Walter Taylor South Action Group Inc. Protecting the Streetscapes

Brisbane City Council have sold the Bus Depot to Commercial and Industrial Property Pty Ltd to develop the land into the Sherwood Bus Depot and then lease back to Council. 

On the 16th of August, Commercial and Industrial Property Pty Ltd have submitted amendments to BCC for the Development Application regarding the Bus Depot.  An extract from their application to council is shown below.  To see the full development application, you can download a copy at http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/masterview/masterplan/enquirer/default.aspx, utilising application number A002879150

A Development Approval for Material Change of Use for a Utility Installation and Reconfiguration of a Lot (2 into 3 lots and road) has recently been approved by the Brisbane City Council (application reference A002719206). This request to change the development approval under section 369 of the Sustainable Planning Act 2009 relates to both the Material Change of Use and Reconfiguration of a Lot components of the approval and are described below. 

The current decision notice includes approval for a total of 5,813m2 GFA distributed over five buildings, these being the depot office (two buildings), maintenance garage, diesel refuelling building and services enclosure. The original layout included an office facility separated into two buildings at the front of the site adjacent to the new road and a maintenance building adjacent to the southern boundary, with bus and staff parking situated at the centre of the site. A total of 200 buses were proposed to be stored on site at any one time.

Please note that since lodgement of the original application, part of the existing disused timber mill has been demolished by Brisbane City Council and the remainder of the building has been fenced off. The remaining portion of the building and newly fenced area has been reflected on the attached revised Site Plan prepared by Commercial & Industrial Property Pty Ltd (Refer to Appendix A).

The proposed changes to the approval include a minor increase in GFA, bringing the total GFA of the buildings to 5,859m2 or an additional 46m2. Both office buildings and the maintenance buildings have been moved south, allowing the access road to the staff parking area to be moved to the northern side of the office buildings away from private residences. This does result in the maintenance building being marginally closer to the private dwellings; however the attached Acoustic Report indicates that the impacts on these houses will not increase when compared to the originally approved design. One of the office buildings has been moved further to the west to allow a larger outdoor area between the office buildings. As no changes have been made to the physical appearance or overall heights of the buildings, no new elevations have been provided as a part of this application.

No changes are proposed to the number of buses to be stored on site. The original approval included an allowance for 200 buses to be parked on site at any one time. Minor amendments have been made to the bus parking area to allow for better function, however it is still expected that 200 vehicles will be stored on site.

Access provisions into the site have been modified, with two separate driveways now servicing the site from the new road. This has been done to separate the bus, staff and visitor vehicle movements to create a safer situation on site. The visitor parking area adjacent to the office facility has been altered, but still allows visitors easy access to the building. A new loading bay has been positioned adjacent to the western office building to allow loading of goods without disruption to traffic movements.

Staff car parking layout has been amended, with access now provided from the northern side of the site away from adjoining residences. Please refer to the amended Transport Impact Review prepared by GTA Consulting for further detail (refer to Appendix D).

A revised Acoustic Report has been prepared by Aecom, detailing that the proposed amendments to the buildings and operations of the site will not impact on the adjoining residences to the south. A copy of the revised report is attached as Appendix C to this report.

A revised Landscape Plan has been prepared by Lange Design (refer to Appendix E) indicating the revised landscaping provisions for the site. Please note that as discussed with Brisbane City Council officers, this plan shows the revised buffer treatment along the southern boundary of the site.

1.2 Reconfiguration of a Lot (2 into 3 lots and road)
The attached lot reconfiguration plan (refer to Appendix B) proposes a minor amendment to the boundary between Lots 1 & 2 to create regularly shaped developable industrial lot. The new site area for Lot 1 will now be 6.534ha while the new area for Lot 2 will be 0.945ha.

1.3 Sustainable Planning Act 2009
Under section 367 of the Sustainable Planning Act 2009, a permissible change to a development approval is defined as
follows:

“ (1) A permissible change, for a development approval, is a change to the approval that
would not—

(a) result in a substantially different development; or
(b) if the application for the approval were remade including the change—

(i) require referral to additional concurrence agencies; or
(ii) for an approval for assessable development that previously did not require impact assessment—require impact assessment; or

(c) for an approval for assessable development that previously required impact assessment—be likely, in the responsible entity’s opinion, to cause a person to make a properly made submission objecting to the proposed change, if the circumstances allowed; or

(d) cause development to which the approval relates to include any prohibited development.

(2) For deciding whether a change is a permissible change under subsection (1)(b) or (d), the planning instruments or law in force at the time the request for the change was made apply (the applicable law).

(3) Application of the applicable law does not stop a change mentioned in subsection (1)(b) from being a permissible change only because the applicable law, if applied to the application as originally made, would require referral to any additional referral agencies or involve impact assessment.

Given that the proposal is not significantly different to what was previously approved, the application was code assessable, and no additional referral agencies are triggered as a result of the changes proposed, we believe that the changes can be processed as a change to development approval. Discussions have been held with Brisbane City Council officers prior to this request being lodged indicating that they would accept the changes as a change to approval under section 369 of the Sustainable Planning Act 2009.