Bulldozing claim on wharves rejected

By a staff reporter

City Hall Opposition Labor Shayne Sutton has accused Lord Mayor Campbell Newman of attempting to steamroll the local community by pushing ahead with the Howard Smith Wharves redevelopment before the Planning and Environment Court has heard a residents' appeal against the plan - a claim fiercely rejected by the Liberal majority in council.
Cr Sutton called on the Lord Mayor to halt the call for tenders to redevelop the site until the appeal by the residents is heard by the courts.
More than 30 local residents recently appealed council's approval of the hotel and commercial development at Howard Smith Wharves, and Cr Sutton said a call for private commercial developers to redevelop the site had since been officially launched on Brisbane City Council's website.
"No one is above the law - including Campbell Newman," Councillor Sutton said.

"Cr Newman should halt the tender process until the appeal over the redevelopment is heard and a judgement is made.
"The residents campaigning to save Howard Smith Wharves from over-development deserve to have their appeal heard before developers start sizing up the site.
"When this development was open for public consultation, 190 of the 197 submissions received were opposed to it.
"Cr Newman knows the local community strongly opposes the current development and he is trying to steamroll them.
"In this case, council assessed and approved its own development proposal and local residents are already suspicious of a conflict of interest.
"The court needs to make a judgement on this case before the development proceeds, and to do otherwise is simply arrogant," she said. Neighbourhood Planning and Development Assessment chair Amanda Cooper said council was totally respectful of the court process, and was simply putting plans in place to ensure it could move to protect the site.
"Council needs to get on with planning to ensure this important heritage site is protected and we can do that without impacting on the court process," Cr Cooper said.
"The legal appeal only affects a small portion of the site, while 80 per cent of the site will be protected as public parkland.
"We need to protect this site now. Let's not forget that one of the heritage buildings fell into the river under Labor's watch because they refused to act.
A few years before that, the local councillor David Hinchliffe wanted to build residential apartments on half of the site, against the will of residents, so I think people have a right to be sceptical about Cr Sutton's latest stance on this issue."