IT’S not often that we see a developer, conservationists and residents agreeing over a development issue.
But this is what has occurred with the proposal to build a $1.27 million bridge and pathway across Eprapah Creek at Victoria Point.
It has been approved by Redland councillors to the dismay of residents.
The basis of the council plan for the bridge and pathway is sound. It is to link the Villa World residential development on Boundary Road to Victoria Point shops to allow residents to walk or cycle without the need to put cars on the road.
Projects like this, combined with better public transport, are badly needed to reduce the problems that come hand in hand with population growth like traffic congestion.
If the Redlands is to maintain any semblance of its former laid-back lifestyle, council must maintain this direction.
However well-meaning as this project is, it is wrong. Villa World manager Peter Johnson could not have been clearer in warning council that the project would impact the creek and its surrounds.
Residents also argue that the pathway will increase already bad social problems. A pathway through the scrub nearby has become a conduit for teens bent on bad social behaviour.
What is disappointing is that council seems to have found that it was easiest to simply approve this project despite strong arguments against it.
Remember it was only in September that prime remnant koala trees were knocked down at Cleveland with council approval, again a difficult planning issue.
Is this a pattern being set? Will difficult development issues simply be ticked off or will the harder road be taken to get better long term outcomes?
It is understandable that councillors and staff wanted the pathway off the books but a stinker is a stinker. In fact in a similar matter, council had earlier decided to move against the Cleveland Power application for a power plant at Mount Cotton.
It had similarities. It too had been around for years but councillors saw that community wishes may have changed since it was first mooted so they did the right thing in opposing a development approval extension.
They and council officers should have been of a similar mind regarding Eprapah even if it was laborious and time consuming to get it right.
That is what good government is about.
