Redlands2030’s reviews what happened in 2022 in the Redlands, focusing on issues that we covered with stories and photos throughout the year.
January 2022
Car parking in Cleveland CBD
Car parking became harder to find in the Cleveland CBD from 31 January when the Doig Street car park (which used to be owned by Redland City Council) was closed to make way for construction by Vacenti of a five storey aged care facility.
This site was transferred by the Council to its Redland Investment Corporation subsidiary in 2015 to help “revitalise” the Cleveland CBD. Vacenti bought the land in 2018 for about $5.5 million.
We wrote about this in: Doig Street car park closed for construction of aged care facility
Local businesses were unimpressed by the Council’s changes to car parking regulations and petitioned for more parking to be made available for their customers.
February 2022
Wet Wet Wet
March 2022
Willard’s Farm given State heritage listing
Willard’s Farm in Birkdale was entered to the Queensland Heritage Register on 8 March.
The heritage listing for Willard’s Farm includes a portion of the adjacent parcel of land.
The application for including Willard’s Farm on the Queensland Heritage Register was submitted by Ms Pam Spence, President of the Birkdale Progress Association.
April 2022
Council’s plans for the Birkdale lands
In April, Redland City Council Council adopted a master plan for its Birkdale Community Precinct featuring as its centerpiece a proposed whitewater facility intended for use at the Brisbane 2032 Olympics.
The Council’s plans for the Birkdale precinct were estimated to cost about $300 million.
An appeal against the Heritage Council’s decision on Willard’s Farm was lodged by Redland City Council.
Presumably the Council appealed because they viewed this heritage listing as a potential constraint to the Council’s development plans. The appeal is still being heard by the Planning and Environment Court.
Meanwhile, the Courier Mail revealed that the expected cost of the Council’s planned sports and recreation precinct at Heinemann Road in Mount Cotton had blown out to $200 million.
May 2022
The Walk for Toondah
On Mothers Day, 2,200 people did the Walk for Toondah, demonstrating strong community opposition to Walker Group’s plans for building 3,600 apartments on Ramsar wetlands next to Toondah Harbour.
2022 Federal elections
LNP candidate Henry Pike won the seat of Bowman at the Federal elections on 23 May but the Labor Party won enough seats to form Government.
Other results included a strong performance in Queensland by The Greens with former Redlands resident Penny Allman-Payne winning a Senate seat and the Queensland Greens winning three seats in the lower house.
June 2022
Mayor urges tougher sentence for driver who caused fatalities
On 10 June, mayor Karen Williams initiated a petition to Queensland Parliament about the sentencing of the driver of the car responsible for a fatal hit and run collision at Alexandra Hills. 7News reported that the young driver’s blood alcohol content was between 0.151 and 0.192 when the car he was driving killed two pedestrians.
Karen Williams sought and obtained support for promotion of her petition at Redland City Council’s monthly meeting on 15 June.
Karen Williams gets headlines
On the evening of 23 June Karen Williams crashed her Council car (Lexus) after driving through the T intersection of Queen and Wellington Streets in Cleveland. She was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.177 which is about the same as that of the young driver involved in the Alexandra Hills crash.
Earlier that day the Council had adopted its 2022/23 Budget followed by a celebratory event which included three bottles of wine purchased by the Council.
After the Budget party, Karen Williams spent some time on a Zoom call with people concerned about drunk driving before getting into her car and driving while drunk.
Two days later, Nine News broke the story. Front page headlined stories followed in the Saturday Courier Mail and the the Sunday Mail.
Redland City’s disgraced mayor was news across Australia and even overseas.
July 2022
Highest rates in south east Queensland
After all local councils had adopted their budgets and rates increases it became clear that Redland City had the highest rates and charges in south east Queensland.
Calls for Karen Williams to resign
The Queensland Police Service revealed that Karen Williams test results showed a blood alcohol concentration of 0.177% and she was charged with drink driving.
During July the community called for Karen Williams to resign as mayor.
There were protests outside the July Council meeting, petitions to Redland City Council and a petition to Queensland Parliament.
August 2022
Karen Williams in Court.
On 1st August Karen Williams was up before the local magistrate and pleaded guilty to drink driving.
She was disqualified from driving for six months and ordered to do 80 hours of community service.
She was also required to participate in the Alcohol Ignition Interlock Program for five years.
More Aeroplane noise for Redlands
A review of flight paths following implementation of a second parallel runway at Brisbane Airport appears likely to result in more planes passing over some Redlands suburbs with the ensuing noise annoying local residents.
We covered this issue with a post on Facebook.
September 2022
40 properties added to local heritage register
Redland City Council added about 40 privately owned properties to its local heritage register. During this long drawn out process, two properties initially identified as worth listing were approved for demolition.
State take over Redlands Housing Strategy
A long running battle over the adequacy of Redland City Council’s housing strategy was resolved in September when the State Government moved to take over the preparation of a new Redland City Housing Strategy.
October 2022
The Toondah Harbour Draft EIS was unveiled for public consultation on 6 October.
The community was given 40 business days to review 5,400 pages. Each of the Redland City Council libraries had just one copy.
The online version was difficult to navigate so Redlands2030 provided a much easier way to view the multi-volume document in:
Unboxing the Toondah Harbour Draft EIS
November 2022
Redland City Council’s wholly owned property company, the Redland Investment Corporation (RIC), revealed that it made a loss for the 2021/22 year.
Over the past four years, the sum of RIC’s profit/loss results is a total loss of $766,108. We wrote about this dismal performance in:
Another loss for Redland City Council’s property company
December 2022
Flood of submissions opposing the Toondah project
An estimated 25,000 submissions opposing the Toondah Harbour Draft EIS were lodged by the deadline of 6 December 2022.
Many of these submissions were lodged through portals operated by organisations in the Toondah Alliance: Birdlife Australia, the Australian Conservation Foundation, Australian Marine Conservation Society and Redlands2030.
Reviews for earlier years
Here are annual reviews that we published for previous years:
2021 in the Redlands as reported by Redlands2030
2020 in Redland City – a Redlands2030 review
2019 in review – a Redlands2030 recap
Redland City in 2018 – a Redlands2030 recap
Redlands2030 – 23 December 2022
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2 Comments
What I get from this is that Redlands Investment corporation is a vehicle that enables council to flog off public assets with impunity. The fact that the council, regulator of development, is in bed and running a property development business, RIC. Is a massive conflict of interest, This enables developers to get a significant level of control over council regulation and approvals and subsequentely ratepayers funds. We should challenge this and focus on what should be the core activities of council.
The Redlands Investment Corporation (RIC) is in debt for the 4th year running despite big money doing into it from the highly inappropriate sale of the Doig Street 198-space car park. It is time for the details of this dubious RIC to be exposed. In 2018 the Crime and Corruption Commission stated its reservations to councils hiding financial details behind investment corporations but four years later they have done nothing, showing that they are just a toothless tiger. It’s time for the RIC to be exposed for what it is. We know that certain people within this RIC are making big money out of it yet it is $766,000 in debt. Enough is enough.