places legislation, as the merger of the two council closes in.

The Bill aims to protect amalgamated areas from over development.

"They've got development up the hillsides, they've got shopping centres scattered through cane paddocks, they've lost their agricultural industry - the Mulgrave area. We haven't done any of those things," said Mayor Berwick.

"There's a completely different mentality up here," Berwick says.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Re: Robust "Cairns Plan"

Going by the level of disquiete within the community the so called "Cairns Plan" is comming across as a bit of a joke, to put it mildly. As with the current demise of the Cairns Yacht Club, a complete lack of public consultation can be the main contibuting factor to this persistant public anger and dismay.
These plonkers who are curruently masquerading as our local representatives have got to go.

Anonymous said...

I agree that Byrne and his crew have to go,however it is only a few weeks to go before the election,and to date,I have not sighted any substantial policies from Val Schier.It also appears no one from Val's team is standing for Division One electorate,this is a Division whereby the current Councillor appears to be a de-facto
member of the Unity Team.
Surely there is somone out there who will be prepared to put up their hand and take on this job,be it someone from Val's team or a true blue independant.
Someone please come forward before it is to late.

Anonymous said...

Is kevin B going to hang out at the carwash cafe for a few bottles of red now Free-for-all is gone..
Im so sorry for the new owners.. we will start collecting donations to help you guys pay the rent.. cause we all know that..

Anonymous said...

All jokes aside, the Far North Queensland Statutory regional Plan, due to be finalised in 2008 has the ultimate power to over ride any current Douglas or Cairns town plan anyway.

To say the Douglas plan is safe is portraying a false and misleading comfort and K.B knows it. However, until the regional plan is introduced AFTER the local government elections in December 2008 he is entitled to his misrepresentations.

Anonymous said...

The mere fact that the CCC has decided to have nothing to do with the iconic legislation is all the more reason why the Douglas Shire needs it. Not only does our current planning scheme need to be protected and upheld, we are hoping that some of our local laws will be included into it (such as no bill board advertising on road reserves). KB and the current bunch at the CCC are no better than the so called "gang of four" who effectively denied our community a say on iconic legislation. The Minister, Paul Lucas has stated we are getting it whether we like it or not. I welcome it, although I would have liked to have had some input. I guess KBs just gonna have to get used to it!

Anonymous said...

Hi Teresa ... your comment
"we are hoping that some of our local laws will be included into it (such as no bill board advertising on road reserves"

Well, guess what ... road reserves on Council controlled roads do have local laws that control advertising.

It's those signs on,

1. the reserves on Main Roads' controlled roads,
2. and rail reserves on Queensland Rail controlled land,
3. and Cairns Port Authority land ...

that thumb their noses at Council's Local Laws.

And that's because all these departments are controlled by the Labor State Government who couldn't care less about Council's Local Laws.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, I know, that Val Schier has been looking for a candidate in division 1 for the past 3 years but unfortunately no-one wants to put their hand up against the current councillor. This is a real pity as the residents there need choice. We would also like to promote healthy democracy.
In relation to policy, Cairns 1st has developed 35 pages of policies in five areas: Infrastructure and Planning; Arts, Sport and Leisure; Environment; Economic Development; and Community Building and Engagement, which will be published in full in February. If you want more details now, get on to Val at val@cairns1st.org.au.

Anonymous said...

Factman, the Captain Cook Hwy that runs past the turn off into Port Douglas and through Mossman is a main road. However the only billboards you will see are remnants from a time before the local law applied or they are on private land. CCC may have local laws that also control road side bill boards but my point was that Douglas Shire does not allow them at all. There are many aspects as to why our shire is so different from Cairns and not all those things come under our planning scheme. Another example would be the Daintree ferry, which I also hope will be protected by iconic legislation.