QLD Government overrules council decision on Hummock Hill Island.

20 Jun 2018

A month after the Gladstone Regional Council in Queensland voted to reject a $1.2 billion golf and residential development on Hummock Hill Island, state planning Minister Cameron Dick has announced that he has overruled the council’s decision.

The Government believes the Pacificus development brings significant benefit to the central Queensland region, and as such have granted the company a development approval. That approval will be examined by the Queensland coordinator-general, who will review the developer’s application and make a final, non challengeable, ruling by the end of the year.

In making his decision, Minister Dick told the ABC website that he thought the project was ‘critical to the region and the state”, adding that “I don’t exercise this sort of power very often.”

The Pacificus Tourism proposal has been in planning for more than a decade now, and should it proceed the development would be the first integrated resort along the Great Barrier coast since Hamilton Island. The project covers an area of 465ha and is planned to eventually feature more than 2,000 houses, cottages and villas. Many of the homes will surround a golf course that has been set aside but not yet designed.

Developer Eaton Place claim the golf course will be “links-style” and designed “by golf course designers accredited by the Society of Australian Golf Course Architects (SAGCA).”

Concerned at both the scale of the proposed development, as well as the state of other island resorts in Queensland, the local council rejected the application on 17 grounds – including environmental concerns and the potential for direct competition with nearby tourist towns like 1770 and Agnes Water.

The ABC news website describes how the proposed development failed to meet the regions planning scheme.

Gladstone Mayor Matt Burnett, who voted against the development, said he still agreed with the council's rejection of the project.

"We had no choice but to refuse this. It did not meet the planning scheme and I've said that a number of times," he said.

"This [proposal's] been going on for years and years and years. If it was so good, it would've been built by now."

Both Eaton Place and the State Government argue the development will provide a significant boost to the Gladstone region, which has been struggling with dwindling home values and unemployment post-mining boom.

Cr Burnett said he was all for development and jobs.

"That's the positive side. That would be fantastic if that's the case, but you only need to look up the coast of Queensland and see how many resorts have failed," Cr Burnett said.

Up and down the coast several island resorts — including South Molle Island — sit empty with cyclone damage, and about a quarter of those operating on tourism leases with the State Government are behind on rent.

He said he was concerned the development would flounder halfway through its construction, like another resort at nearby Agnes Water.

"How ugly was that for a lot of years and how ugly could [Pacificus] potentially be for around the Turkey Beach area?

"It's a big unknown. You're basically building a whole new community in the middle of nowhere."