Will Toondah kill off the Cleveland CBD?

Redland City Council has refused to make publicly available a report about the economic impacts on the Cleveland CBD of development at Toondah Harbour including retail and hospitality activities.

Redlands2030 raised concerns about the future of the Cleveland CBD when presenting a petition to Redland City Council, asking it to:

Withdraw its support for Walker Group’s proposed Toondah Harbour residential development which the community considers to be clearly unacceptable

The Council says an economic report supports its claims that development at Toondah will benefit the Cleveland CBD.

But the report is supposedly “commercial in confidence” and the Council won’t release it.

This is part of a consistent pattern of bad behaviour by Redland City Council, pushing for an unpopular project while withholding important information from scrutiny by the community.

Council’s fanciful claims about Toondah impacts

An un-named council spokesperson said the impact of Toondah on the Cleveland CBD was analyzed in an economic report held by Council, and she advised:

1. the Toondah project was expected to strengthen connections from the Cleveland CBD and the waterfront, adding to the identity and image of Cleveland.

2. the project represents unrivalled tourism, as well as cultural and economic growth opportunities for Cleveland and the region,”

3. Harbour retail space would be for tourists and speciality shops which would complement Cleveland as the primary retail hub.

4. CBD retailers are expected to benefit from resident, visitor and construction spending,”

(text colour and bolding was added by R2030)

Show us the report

Redlands2030, was keen to follow-up on any economic analysis of Toondah’s impact on the already struggling businesses of CBD and Raby Bay Harbourside.  So we asked Council for a copy of the report.

No copy was provided, in lieu the Council spokesperson Council advised:

The comment referred to in the Redland City Bulletin article was a report prepared by the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR). I am advised that due to the commercial in confidence nature of the report, Council  is unable to release the document, however the following excerpt from the economic analysis relates to your enquiry regarding direct effects on the established commercial centres close to both the Toondah Harbour and Weinam Creek Priority Development Areas.

‘The effects on patterns of retail trade in mainland Redland City will depend on the retail developments in the PDAs. It is expected that these will be of two kinds: basic convenience shopping, mainly to serve customers in the proposed residential developments and also the passing trade, and restaurants to take advantage of the harbourside location. Neither of these uses competes directly with Cleveland CBD or Victoria Point, both of which are too far from the PDAs to cater to their convenience needs and neither of which has a harbourside location. The main competitors for such harbourside restaurants are likely to be located outside Redland City, either elsewhere on the shores of Moreton Bay or in Gold Coast. In that they draw trade from out-of-city competitors, the proposed restaurants will add to incomes in Redland City.’

The all too familiar “commercial-in-confidence” provisions were (again) invoked. And so Toondah matters are remain under a cloak of secrecy. Ratepayers are unable to independently assess the facts about the Toondah development. The reasoning remains obscure given the formal development agreements are already in place.

So other questions arise, like:

• was the NIEIR report made known to the businesses stakeholders of Cleveland CBD and Raby Bay Harbourside?
• was the report available to prospective CBD investors?
• was the information available to the Redlands Investment Corporation, which has a pecuniary interest in the success of the Toondah project and recently both sold and purchased commercial land in Cleveland ?

What is clear to the proverbial “blind freddy” is that major retail/commercial hub less than 2km from the existing CBD is an inherent risk to existing businesses of the CBD!

What are the assumptions about Toondah?

From information released it is clear the NIEIR report places weight on assumptions and expectation that the type of commercial activities that will be provided at Toondah.

Yet earlier PDA documents paint a different picture of the type of commercial development in the PDA. Websites (of Council, Walker Group and the State Government) show possible or intended commercial activities (broadly the activities in red might adversely impact on existing businesses of the CBD and Raby Bay:

• The retail and office tenancies delivered as part of mixed use development, primarily at ground floor level, to accommodate supporting tourism, entertainment, cultural and specialist services and activate the precinct.
• Convenience and boutique retail and food and beverage tenancies …expected to complement the offerings of the Cleveland CBD.
• higher end and large scale accommodation to support groups, conferences and functions
• jetty/boating infrastructure
• quality visitor information services
• public boat moorings/berthing
• quality dining
• a new ferry terminal with multiple barge and passenger terminals, ticket and tourism office, plaza, premium bus stop, ferry car parking and a hotel/convention centre and charter boat operations
• convenience and boutique retail that will complement the Cleveland CBD offering
• a marina with up to 400 berths, to be delivered in stages
• recreational boating facilities.
• Development of the PDA provides an opportunity to support economic development and will seek to reinforce Toondah Harbour as a community focus and a regional gateway to Moreton Bay and North Stradbroke Island. Development will include opportunities for mixed use and medium density residential development as well as tourism and retail based development, ….

Commercial and retail activity in the Toondah PDA

These activities are not consistent with early assumptions.  For example, the Toondah PDA development scheme describes the allowable commercial activity as:

• support the creation of the mixed use node where active commercial or retail uses are focused, providing convenience retail, tourist and commercial uses (such as shops and professional offices well as other non-retail functions such as childcare, cafes and restaurants) to serve the local catchment of residents and visitors
• activate the public realm and deliver the highest density of development and activities in the mixed use node in order to benefit from access to transport services and an outlook onto the marina area and Moreton Bay
• support office and residential uses above ground floor retail development in the mixed use node
• provide for generally up to 5,000m2 GFA of neighbourhood scale active retail uses including a supermarket of up to 1,000m2 serving mainly the convenience shopping needs of the local catchment and complementing the Cleveland Principal Regional Activity Centre

Another, set of assumptions is found in Toondah Harbour: Market Assessment and Development Strategy (2013) which claimed:

While the retail component of large scale mixed use projects will often only form a small part of total commercial returns … its importance cannot be understated and it will very much indirectly drive the total project returns. …  In most successful projects…

This report states…the success of the dining/bar component to be a critical driver of success for the whole Toondah Harbour

Will Toondah kill off the Cleveland CBD?

Simply … we don’t know and the traders of Cleveland and Raby Bay appear not to know either!

What is certain is that the risks of Toondah PDA developments impacting on businesses in the Cleveland CBD and Raby Bay Harbourside should considered openly and transparently.

Why is a confidential report, shielded from public scrutiny, used as a basis for Council’s decisions?

Isn’t it time Council made this report available to all interested parties?

Does the community (again) have to invest in “right to Information” applications?

 

Redlands2030 – 10 April 2018