FEES PAIN FOR COUNCIL
Court rules council wrongly charged development giant for big project
THE Planning and Environment Court has found Gold Coast City Council incorrectly charged Sunland almost $20 million in development fees for its $850 million project The Lakes at Mermaid Waters.
Judge Nicole Kefford ruled five bills sent by the council to Sunland were not valid infrastructure charges notices and that none of the documents complied with the Sustainable Planning Act.
The council yesterday said they had lodged an appeal against the decision.
THE Planning and Environment Court has found Gold Coast City Council incorrectly charged Sunland almost $20 million in development fees for its $850 million project The Lakes at Mermaid Waters.
Judge Nicole Kefford ruled five bills sent by the council to Sunland were not valid infrastructure charges notices and that none of the documents complied with the Sustainable Planning Act.
The judge tore apart the council’s arguments that the notices were valid, finding they did not adequately state why Sunland was being charged.
The council yesterday said they had lodged an appeal against the decision but would not answer questions on how much the legal actions, which started in 2016, had cost ratepayers.
In Sunland’s application, lawyer Tony Hickey said a previous development on the 42ha site, Lakeview at Mermaid, was approved by a court in May 2007, and approval was extended in 2011 until May 2017.
Sunland bought the site with that preliminary development approval still in place, on the understanding that charges paid by the previous developer would be credited for future comparable developments.
Mr Hickey said the council’s then-supervisor of development contributions, David Lohoar, confirmed in writing that fees already paid on the land could be used to offset charges “for all future development approvals” applied for under the preliminary approval gained by the previous developer.
Sunland put the land under contract a month later, with the $61 million sale settling in May 2015.
During Sunland’s development application process, the council issued five documents titled “infrastructure charges notice” that did not take the credits “that exceeded $19 million” into account.
Mr Hickey’s submission also said the notices were invalid because they didn’t include information required by the Act and argued the council doubled up on some infrastructure fees.
The stoush began the day before Christmas Eve 2016, with the decision published this month.
Court documents reveal the judge accepted none of the council’s six legal arguments for not including the reasons for issuing the fees on the notices issued to Sunland.
The council further argued the charge notices should not be set aside because Sunland had “not suffered any prejudice by reason of any noncompliance” by the council.
It argued the developer had appealed the charges notices on numerous grounds and was “seeking to circumvent” the appeals process. The judge did not accept those arguments.
The council has applied for a strikeout of Sunland’s applications or a summary judgment to finalise the matter. The court will now have to hear from both sides on how to proceed.