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The federal government has waved through plans for a major bayside Olympic venue east of Brisbane, ruling the planned Redland Whitewater Centre will not require a full environmental assessment provided strict conditions are met.
In a decision issued late last week, the Federal Environment Department determined the proposed Birkdale Community Precinct and Redland Whitewater Centre would be considered a “not controlled action” under national environment law if carried out in accordance with detailed safeguards.
Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie, who had oversight of Olympic venue delivery, celebrated the federal sign-off, which came about 3½ weeks after the planned 63,000-seat stadium at Victoria Park cleared a similar federal environmental hurdle.
“This is a big, positive step towards delivering something the Redlands community will be proud of,” he said.
“The Redland Whitewater Centre will an incredible venue for 2032 and beyond, surrounded by the council’s master planned precinct.”
Not everybody in the Redlands was celebrating.
Community Alliance for Responsible Planning president Lavinia Wood said she was “in disbelief” over the decision.
“It is impossible to understand how the minister could summarily dismiss all the hard evidence we placed before him, and come to this decision,” she said.
“Has the minister somehow accepted the council’s preposterous proposition that building an industrial-scale Olympic Whitewater Centre in the middle of core koala habitat will lead to the local koala population being better off?
“Why are governments hellbent on abandoning koala protection?”
Wood said it was another blow for the region’s koalas, after Ormiston College began clearing bushland last week to make way for new sports fields.
But acting Redlands Mayor Julie Talty, who was filling in while Mayor Jos Mitchell is on medical leave, said ecology had been integrated into the project from the beginning.
“Council was always confident that its positive environmental stewardship of the site would factor in the result we have now achieved following council’s self-referral to the EPBC [environment protection and biodiversity conservation] process,” she said.
Talty said the project could now proceed “without further federal assessment” subject to a number of Commonwealth-imposed conditions.
Those conditions were aimed primarily at protecting koalas and their habitat, including a prohibition on clearing or construction within the designated conservation areas that cover significant portions of the site.
Under the Commonwealth conditions, the council must strictly adhere to previously submitted koala management plan that dictated how vegetation would be cleared.
A licensed fauna spotter-catcher would be required to oversee any clearing. That spotter would have the authority to halt work to ensure koalas had safely vacated affected areas.
Temporary fencing would be required after clearing, and daily checks carried out during construction to confirm no animals remained in work zones.
The decision also mandated measures to maintain post-construction habitat connectivity, including facilitating koala movement across the site in line with prescribed fauna corridors.
Operational restrictions formed another part of the approval.
The precinct is generally limited to operating between 6am and 9pm, with only limited exceptions outside those hours each year.
However, broader operations will be permitted during designated Olympic and Paralympic exclusive-use periods, when organisers controlled the venue for Games-related activities.
Public access would also be curtailed outside operating hours, with the site required to be secured by locked gates to minimise disturbance to wildlife.
The Birkdale proposal is one of the key pieces of infrastructure linked to the 2032 Games, as well as a long-term transformation of the former Commonwealth land into a public precinct.
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