Heinemann Road sports park on Council agenda

_{Illustration from Heinemann Road precinct master plan – to be considered at the Council meeting on 13 May 2020}

Plans for development of a multi million dollar parks and recreation complex at Heinemann Road in Mount Cotton will be discussed by Redland City Council at its general meeting on Wednesday 13 May.

Councillors will be asked to tick off the master plan for this site and provide the report to the State Government who funded the work, while noting that another report will be presented to Council asking for approval to purchase more land for sporting facilities.

Will Heinemann Road sports park be value for money?

The site in Heinemann Road was purchased by the Council from the Goleby family in 2017 for $7,348,000 (including GST). The negotiation was conducted by Redland Investment Corporation.

An officers’ report to Council on 24 May 2017 said that purchasing the Heinemann Road property would reduce Redland City’s 76.5 hectare deficit of land for sporting facilities by 46 hectares, leaving a residual deficit of 30.5 hectares..

But a detailed master planning exercise carried out by the Council after purchasing this property has found that only 21 hectares of the Heinemann Road site can be used for sports and recreation facilities.

So the site which Council bought for more than $7 million will now yield 21 hectares of sporting fields instead of the originally anticipated 46 hectares.

That’s a shortfall of 25 hectares or 54% which begs questions about the amount and standard of due diligence work carried out by the Council (and Redland Investment Corporation) before the decision was made to purchase this property.

The attached Master Plan report prepared by Ross Planning says that the estimated cost of developing the proposed sports and recreation facility at the Heinemann Road site is likely to range from $40-60 million.

The officers’ report to Council says that $36.4 million is able to be funded from the Public Parks Trunk Infrastructure Reserve.

Community engagement about the Heinemann Road plan

“Engagement and communication with the community and key stakeholders was fundamental to the development of the Redlands Coast Regional Sport and Recreation Precinct Master Plan.” says the officers’ report.

But no information about the community engagement process is provided in either the officers’ report or the attachment.

A report about community engagement would normally include information such as:

• Details about how community engagement was conducted
• Statistics about the number of organisations or people who had input to the process
• A summary of the issues which were raised in submissions and comments on how the Council intended to deal with them

The Council’s website includes a webpage with information about the Heinemann Road sports and recreation precinct which says:

The project page had over six thousand visitors with hundreds of people participating in face-to-face engagement events across the city. In addition, hundreds of submissions were received and a diversity of views and ideas captured.

Community feedback on the draft master plan is now being reviewed and will inform recommendations that will be put to Council after the election.

What did the community say?

State Government funding agreement

The officers’ report includes the following information about state government support for the master planning process:

• The Queensland Government committed grant funding of up to $100,000 for the completion of an approved Master Plan including a high level Implementation Plan.
• In order to meet Council’s obligations under the Grant Deed, there is a requirement to approve the Master Plan including the high level Implementation Plan, and to provide acquittal documentation by 31 May 2020 (funding agreement expiry date).
• A request seeking to extend the agreement to August 2020 was made to the Department, however this was not granted.
• If this Deed is not acquitted by 31 May 2020, future grant funding from the State to Council may be jeopardised.

Closed session items on Council’s agenda

There are two closed session items on the council’s agenda:

19.1 Medium Density Residential Zone Code Review – Preliminary Findings and Recommendations

19.2 Land Acquisition for Vehicle Parking – Russell Island

Presented below are the contents of the agenda for the council meeting on Wednesday 13 May. The full agenda including officers’ reports (except for closed session items) can be download from the Council website.

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Redlands2030 -12 May 2020