This week the community finally got a chance to see the Draft City plan 2015.
Our letters to the editor (and a song) touch on issues that will be important for our City’s development for many years to come. Make sure your voice is heard.
Letters to the Editor can now be emailed to: theeditor@redlands2030.net
Black Roofs
“Black Roofs” is about overdevelopment in south-east Thornlands allowed by the 2006 Redlands Planning Scheme
Concrete permeates our souls
Trees crash down as big machines roll
Across the landscape, fragile and true
Removing wilderness from families’ view
Black roofs and very beige skin
One house stops, another begins
Wall to wall, suburbia unfolds
How it happens, no-one is told
Gated developments spring up in speed
Creating false lifestyles for supposed needs
Space is just a hole to be filled
All this so called progress – lets stress in
Black roofs and very beige skin
One house stops, another begins
Wall to wall, suburbia unfolds
How it happens, no-one is told
Hard surfaces, stress attacks
No more space, side, front or back
While people cram like fish in tins
Communities fall while nature thins
Black roofs and very beige skin
One house stops, another begins
Wall to wall, suburbia unfolds
How it happens, no-one is told
Social crimes, unhappy souls
Peace washed away, to deathly knolls
Australiana landscape torn away
Replaced with global model per se
Black roofs and very beige skin
One house stops, another begins
Wall to wall, suburbia unfolds
How it happens, no-one is told
Written by Bronwyn Elliott © April 2010
Collision Course
Thanks mainly to the efforts of Redland City Councillor, Paul Bishop, we recently had the opportunity to attend a presentation by the world acclaimed author of Collision Course, Endless Growth on a Finite Planet (The MIT Press), Kerryn Higgs. Among other things, Kerryn emphasized the exponential growth in the world’s population since 1950, the similar growth in world GDP and the attendant reduction in the world’s resources. She questioned why, over this period, emphasis has been placed predominantly on economics in the face of proven science as to the depletion of the world’s resources. It seems that leaders and governments are more concerned with growing the economic pie while ignoring the impact such growth has had, and is continuing to have, on the world’s finite resources
Locally, we are seeing overdevelopment in the Redlands at the cost of rural land and increased environmental deprivation. The answers to this dilemma are elusive but there would seem to be a lack of enlightened thought being given to this by leaders and governments at all levels. According to Kerryn, if the status quo persists, our grandchildren and great grandchildren will face catastrophic issues – for one thing, they will be eating only jellyfish because that will be all that is available in the ocean!
As global warming is but one aspect of our endangered environment, we have drawn Kerryn Higgs’ book to the attention of Andrew Laming MP in the hope that he might pursue the issues with his Federal colleagues. It is only through enlightened leadership that there will be any hope of avoiding the “collision course”.
J & B Douglass
Cleveland
Heritage in the 21st Century
Council has not had a win with the failure of the Heritage Council to list the Willard Farm. Nor has the heritage panel that said NO. They have not taken away the listed values.
These were what they were supposed to address as they carried out their brief to help the state “preserve and protect” its heritage. One is left asking what was addressed that could shoot down the opinion of experts on three very specific criteria? Seems there must have been another agenda.
That a developer was inconvenienced should not have been a consideration, though it must have been annoying for them, and they’ve tried hard to fit in.
By its “do nothing” policy council is showing its ineptitude and disdain for Redland heritage. Now they will shift a very old house away from its true setting and pat themselves on the back.
Potential candidates for next council take note: will you be a “do nothing” councillor because it gets in the way of development or find out how heritage is managed in the 21st century?
Name withheld
Please note: Offensive or off-topic comments will be deleted. If offended by any published comment please email thereporter@redlands2030.net
All too true, each time I travel Cleveland-Redland Bay Road and see the Development I feel sad.Why has this development happened? The roads can’t handle the traffic locally and commuting to the city at rush hour is desperate. Too many people! Train station is far away! We have allowed potential slums to be developed on our doorstep! Not enough green stuff, large trees, natural habitat!
Do wealthy developers and others really believe they need more money? Do theyreally believe they will live forever? Even Howard Hughes couldn’t live forever!
I feel sorry for the people who have been conned into living there.
And it hasn’t stopped yet .I see the scorched earth next to Finlandia.
Some time ago it was mooted to remove all the tall eucalypts up Boundary Road, and many escaped, but I fear that it was only a temporary respite, The acreage properties have been turned into pocket-handkerchief sized blocks with ticky-tack dwellings rising!
No doubt Springacre Road is being eyed by developers and the lobbying will start to change the Town Plan.
I am very lucky, firstly to have been able to live in Thornlands for many years with space around me and my family as they grew up. I guess when I am gone my house will be razed and townhouses or apartments will appear where we once lived, and my neighbours will be powerless to resist and have to put up with devaluation of their properties.
Please people, think of the future for the young ones and see if you can resist this madness.
What can I say!!!!! Heritage everywhere in the world is celebrated, the beautiful old buildings give character to a place, their history and stories are part of a community spirit, but in Redlands it is ignored with no protection on so many places.
One aspect I was seeking clarification at the planning workshop at Cleveland library about the next community plan was what criteria is used to define “surplus to need” to have vacant or park land offered to Redland Investment Committee to sell for the council. The only information I was able to gather is that these surplus blocks are listed on each of the different division information sets available for the public but the decisions were made by a working committee. Still no clarification as to who was on the committee, what criteria was used, and are the sites listed on the division sheets the only ones under consideration?