New lease a fix for council’s land issue

COUNCIL has agreed to enter into a new lease with the state of Queensland after it was identified that a portion of council’s Lloyd Mann Gardens parkland was encroaching on adjoining state of Queensland owned land.

Council officers sought to correct the issue from an administrative perspective and a new survey was undertaken by Brazier Motti and revealed a total encroachment area of 1930sq m.

Council officers expected to secure tenure by way of purchasing the encroached area.

A valuation of the encroached area was conducted by Acumentis and the market value was considered to be $40,000.

Council staff requested the proposed $40,000 purchase price be waived as it exceeded what was originally contemplated by council officers.

The Public Safety Business Agency advised that following a Queensland Police Service capital projects meeting, QPS identified a future demand for the land and offered a lease arrangement as the most appropriate alternative.

Director of corporate and community services Nick O’connor said initially the tenure was looking to be for a freehold purchase. “As per the report, there was a valuation undertaken and an independent evaluation arrived at the fact that the market value for the 1930sq was within the vicinity of $40,000,” he said.

“When we embarked in our discussions with state government representatives, we didn’t contemplate the back pay of money to that sort of effect that would be required to fix up what we thought was an administrative oversight or anomaly.

“Further discussions with the state representatives and we’ve come to the arrangement in the report, which is seeking a medium term lease, which is a five year lease with one five year option, so potentially 10 years in total and a consideration of 10 cents per annum.

“It’s possibly a practical pragmatic sort of outcome, given the circumstances.”