$2m bill for new road

RATEPAYERS are set to splash up to $2.2m to build a new road linking one of the city’s most controversial new development projects.

Palm Cove Nominees has a development permit to create 36 residential lots on what used to be a densely wooded pocket of Cedar Rd at Palm Cove – but there could be much more intensive uses for the site.

Earthmoving equipment has already cleared the 2.11ha site down to bare earth as a question mark hangs over the extent of its future transformation.

A proposal to build a new hotel resort alongside the residential subdivision remains before Cairns Regional Council, with its decision now set for December 9 after repeated extensions.

The developer hopes to build 17 villas across five two-storey buildings, 42 apartments in seven separate three-storey structures and, most controversially, 120 motel suites in an eight-storey tower.

Regardless of the proposal’s outcome, a new road will be built – and ratepayers will bear the cost.

The council has voted unanimously to enter into an infrastructure agreement to build a new trunk road linking the current dead-end Oliva St to

Cedar Rd. A new roundabout linking the two roads with Coral Coast Dr will be built as part of the deal – although nobody is quite sure how much it will cost.

“There’s been a bit of a discrepancy between the amount the developer’s consultant thinks that land is worth for council to get, and what council’s value was,” Division 9 councillor Brett Olds said.

“It’s either $530,000 or $910,000, so it’s a bit of a discrepancy.

“They will find out with a third valuer what that’s going to be.

“But at the end of the day, the road is getting built so it’s got to go ahead now anyway.”

The actual construction cost, on top of the land buyback price, has been estimated at $1.37m.

Palm Cove resident Cynthia Cole, who has led a community campaign against the development, said the fact ratepayers were funding the new road was a concern – even if that was the standard protocol for trunk infrastructure.

Her biggest concern was whether the tower proposal would be approved.

“I understand it’s a thing for suburban streets to be done by council, but bugger that if we’re going to foot the bill for it,” she said.