Community & Business
28 January, 2025
Parkland must stay
THE actions of a Tablelands developer who attempted to sell-off land designated as parkland in a new subdivision at Yungaburra have been labelled deceitful by a Supreme Court Judge, who sent a clear message to developers that such behaviour would not be tolerated.
The case against Cairns Plywoods Pty Ltd was brought by Yungaburra residents Stephen Ducksbury, Keran Thomas, Eddie Hayes (now deceased) and Colleen Young in 2021 after they discovered that the area designated as parkland behind their Newland Street homes would be sold off for more housing.
After three years, the residents are celebrating after Justice James Henry found that Cairns Plywoods had attempted to sell off the parkland behind the Newland Street properties despite marketing the lots as backing onto and overlooking the green space.
In a rare move, Justice Henry put an injunction on the developer from using the land for any other purpose than parkland and also ordered that it could not transfer or dispose of its interest in the land other than to Tablelands Regional Council for parkland.
In his decision, Justice Henry described the developer’s actions as “misleading, deceptive and deceitful conduct”.
The Judge found that the developer had not revealed its true intentions to potential buyers when marketing the Newland St blocks but had, instead, made false representations to those buyers.
“To make matters worse, even after the purchases occurred, the developer still did not reveal its actual plans,” he wrote.
“It sat back quietly while some duped buyers incurred the additional expense of building houses specifically designed to facilitate a view over the parkland which the developer planned to transform into a view over more house lots.”
The Judge stated the developer had been “knowingly false” in its representations about the parkland remaining as such.
“The developer knew, but did not want prospective purchasers to know, that it was planning to turn parkland aspect into residential development,” his decision states.
“It did not want them to know because they would not pay as much (for their blocks) and it would not profit as much.
“The buyers ended up stuck with ownership of property they would not have bought but for the developer’s contraventions of the law.”
Justice Henry also found that Tablelands Regional Council had some role in how the matter came about.
“The local council, to which the parkland was supposed to revert to under the development’s approval, made the odd decision it did not want the parkland and preferred for the developer to own and develop it into more residential blocks,” his decision states.
“The developer jumped at this unheralded future opportunity to make more money but could not resist the temptation to make more money out of the existing blocks too.”
According to evidence given at the six-day trial by Cairns Plywoods director Dean Rankine, when he delivered a works application to council in May 2018, an officer asked whether he wanted to use the parkland for development.
“The explanation for this query was that council supposedly did not want any parkland because it already had too much,” Justice Henry’s decision states.
“It was not apparent whether that was the actual reason for the curious view that council should forfeit such future public space for the growing village of Yungaburra.”
In bringing down his decision, the Judge also ordered costs be awarded to the plaintiffs.
Last week, the Newland St residents said they were “delighted that after a long and costly struggle to regain what we paid for when purchasing our blocks, we have achieved a successful outcome”.
They said they were also pleased that in an area of increasing urban development, they had been able to secure more open space for Yungaburra.
The residents say they are currently in discussions with TRC councillors to explore ways in which council may be able to dedicate the land as park for the benefit of all of the town.
