Sunshine Coast Regional Council Delays Master Plan
30 November 2009

Completion of the master plan for the Maleny Community Precinct has been delayed until the middle of 2010. Council is undertaking a major review of the entire planning scheme for the Sunshine Coast and many other pressing commitments must be holding things back. It appears that hope by the sporting groups that money will appear out of nowhere for major infrastructure and sporting facilities is dwindling.

Barung Landcare is still awaiting the final word on where they will be located within the precinct. The delays are being exacerbated by the secretive and un community-minded efforts of a few nasty right wing individuals. The Obi Obi Parklands group continues to develop their concept plans and they are trying to seek funding to get their parklands going once the master plan is approved.

The whole precinct seems to be a case of hurry up and wait. And perhaps that isn't such a bad thing, as it permits time for all parties involved in the precinct to cool off a little and perhaps come to some sort of co-operative consensus for the land. Whilst many in the community don't care one way or the other what happens with the land, many will benefit from the facilities once they are complete 

Water Pipeline Looms Nearer
12 October 2009

The plans for the pipeline linking Maleny township with the SE Qld water grid are now available. The logic of the decision to pump water uphill over many tens of kilometres to a plateau with one of the most reliable rainfall patterns in Australia defies reason to many in our town.

Clearly developers have put considerable pressure on state government as the housing development ideal of 'town water' and 'town sewerage' for all new lots outweighs common sense. Not to mention aging engineers who know only pipes, pumps and dams...

The average rainfall in Maleny is over 2000mm per annum. Check out the Maleny Weather Station stats for last year. The average roof catchment area is around 200 sq m. Do the maths: 200 sq m x 2m rainfall = 400 cubic metres of water or 400,000 litres or 88,000 gallons per annum on every roof in town. Surely water tanks and kitchen tap filtration is the better solution for our region?

Those residents living along Burgum Road or North Maleny Road and particularly Tamarind Street are in for a very messy and disruptive time as the engineering works to construct the underground pipeline take place.

If you click on the small map at right you will open a full screen version to see the route the pipeline will take. We feel for those who will be personally disrupted by the engineering works outside their properties. We are very concerned about the huge costs of this project - financial and environmental. The greenhouse gas emmissions to pump so much water uphill and the embodied energy in such a huge engineering project will be immense. We fear that the next 'logical' step will be to raise the dam wall height of Baroon Dam to harvest even more water at the expense of the downstream environment...

The Maleny Community Precinct master planning process is now well underway. Community interest groups continue to have their opportunity to contribute in the process of business plans development and governance plan development for use of the land and Sunshine Coast Regional Council is now evaluating all submissions in the master planning process.