Here are messages of support for the Obi Obi Parklands.

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DateWhoMessage
17 Aug 2007Cr Dick NewmanWhat a great plan. This certainly deserves community support. Keep going.
16 Aug 2007rachael stacyI am in favour of the Obi Obi Parklands option for the Maleny Precinct.
16 Aug 2007David G & Penny RThe Parklands proposal is a far-sighted, even visionary alternative that recognizes the broader recreational, commercial and social needs of a fast growing region. It offers a much wider variety of recreational and social activities than a golf course offers and for the entire community to enjoy.

It also meets some of the commercial requirements of a fast growing working town that is also a tourist magnet. It even recognizes the shifting demographics of an ageing population in the form of additional aged care facilities located close to the heart of the town, while providing safe and attractive space for the enjoyment of young families.

Supporters of the Parklands proposal include many ordinary folk, businessmen, scientists, working professionals and socially or environmentally conscious individuals. Many supporters of the Obi Obi Parklands concept are generally happy to see a viable but self sufficient Maleny golf course take shape. However, they find it hard to understand why this should be so centrally located at ratepayers expense.

A golf course shuts out so many members of the community. It will, after all, become a single purpose, exclusive tranche of land occupying pole position within the Precinct, managed by a group that has so far failed to publish a viable business plan.

Some of the key elements of the Obi Obi Parklands proposal are as follows:

• It allows Council to recover Precinct acquisition costs
• It allows a more equitable distribution of benefits to a broader range of rate payers through multi-use development.
• It contributes insignificantly to existing pressure on population growth
• It offers attractive social, economic and environmentally sound amenities with minimal housing crush.
• It allows modular development, staged over a sensible time frame
• It offers lower project risk for Council and therefore for ratepayers
• It recognises and provides a growing community with a broad range of long term needs - a sustainable legacy for future generations
• Each component can be subject to rigorous but more modest (and thus achievable) scale business plans than the golf course alternative

The whole town as well as most visitors will see benefits from Obi Obi Parklands.
16 Aug 2007David GardinerSent to Council on 29 July

Like many in my circle I do not believe that an 18 hole golf course, the provision of sufficient land for this purpose, plus $1 million in seed capital is what the wider community will consider fair allocation of the precinct asset. It is an imbalanced provision of rate payer subsidy to just one exclusive community group.

It would be harder to deny the right for the golf club to have a 9 hole course, with construction costs and ongoing funding requirements met by members, not ratepayers



16 Aug 2007Graham EThe following from www.antigolf.org/english
(a good read if you are anti-golf)!
cheers ge

(from the manifesto)..... in part....

1. Golf courses are in fact another form of monoculture, where exotic soil and grass, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides and weedicides, as well as machinery, are all imported to substitute for natural ecosystems.
These landscaped foreign systems create stress on local water supplies and soil, at the same time being highly vulnerable to disease and pest attacks. Just as the farming Green Revolution is collapsing in country after country, the Golf Green is also fraught with ecological problems.

2. The environmental impacts include water depletion and toxic contamination of the soil, underground water, surface water and the air. This in turn leads to health problems for local communities, populations downstream and even golfers, caddies and chemical sprayers in golf courses.

3. The construction of golf courses in scenic natural sites, such as forest areas and coral islands, also results in the destruction of biodiversity.

4. In addition to environmental damage, golf course and resort development often creates skewed land use, displacing local communities or depriving them of water and other resources. In a number of countries, the victims of such projects are subject to police or military intimidation when they protest against the destruction caused by golf courses.

5. The golf industry aggressively promotes an elitist and exclusive resort lifestyle and notion of leisure.

This globalization of lifestyle is also a form of exploitation, the victims being the wealthy urban population who are encouraged to spend their surplus dreams and illusions, at the expense of the environment and other members of society.

Golf course and golf tourism development violate human rights in every sense of the word.

6. In the face of growing criticism of the adverse environmental impacts of golf courses, the industry is promoting the notion of "pesticide-free," "environmentally-friendly" or "sensitive" golf courses. No such course exists to date, and the creation and maintenance of the "perfect green" comprising exotic grass inevitably requires intensive use of chemicals.

7. Similarly, the increasingly touted Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system as an alternative to the use of pesticides on golf courses is not a solution. In practical terms, application of pest control through IPM is impossible to achieve and should be viewed as nothing more than a hollow attempt to make golf courses appear less toxic than they are.

The danger is that IPM will be taken seriously by officials involved in the approval of golf courses. Under scrutiny, the theory of IPM can be easily discredited.

It should also be stressed that considerable amounts of chemicals are used in the preparation of a golf course and in fertilizing the grass.

These are toxic, too, and thus make golf courses a threat to the environment and health.

GLOBAL ANTIGOLF MOVEMENT CLAIM:

1. An immediate moratorium on all golf course development.

2. An open and public environmental and social review/audit of existing golf courses.

3. Existing golf courses should be converted to public parks, and where they lie in forest areas, wetlands and islands, there should be rehabilitation and regeneration of the land to its natural state.

4. Investigations into illegalities in the golf industry, including illegal occupation of public lands and encroachment into protected forests, diversion of water, violation and evasion of corporate regulations and corruption. We call on governments to prosecute the violators.

5. Laws should be passed to prohibit the advertising and promotion of golf courses and golf tourism.

6. Overseas development assistance , from countries including Japan Australia and European public founds should not be used for the promotion of golf courses and golf tourism or the construction of infrastructure related to such development.
15 Aug 2007Alice HungerfordThe Women's Trust is a small lobby group that has been operating in Maleny for over ten years. Our aims include to support the natural envionment and to encourage sustainable land management. The proposed Obi Obi Parklands is an inspiring and well thought-out proposal. We endorse it 100%. A key issue is access for all the public, and not locking up the land for the select rich few who enjoy golf. The other important aspect is to PROTECT and ENHANCE the natural environment of that land, which would be destroyed by the Golf course. That the Parklands will be self-sustaining in the long run is inspiring and should be seen as an example for other developmetns in the region.
14 Aug 2007Joe BakerTo The Mayor and Councillors,
Caloundra City Council.
Dear Mayor and Councillors,

I am a Queenslander, keen to discuss long-term planning for sustainable development. I am also a frequent traveller to the Maleny region, and was there twice in the last month, once with family, and once to speak at a Conference/Workshop. My visits extend back over more than 40 years, and the natural attraction of your region, with its historically significant Glasshouse Mountains, and its elevated views to the Coast, make it one of Queensland's most distinctive natural areas.

I understand that the "development" pressures on Council must be very high and almost continuous, but experiences in other areas encourage me to recommend to you that you be particularly aware of the long-term costs of ecologically imbalanced developments, particularly those that have high water demands, and which significantly modify the natural ecosystems through excessive use of fertilizers or nutrients of other types. "Costs" are far more extensive than those associated with money alone and can include destruction of ecosystems, pollution of land and water, unrealisable demands on natural resources, and loss of amenity and aesthetic appeal. My communication to you at this time comes because of my awareness of competitive proposals for development of an area, at a scale that could, if not evaluated comprehensively, lead to a choice that would adversely affect the distinctive Character of Maleny.

I have seen the plans for the "Maleny Gardens Concept", and had the concept explained to me. From that information, it appears to me that the "Maleny Gardens Concept" could lead to a development, which would be ecologically sustainable, encourage community commitment and involvement, attract tourists - particularly families - and be an exemplar of how development can take place in harmony with nature. My communication also comes because I had a small part to play in the recently released international Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), which assessed, on a world-wide basis, the loss of Ecosystem Services by reason of developments that did not take adequate consideration of the needs of natural ecosystems.

I would be happy to come to Maleny or Caloundra - but preferably Maleny - , at no cost to the Council, to talk to Council (and others you may invite) about the relevance of the findings of the MA to the future of Maleny. If you decided to take up that offer, I could also include discussion on indicators that may be useful to assess progress towards sustainable development.(I was the inaugural Commissioner for the Environment in the A.C.T. -1993-2004; a member of the Executive of the international Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) 1995-2005; and am currently on the Sustainability Expert Reference Group (SERG) in the A.C.T.).

Yours faithfully,

Joe Baker AO, OBE, FTSE, BSc(Hons 1st Class), MSc, PhD, DSc(Hon) FRACI, C.Chem..
10 Aug 2007John WildmanHello All,

I have had a long talk to Locon Wall tonight about building a golf course . I said to build the golf course the whole area would have to be bulldozed 72 hectares to reconstruct the natural contour of hills, slope and wetlands to build an 18 hole course. Well last night about 2300 I got out of bed and did a calculation. To do a land reconstruction of that area of 72 hectares, you would have to conserve and stockpile the top 6-7 inches of top soil. That taken off 72 hectares would involve a minimum of 109.090 Cubic metres of top soil, a pile about 1.km + long by 1 metre wide x 1 metre high. That does not include the surface mat of Kikuyu roots which would be in addition. During the stockpiling the kikuyu would rot down if sprayed with roundup to kill it and to put organic matter into the pile. Then after the reconstruction [not calculated as far as I can see by those who featured in the probity report- KPMG etc ] have they worked out the cost and methodology of spreading 6-7 inches of soil over 72 hectares to form a seed bed to sow the fairway turf. In one of the Council reports from the golf building experts they ban Kikuyu as a fairway grass because it does not need the amount of effluent that traditional turf grasses require [from practical experience I could debate this point on the use of kikuyu]. That is just from a dumb ex DPI field advisor of 37 years walking farms. This re surfacing of top soil could only be done by Laser controlled scoops [forgotten their proper name]. No where have I seen costs to reshape the landscape, provide base in wet land areas to produce the base for a course.

After that you have to build the greens, bunkers, tees, putting greens, driving ranges, and I guess the 19th hole with all amenities. Don't forget about the equipment to care for the greens, fairways, you will get a shock when you price a mower, coring machine etc [they have to petrol powered].

Locon then said delving back into his past as an environmental consultant, he would have to make sure, ,but he believes an earth moving project of the degree to make a golf course, where drainage [creek lines] to be covered, areas of wetlands to covered with roadbase and geocloth to create an artificial fairway [just look at the methods used in the wet area at the Caloundra Bruce Highway roadwork, I believe $20 million] that will give you an idea of what is needed to reconstruct a landscape.

John Wildman
02 Aug 2007Barry EarsmanHi All
No doubt we all have our views on the Maleny Community Precinct drama. However it's hard not to feel that an 18 hole golf course would be a terrible waste of a golden opportunity to implement some of the ideas we have been promoting as Sustainable Maleny, such as the Town Farm and Sustainability Centre. This is a wonderful alternative plan that explicitly includes space for these projects.
Barry Earsman
Sustainable Maleny Project
www.sustainablemaleny.org
27 Jul 2007Peter SLBCCG has been supportive of a Declared Catchment for the Maleny area for some years and has made submissions to the OUM, Council, EPA, DNR, Aquagen and anyone else who might listen. A previous sticking point is that Council would need to tick it off, perhaps this impediment will be removed.

There are many people in power and influence who will tell you that Declared Catchments are old hat, do nothing and are impossible to get instated. Yet they are a very suitable instrument to protect catchments that supply drinking water and are under risk of over development.

Peter