Division 9 Councillor Vivien Griffin said ensuring the safety and welfare of local residents and the amenity of the area was council’s top priority when reviewing the development application.
“Quarrying operations of the magnitude proposed for Yandina Creek presented significant lifestyle and logistical issues for surrounding residents, including heavy vehicle movements, noise, dust, vibration and general safety,” she said.
“Council conducted an extremely thorough review of this proposed hard rock quarry and included expert external consultants in this process.
“The information provided by the applicant was found to be insufficient when determining whether impacts resulting from the proposed quarry could be satisfactorily minimised so as not to impact negatively on the local area.
Cr Griffin said the Yandina Creek community had also expressed strong concern over the proposed quarry.
“Council has received 5,306 submissions from locals since this development was first lodged in 2009 and the overwhelming majority of these strongly objected to the proposed quarry,” she said.
“These concerns were raised in a very professional manner by the Yandina Creek community and their submissions raised a number of very strong and legitimate grounds of objection including potential negative effects on their lifestyle and the safety impact of the proposal on the local road network.
“The community also engaged a noise expert to review the proposed quarry and its likely impacts and this expert concurred with council’s external experts that the applicant’s noise report was inadequate.”
The application for the proposed quarry conflicts with the Maroochy Plan 2000 as it has not demonstrated that it could proceed without unacceptable impacts on amenity and the local road network and there are no grounds pursuant to the Integrated Planning Act 1997 to justify the proposal’s approval.