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Councillor Paul Tully foreshadowed that he would move an
alternate motion in the event that Mayor Harding’s motion was lost.
A. That
application number 6610/2022 MCU in relation to the property situated at 16
Queen Street Goodna, received on 8 July 2022 from Parmac Property Investments
Pty Ltd for a Material Change of Use – Business Use (Fast Food
Premises), be refused for the following reasons:
1. History of Goodna
Goodna was
first recorded as a name by Surveyor James Warner in the 1840s and was
officially established in 1856 when it was still part of New South Wales and
still retains some of its unique local character, 24km west of the Brisbane
CBD and 16km to the east of the Ipswich CBD. Refusal of this development is
the only way this dwelling and its environs can be protected in situ for
future generations.
2. History of the site
The property
at 16 Queen Street Goodna was identified in the Ipswich City Council 1992
Heritage Study by the University of Queensland as of key heritage
significance in the suburb.
The importance
of the property included the age of the dwelling – c.1906 –
combined with its historical social significance within the local area.
The dwelling
at 16 Queen Street Goodna was home, for some four decades until the 1940s,
for the well-known Queensland family of John and Mary Carroll. John and Mary
had opened and taught at a day school at Redbank Plains from 1874 to 1909.
They had seven sons and two daughters including their second son Edward John
Carroll who formed the famous national cinematic chain of Birch Carroll
& Coyle with E.J. Carroll, introducing “talkie” movies to
Ipswich, Toowoomba and other parts of Queensland and Australia.
The Carroll
family home at this location was a major social hub in southeast Queensland
during the early decades of the 20th century with entertainers
from the United Kingdom and the United States in attendance over the years.
One such
entertainer was renowned Scottish singer Sir Harry Lauder who attended the
Carroll family home in July 1925 which was reported in The Brisbane
Courier of 27 July 1925.
3. Official recognition of
the site
The importance
of the building and location is officially recognised:
(a) In
the Ipswich Planning Scheme as a pre-1946 dwelling recognised in the scheme
as Schedule 3 listing;
(b) By
virtue of the heritage plaque proposed by the Ipswich City Council Planning
and Development Department and erected by the Council in 2012, with the
consent of the then owner, just inside the front boundary of the property
which reads:
“This was one the
home of Mary Carroll who purchased the land in 1906. Mary and her husband
John Carroll were well known and respected within the community. They
opened and taught at a day school at Redbank Plains from 1874 to 1909 where
Mary was assistant head teacher and John was the heat teacher.
Mary and John had 9
children, seven sons and two daughters. Edward John Carroll and Daniel Joseph
Carroll were theatrical and cinema managers and they screened silent films in
Ipswich and Brisbane in the early 20th century. Edward Joined with
G.H. Birch to form Messrs Birch and Carroll which later became Birch, Carroll
and Coyle. It was this house that Mrs Carroll entertained guests of her sons
who come from overseas. Harry Lauder, the Scottish coal miner with a ‘glorious
voice’ was one such guest.
An initiative of Ipswich
City Council
(marker number 101”;
(c) by
the widespread recognition of the historical importance of the property by
the Ipswich City Council and the community with its inclusion int the Council
publication “Goodna Then and Now” in 2003 which identifies the
property at 16 Queen Street Goodna relating to its age, history and social
importance.
4. Proposed development of
the site
The proposed
removal of the dwelling to make way for a gaudy Kentucky Fried Chicken store
operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week would make a mockery of the Ipswich
Planning Scheme by placing undue emphasis on the zoning of the property
(Major Centres Zone) compared with its major historical significance, when
both can be simultaneously recognised and addressed with the retention of the
existing dwelling.
Moving the
home to Rosewood some 35km away is not an adequate alternative nor an
appropriate recognition of the historical and existing development of this
site within the broader Goodna area during the past 166 years.
There is
strong community opposition to the development – despite the fact this
it is code assessable and not advertised – in the printed and online
newspapers in the local area, when the current application became known to
the community, including for example in Ipswich News Today on 21 July
2022:
“Locals
reject heritage house move bid
Goodna
residents say they don’t need another KFC – especially one that
would come at the expense of a historic home.
Timothy
Carmichael, who lives two houses down from the property, wrote on social
media the house was “one of the most beautiful homes in the
street”.
Simon
Ingram wrote it was “ridiculous, damaging to our heritage and
completely unnecessary.”
Another
resident, Andrew Mirfin, said it make a joke of protecting heritage listed
houses.
“To
me that includes the site it was originally built on. By moving the house it
has no heritage significance anymore.”
The underlying
planning zoning (Major Centres Zone) does not preclude the adaptive reuse of
the building for a wide variety of commercial and/or community uses which
would provide proper recognition of the important heritage value of the
property in situ, enabling both the heritage value and the zoning of the
property to be equally recognised, without sterilising appropriate use of the
site for commercial or community purposes.
The dwelling
is the only remaining property of its era from the early 1900s in Queen
Street Goodna (the main street) from the Ipswich Motorway, south to Alice
Street Goodna – a distance of almost 600 metres – creating the
last opportunity for this only surviving dwelling of its vintage and social
significance and the associated site to continue to be recognised and protected
as part of the rich heritage of Goodna. Having a plaque installed and/or
other online recognition of the site, if the building were to be removed and
a fast-food premises established, would be a travesty of proper recognition
of local history for the people of Goodna and the City of Ipswich.
5. Traffic and Amenity
At 16 Queen
Street Goodna, the external carriageway is a relatively narrow 2-lane road
with a narrow verge on each side. This does not permit a road widening to
allow for a deceleration lane or left turn lane into or out of the property
heading south from the Ipswich Motorway or a separate turning lane into the
property heading north, coming from the direction of Redbank Plains.
Queen Street
Goodna is one of the busiest suburban roads in the City of Ipswich (excluding
main roads) with a traffic count of 18,181 vehicle movements a day, according
to the latest official traffic survey by Ipswich City Council in 2021.
Notwithstanding
the Applicant’s traffic proposal, the operation of KFC’s Redbank
and Redbank Plains stores located within major shopping centres demonstrates
an excessive amount of vehicular traffic causing traffic bank-ups on internal
roads and interfering with cars attempting to enter and/or leave both sites.
The proposed store at Goodna, fronting Queen Street would bring identical
problems onto the main street and would be certain to create traffic chaos in
Queen Street given the way in which the other local KFC stores operate
in practice many hours each day.
Once the
queuing facility within the proposed KFC site is full, traffic on Queen
Street would come to a complete standstill as there is no passing lane in
either direction and no physical way to provide one. If northbound traffic
were to be banned from entering the site, vehicles would have to travel north
to the existing heavily congested Goodna Roundabout at the corner of Queen
and Church Streets, with 6 separate traffic legs associated with that
roundabout. This would put additional strain on the roundabout exacerbating
existing safety issues in relation to the roundabout as well as the nearby
pedestrian crossing/school crossing at 9 Queen Street Goodna which services
St Francis Zavier Catholic School at Church Street Goodna.
B. That
the foregoing reasons constitute Council’s reasons for its decision
pursuant to section 254H of the Local Government Regulation 2012.
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