Redland City Council meeting on 7 September

Small lot housing and not granting rates concessions for pensioners in leasehold retirement villages were discussed by Redland City Council at its meeting on 7 September.

Here is a link to the minutes.

At the time of writing this report, no video recording of the meeting is available. If a video recording is made available by the Council they would post it on their webcast website.

Mayor Karen Williams was absent from most of the meeting because she was attending a meeting of the South East Queensland Regional Plan Committee. In her absence, the meeting was chaired by Deputy Mayor Wendy Boglary.

Cr Paul Gleeson was absent from the meeting.

The next meeting of Redland City Council will be on 12 October.

Small lot housing approved for Redland Bay

A bad planning decision in 2005 resulted in Redland City Council approving a small lot housing subdivision at Salisbury and Weinam Streets in Redland Bay.

Development application ROL006001 by Villa World will have 88 new lots for houses on blocks as small as 294sqm with an average size less than 400 sqm.

Councillors were told the land currently zoned medium density could have been developed more intensively with twice as many dwellings.

A motion to approve the development application was supported by all councillors present except Cr Lance Hewlett.

More information about this item is available in the Bulletin’s report.

Rates concessions for retirement village leaseholders

Redland City Council will not give any rates relief to an estimated 846 pensioners living in leasehold retirement villages.

A report ‘noted’ unanimously by Council at its meeting on Wednesday said only four other councils were known to provided rates relief to pensioners in leasehold retirement villages: Brisbane, Gold Coast, Cairns and Toowoomba.

An officers report notes that there are 9 retirement villages with 1191 units on a leasehold basis in Redland City. The report says:

When all fixed Council charges are taken into consideration the average saving for a leasehold retirement village resident is $1,444 in comparison to a property receiving a part rate of rebate and $1,279 when compared to a property receiving a maximum rate of rebate.

The cost to Redlands of providing these pensioners a rates cut was estimated to be $251,625 per year plus extra administration costs.

More information about this item is available in the Bulletin’s report.

Items discussed in closed session

In closed session, without the media or public present, Council discussed two items.

• Purchase of a block of land, first discussed by Council on 9 December 2015
• Lodging an expression of interest as the preferred site for the scuttling of the ex-HMAS Tobruk

Mosquitoes in the Redlands

Redland City Council has recently been working to reduce mosquito numbers with a combination of aerial treatments targeting salt marsh mosquitoes and ground treatments targeting several species of mosquitoes and different environments.

Warm weather and recent rain have resulted in ideal conditions for mosquitoes to breed.

More information about Council’s mosquito program is available in a Council news release.

 

Redlands2030 – 12 September 2016