Fuel’s gold as servo growth is approved
VISIONS of a spectacular entrance statement to Palm Cove have been thrown a hurdle as Cairns rapidly transforms into a servo city.
A new service station has been approved for the site of the former Cairns Tropical Zoo on the Captain Cook Highway, just before the Palm Cove turn-off.
Its development is expected to trigger the installation of new traffic lights, jeopardising plans to build a large, landscaped roundabout welcoming tourists to the city’s tourism jewel.
It also means there will be seven petrol stations within 10km of highway, assuming Woolworths’ planned Trinity Beach Shopping Centre project goes ahead, alongside Trinity Park Investments’ development plan at Campus Village in Smithfield.
Both of those projects have been subject to legal appeals, but it is understood a Woolworths decision is imminent.
Cairns Regional Council’s decision to approve the service station came on Wednesday, despite 289 submissions being received against it.
Division 9 councillor Brett Olds made a defeated stand, despite thinking the council’s chances at winning any legal appeal were poor.
The former zoo was rezoned from tourism to “mixed use” in 2018 without any vote from elected officials. The decision was delegated to thenchief executive John Andrejic due to conflicts of interest with Unity Team candidates – ticked, flicked and approved in accordance with council planners’ recommendation.
Cr Olds conceded there was no technical basis to refuse the development, but suggested it was a poor outcome.
“We’re doing our landscaping plan for Palm Cove and one of the top three things we talked about was trying to get an entrance statement for the Great Barrier Reef Highway…” he said.
“Traffic lights are going to make it feel like suburbia is being extended.”
Council planning director Ed Johnson said a needs analysis report had proved there would be the population growth required to make the service station viable. Cr Olds said that the entry statement plan was not entirely dead, but would require major lobbying to the state government to kill off traffic light plans in favour of a massive roundabout.
“We’ve only got one chance to do it right,” he said.
In a bizarre coincidence, an application for another service station development right next door was lodged on the very same day as the Cairns Tropical Zoo replacement plan.
That application – for the site of the former Outback Opal Mine tourism attraction – was withdrawn in December last year.