Planning pain for towns in region

Councillors take aim at conditions

TWO councillors have taken aim at the Toowoomba Regional Council’s “one-size-fitsall” planning scheme, claiming it was impeding development in small towns.

Criticisms from Crs Anne Glasheen and Mike Williams came during debate on Tuesday over an infrastructure charges waiver for a new Millmerran business.

Applicant Garth and Jan Fitzgerald were successful in getting 55 per cent taken off a $56,000 bill from the council as part of its new agricultural supplies store in the centre of town.

But Mrs Fitzgerald wrote to the council, saying extra conditions and requirements from officers pushed the construction costs up by more $100,000.

New conditions included a change to the roofline so the building matched the main street, 16 new car parks and bicycle parking for a town with just 1500 people and few cyclists.

While Cr Williams acknowledged the applicants were still going ahead with the store, he said some of the conditions were discouraging people from developing in the smaller towns.

“We don’t get many developments in these small rural towns, but we seem to be putting roadblocks in front of these people’s way,” he said.

“The extra $100,000 may have meant that this development didn’t go ahead.”

Voting against the partial waiver in favour of a full reduction, Cr Glasheen said the TRC’s planning scheme offered no flexibility to proffer developments in small towns, instead treating them the same as in Toowoomba.

“We’ve got a planning scheme that is ‘one-size-fitsall’, and hopefully in our review of the planning scheme, that will all change and we’ll get some different guidelines for development in our rural towns,” she said.

Other councillors pointed out the development earned the partial waiver thanks to the TRC’s Incentives for District Townships Policy.