Beachmere residents meet to protest MBRC's draft planning scheme

At the quickly called gathering today around 60 people attended to hear Lisa France, State member for Pumicestone, on the  issue of the new draft zoning plan for Beachmere.

The meeting was held  outside the bakery in front of IGA.

Here are a few rough  notes about the meeting and what was discussed.

• So far council has refused, despite requests, to call a public consultation meeting on the issue of the proposed rezoning.
• Our local Moreton Bay Region councillor, Peter Flannery has been in hospital , and while he is apparently opposed to the draft, he has not been well enough to campaign on the issue.
• France argued that council has tried to blame the state government for  forcing these changes but said that other councils have not adopted a similar approach to ours. She referred to page 35 of recently gazetted  State Gov Planning Policy requirements as being the relevant to the dispute with MBRCs. (As yet I have not been able to locate this document online but will link to it when I have.)

Page 35 -- from a photo shared by Lisa France.

• Indeed other councils in Queensland have followed  a consultative process with their communities in regard to these changes, whereas ours has not contacted local stakeholders and residents, choosing instead to announce the changes only online as no hard copy versions of the new plan are available for distribution to residents and stakeholders.
• Council also chose the minimum  period for allowing submissions to the Draft Planning Scheme but have also  set the protocol  that feedback  can only be submitted online.[Correction: submissions can also be made by mail or email.] So  if you don't have web access to view the draft, you are out of the loop unless you view the plan online at a council library. The online submission form is here.
• The changes to the planning scheme, according to France, in regard to flood risk, have nothing to do with an estimation of tidal surge which is another issue all together. That means the changes are a response to the challenge posed by Brisbane floods of 2010-11, and not related to such instances as  the Australia Day Tidal Surge of last year.

While people were urged to make submissions opposing the plan before August 15th -- assuming you have web access to view it, of course -- there will  be another community gathering ASAP, probably next week -- and at night -- in a venue  large enough to hold  a large crowd. The time and location will be posted to the bakery blackboard -- but I'll also let people know the details through this site.

• Updates on this issue are tagged here as Rezoning. So that's the link to reference.