Toondah Harbour Redevelopment Vision Unveiled

A COMMUNITY group has revealed a concept plan proposing its vision for the redevelopment of Toondah Harbour.

Toondah Alliance unveiled the Better Plan at a recent event, highlighting an alternative to the proposal made and subsequently withdrawn by Walker Corporation earlier this year.

Walker Corporation’s application, which involved over 3000 apartments, a 400-berth marina and a hotel, was withdrawn in April 2024 after Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek proposed to reject the application on environmental grounds.

Toondah Alliance chairperson Chris Walker said the Minister’s decision was celebrated by the community after over a decade of campaigning against the development, leading the Alliance to work on an alternative plan using a donation from philanthropic entity the Ubuntu Foundation to engage landscape architect John Mongard.

He said the Better Plan addressed the need for improvements at the harbour without private development or impact on the Ramsar wetlands.

“If you’re thinking about what to do in this area, one of the most obvious things to take into account is you don’t dig up the Ramsar wetlands,” Mr Walker said.

“Second is to protect the migratory shorebirds who feed on not just the wetlands here but the nearby shorebird roosts.

“We also figure it’s important to the community to keep the park rather than turning it into a ghetto of high-rise buildings.”

Major infrastructure upgrades in the plan include two multi-storey car parks and upgrades to the passenger and vehicle ferry terminal precinct.

“The current plethora of car parking all over the place is unsightly and sometimes quite inconvenient, so we propose multi-storey carparks to be developed to concentrate the carparking, reduce the footprint and make more land available for parkland,” Mr Walker said.

“We’ve talked to the ferry operators; we’ve got some input from them as to what they see as the future, and they would like some capacity for growth and improvements in facilities.”

Stradbroke Flyer Operations Manager Craig Smith confirmed he had been contacted by Toondah Alliance and said while he agreed that an upgrade was overdue, the concept plan failed to address a few key issues.

“While this is a concept plan, it has not taken into consideration the additional resources that we would require to continue to operate such as refuelling arrangements and storage for the servicing and maintenance of marine fleets,” Mr Smith said.

“The plan is designed from an engineer’s mindset and not of the user mindset, with pontoons and vehicle ferry landing points not aligned with channels.

“The plan also doesn’t show how this is going to be implemented and what disruptions are going to occur whilst the harbour is being built.”

Mr Walker said the Toondah Alliance had been dispersing the plan to relevant stakeholders, including Redland City Council and Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation (QYAC), which owns the native title over the land.

QYAC chair Cameron Costello said, as the Traditional Owners of the land, QYAC remained committed to ensuring any development at Toondah Harbour aligned with the interests of the Quandamooka people, respecting cultural and environmental responsibilities.

“QYAC will continue to engage with the State Government and all the relevant stakeholders to ensure that the development reflects the rights, interests, and long-term wellbeing of the Quandamooka people,” he said.

A Redland City Council spokesperson said the council had long advocated for an upgrade to the ferry terminal at Toondah Harbour and listed it as a key project in Redland City Council’s State Election Priorities 2024.

“The Toondah Harbour redevelopment project at Cleveland remains a Priority Development Area (PDA),” the spokesperson said.

“The agreement between Redland City Council, Economic Development Queensland and Walker Group, as the preferred development partner to deliver the project, remains current.

“Council is not able to provide comment on possible alternative plans, implications, or the commercial agreement until alternative options have been finalised.

“Council will continue to work closely with the Queensland Government and key partners for vital upgrades to the Toondah Harbour port.”

Mr Walker acknowledged certain hurdles involved in the plan, such as ownership of the land utilised in the plan as well as funding.

“The council and state government have funded ferry terminal upgrades at SMBI and Weinam Creek, why not do it here?” he posed.

“They’d decided that their prime objective was to facilitate a huge real estate development on the water, but that’s off the table now, so they have to consider the appropriate public investment in public facilities.”

Toondah Alliance member Kathy Petrik said:

“If you could just improve this area so that it is environmentally sensitive, that’s the message that we received from the community during this 10 year exercise.

“We want this to be taken into consideration, we know there’ll be changes, but this is a serious piece of work.”