Brisbane City Council planning officers have enforced the legal planning scheme against a non-compliant development application (DA) in South Brisbane. Developers are watching this enforcement and subsequent court case will closely.
Some developers have become accustomed to getting their way in South Brisbane that they have marketed and sold units off-the-plan without an approved DA.
This highly questionable practice has been described as “developer Russian roulette” with other players saying “It’s madness. I would not do it. You won’t get any bank to fund [a development] without an approval in place.
“Developer GDL has reportedly sold all 131 units in the “Soda” development to unsuspecting but now fully exposed buyers.
Council’s decision is based on the existing local area plan and sound planning reasons. In pre-lodgement meetings Council outlined inadequacies in the design being prepared by architects Ellivo. Nonetheless the developer’s consultants, Cardno, lodged the non-compliant DA. Ultimately GDL’s have called the shots on this proposal.
Material concerns included the interaction between two high-rise residential buildings across a very narrow laneway, negative impacts from an above ground car-park and doubts about the lifelong maintenance of external vegetation. The local area plan stipulates that all car-parking be below ground.
The prospect of four storeys of above ground car parking undermines safety on the street for citizens and reduces passive surveillance. One developer in particular seems to be getting approvals through that aren’t based on council’s planning regime at all. Developers are arguing its cheaper for them to build above ground car-park regardless of the impacts on safety or future liveability.
GDL is not alone in its high risk property gamble.
In far from orthodox practice, the highly controversial proposal by the Greek Orthodox Church of St George to demolish several buildings including a heritage listed property and Hellenic House in Russell Street for the project “Olympia on Russell” is following a similar tactic.
It is further exposed because City Council’s decision on the demolitions is still pending – they haven’t even got to the DA yet.
It’s hard to accept that due process is being followed if the Greek Church feels confident enough to sell units without either an approval to destroy heritage properties or without a DA approval.
All property buyers contacted by Westender suggest that buyers get the sale contract checked by a lawyer before signing.
Local author Sherryl Caulfield last night launched the first book in her Iceberg trilogy, Seldom Come By. For a Brisbane born and bred writer, the Icebergs of the North Atlantic seem like an unlikely setting.
She describes them as evocative of the strangeness and magnificence of the Arctic.
“It started when I was travelling in Canada, and the first draft was written travelling in the mountains of New Zealand,” she told Westender at the launch. The book was polished in Hong Kong and finally published here, with the support of friends and family.
The decision to self-publish was quite a journey, for Ms Caulfield, whose friends have been encouraging her to self publish for years.
“I wanted to work with professionals, and just wasn’t ready to do everything myself.
“It was after the book was finished and I was well into my walk of rejection, I just decided, this is it, it is time to get the thing out an about.”
The long time publicist and marketing expert has pulled no punches in promoting the book. It has the full social media profile, promoting the full trilogy, and is widely available online.
The first book is essentially a romance – a coming of age for the twentieth century as we follow the development of a poor rural girl from Newfoundland and her peers through the first world war and into the events that ended the age of hope and bred the cynicism and self awareness that characterized that century.
Written by a woman, primarily for a female audience, the emotional landscape is rich, the action relatively langorous and the settings evocative. It is rugged and raw though, with the harshness of Newfoundland, the hell of the trenches and the other worldiness of the Arctic all vivid, visceral and compelling.
While only one third into the first novel of the trilogy, the fact that I am arranging social engagements around reading time tells volumes about Caulfield’s powerful writing and clever structuring of plot and character.
I am in love with half the characters in the book and curious rather than disengaged with the minor ones. I reckon it is going to be a ripper.
With Tony Abbot expressing resounding support for Bill Glasson’s re-run, Glasson’s Gladiator’s are already trying on their harness and adjusting it for the summer sun.
The Greens have held back from publicly endorsing previous candidate Geoff Ebbs pending a preselection ballot on Thursday December 5.
It appears likely that branch members will have the option of a young, ambitious, career politician from Canberra dropped in to offer an alternative to the fire and brimstone, stump-politics favoured by Ebbs.
Potential candidates have until November 29 to declare their intentions so may miss the deadline for next week’s Westender eNews and the December print edition which goes to press earlier that week.
Declaration of interest: Geoff Ebbs is the publisher of Westender and an active member of many chambers of commerce and community groups supported by this publication.
Your correspondent made the grave error last night of leaving the sane madness of 4101 and heading into the suburbs to see the new movie Gravity.
I will not mention the movie for the moment, other than to say “I loved it”, because Gina Baker’s review will appear here after she dishes it out in her dulcet tones to the listeners of 4BC on Monday morning.
No, this piece deals instead with the unbelievable horrors inflicted on me by the well-meaning but totally-misguided management of the Cinebar at Rosalie.
Now it is only fair to frame these remarks with the observation that I go to the movies to engage in narrative escape therapy.
If I want to view a film-maker’s output and nothing more, I head over to PirateBay or my favourite legal download site, thank you Mr Plod, download and view.
If I want to show someone else, I whip up a hoummos, pick whatever is fresh from the garden, invite them over and connect the household media server to the downloaded item.
I head to the movies when I am sick of my house, my own company, social interactions and the everyday.
My absolutely favourite form of narrative escape therapy is a brilliant performance with live people on stage of some form, but that is not always affordable or available.
My love of the movies is on the record, see my ode to iMax from July. A good 3D action film there offers an immersive experience equivalent to bungee jumping out of a plane into a waterfall.
So, with my colours nailed firmly to the mast and a clear conscience, I can now tell you what unfolded at the Rosalie Cinebar when I went out of West End last night.
A queue – nothing unusual there, though the impatient people behind me who thought it unfair that they should have to queue when their movie started in five minutes should have warned me in large flashing letters PRIVELEDGE, PRIVELEDGE, PRIVILEDGE.
A $21.50 ticket price. Paying $8.50 for a 2D movie in Cinema 5 ($10.50 for 3D) might have spoiled me but the only thing that prepared me for a price north of $20 was the fact that everyone in the foyer had a glass of wine and an ancestral memory of Bubbles at BIFF lulled me into thinking that there might be a drink inlcuded in the ticket price.
A half hour wait on choc-tops. “Give me your seat number and I’ll bring them into you, I’ll just have to get them ready.” And yes, Thomasina, I did check with them that they had heard me correctly and that we were talking about the humble choc top. “They’re out the back, I just have to check that they are ready.”
Now, I’m not the sort to taste the wine and send it back, I don’t argue with chefs: I took these first three signs that Dorothy and I had left Kansas in my stride. Vive la difference, this is all part of the adventure of going outside one’s own postcode and visiting foreign parts.
Full bar service is available right into the most gripping part of the fillum
An expensive cinema with handcrafted choc tops and snooty customers? Hey that’s what some people call living.
I sat in the foyer as Dorothy enjoyed her dry-cider and watched the XRay women and fat-rich-white-dudes soak up the pretension of atmosphere.
As we wandered into Cinema 4, I began to understand the deal. The seats were in pairs, with a little table between them, spaced out at intervals that would make a five star European restaurant green with envy.
The lighting was lush and low, and every table was lit with a downlight that highlighted the drinks and canapés of those who had been served already. The Cinebar is a cinema restaurant. Well more accurately, a cinema-bar.
My pretension gland finally kicked in, shaking loose the shoulders, pulling the cheek muscles into a smile. Hell, I had paid more than twenty bucks to see a movie, now I was going to live a little. Look at me, I’m as pretentious as you are.
And then?
And then the movie started but the choc tops had not arrived. This was a little disconcerting. I don’t mind seeing a movie without a choc top, but if I am going to eat in the movie, I like to be prepared before the movie starts. I want to be able to focus on the fillum and I do not want to rustle papers or packets and interrupt the other fillum goers around me. A little bead of anxiety settled into the pit of my tummy, corrupting the purity of the Narrative-escape-therapy.
And then?
And then the waiters started creeping in and out, putting things on people’s tables, taking away dead sailors and new orders. That, I found totally disconcerting.
As you know, this is my escape.
I want to leave the world, this world, and I want to enter the world that the film maker has created. Completely.
I want to immerse myself in surround sound, a crystal clear screen that completely fills my vision.
I do not want people creeping around me, hovering over me, asking me if there is anything they can do for me. I can get that at a restaurant, strip club, corporate box at the football or some of my more elegant friend’s houses.
So when a cheese platter with olives, crusks, dip and big flat biscuits arrived, I waited a moment, conferred with Dorothy as quietly as possible and agreed that this could explain the reason that the ”chock tops” had to be prepared before they could be brought to us.
Our conclusion?
“Give it a few moments, then tuck in.”
About seven minutes later, I began munching happily on haloumi, sucking the oil off the olives and crunching on the crackers. Yum. The pretension gland had almost overruled the anxiety and narrative escape therapy interruption annoyance.
And then?
And then a different wait person arrived and said that there was a half hour wait on the choc tops and did I want to wait or order something else.
What I wanted, actually, was to watch the movie. That was, after all, the purpose of driving across the river through some inner northern suburbs and looking for a parking spot after all. Since the movie had already started and was incredibly gripping and intense, I did not bother to say all this I just waved the wait person away and got back to the business of escaping.
And then?
And then the first wait person arrived again with another plate of food including a bowl of chips.
“Mate, there’s a mistake,” I said. “I didn’t order all this.”
“You didn’t order this food?”
“No I ordered a couple of choc tops.”
“Choc tops?”
“Yes. Ice creams.”
“What about this?” – wait person indicates half eaten plate of food and waves insistently.
“Mate, just leave me alone. I want to watch the movie. We can sort this out later.”
Of course, at home, if you are interrupted you can press pause and then rewind and get yourself back to the point where it all went pear-shaped. But at the movies you trade this flexibility for the total immersive experience where you are in the moment and can experience everything the characters in the movie experience at the same pace they experience, well … that the movie maker wants you to experience it.
From that point of view the CineBar offers the worst of both worlds. My movie has been interrupted, irrevocably, I have blown my money on an expensive movie ticket and on some hand crafted choc tops which have somehow morphed into a cheese platter. Into the bargain I have had an argument with a waiter that I did not ask for and am decidedly unsettled and distinctly anchored to this world not the one the film maker has offered to take me to.
And then?
Well after what turned out to be, thankfully, a great movie, I felt much better and headed back to the candy bar to get the missing choc tops. The young serving person was surprised I had not been given my money back and offered it to me on the spot. I took discretion as the better part of valour and the eight dollars fifty cash, found Dorothy and left.
And so, dear reader, your correspondent humbly suggests that you consider the so-called advantages of the combined cinema restaurant in detail before you head for distant climes to see a moving picture in such surroundings.
Do not let my personal feelings influence you. Indeed, I have been most diligent in ensuring that you are fully informed of my personal foibles, preferences and prejudices. I relate this tale in such detail to simply ensure that you have all the facts at your fingertips when you next make your viewing decision.
I thank you for your attention and if you get to taste the choc-tops, please tell me what they’re like. I’m now intrigued.
Any one expecting a lightweight version of the leaders debate when Graeme Perrett and Malcolm Cole lined up at the South West Chamber breakfast last week got more than they bargained for.
The most marginal seat in the country is being hard fought by two serious contenders, both vigorous terriers who will take the fight all the way down to the line. Both are long time members of the community and well known to the Chamber generally.
Perrett has the natural advantage of the incumbent, he is across the detail of a lot of the legislation and has direct experience solving the problems of many people in the community. That is not such a great advantage though when the government you represent is on the nose and most people are keen to see a change.
Malcolm Cole has matured throughout this campaign. Even though he has stood for the seat in 2010 his initial forays into public were somewhat intense and a little shaky against the more experienced opponent.
He has settled into the role. He is calmer now and more steady and whacks back the insults with a straight bat and a wry smile.
4BC small business and real estate guru, Kevin Turner, chaired the debate and set the ground rules firmly before passing the baton to Graeme Perrett as the incumbent.
Graeme emphasized his credentials in the community, and role that the Labor Government has played in staving off the worst impacts of the Global Financial Crisis. He painted a picture of a competent and careful government that has struggled against difficult external forces, and a hostile media.
Malcolm very politely suggested to the audience that they look at the picture a completely different way, the government has been in shambles, minority parties and independents have taken them in directions they would prefer not to have gone and there have been many failed programs. Let us make it all better for you.
Both gentlemen quoted a number of statistics which I dutifully noted but will not bore you with right now. If you want them please feel free to contact me.
The real fun and games started with Question Time, however.
A question about car manufacturing and the fringe benefits tax elicited the predictable responses:
ALP – the car industry is incredibly important and we support it, the tax is simply tidying up the paperwork
LNP – you do not support an industry by ripping the guts out of it in tough times.
Chamber regular and contrarian David Stark challenged Perret to defend the work of 99% of climate scientists and prove that global warming is caused by humans. When Perret deferred to the CSIRO on the grounds that they are the experts, Stark interjected and was roundly ticked off by other chamber members who had come to hear about government policy not conspiracy theories.
Archerfield Airport Corporation’s Corrie Metz raised the issue of veteran pensions and revealed one area where Malcolm Cole had a better grasp of the detail than Graeme Perret. The LNP has offered to index the Accumulated Benefits Scheme to the better of the CPI or the average male wage.
On the cost of inputs for small business, Malcolm had the room behind him with cutting the carbon tax, allowing the dollar to fall by borrowing less and reducing on-costs. Graeme valiantly pointed to all the good things the ALP has done but the internal tensions of the ALP and the challenges of running a minority government curtailed the conviction that a government should bring to such a debate.
The question of intergenerational wealth and bracket creep in taxation came as the room was clearly calling for the bell. Both terriers savaged the bait with the most vigour they could muster and the adrenaline of the room rose two notches.
Perret claimed credit for the economic miracles of floating the dollar and the Accord under Hawke and Keating and pointed to the significant tax rises under Howard. The ALP saved the country from the GFC and we now enjoy the best economy in the world.
That gave Cole just the head of steam he needed to quip that it is amusing to hear constantly that the ALP loses money because they get into government just as the external world goes bad just as they reach office. First he cited 9/11 the Asian economic doldrums and a couple of wars as being externalities managed by Howard and then he delivered the line of the morning as far as this scribbler is concerned.
“Let’s say I’m wrong. Let’s say that it is just luck and every time we get into power the economy improves by coincidence. Well I ask you, wouldn’t you back the team that has all the good luck?”
After that it was really time for everyone to pack up gracefully, wipe the scrambled eggs and bacon juice off their faces and get to work.
Another ripper of a morning at the Chamber and a great opportunity to see these two candidates as they near the end of a long and toughly fought campaign. Full marks to both of them and to the chamber for putting it on.
Community Friends are well known to Westenders because of their regular free food for homeless in Boundary Street on Wednesday night. It is often more than food: blankets, shoes, haircuts and other basic health services being provided as well.
The group sell sausages on Saturday morning to raise money for their charitable activities and their central location has brought them to the attention of aspiring politicians for the seat of Griffith.
Westender was on hand to capture these snaps of Green Geoff Ebbs, Socialist Alliance Liam Flenady and the Socialist Senate Candidate Sam Watson.
The image of Prime Minister Rudd was scanned from the Sunday Mail just days before he regained the top job.
Brisbane City Council planning officers have enforced the legal planning scheme against a non-compliant development application (DA) in South Brisbane. Developers are watching this enforcement and subsequent court case will closely.
