Our Yaroomba... community engagement.

This is the second small article in this series, as follows. You can also find information about the author Adrian Just and the previous article/s below.

(1) Finding middle ground.

Our Yaroomba....(2) Community engagement.

(3) Density vs site cover.

(4) Yaroomba environmental issues.

(5) Local scale and meaning.

(6) Nimby and c.o.o.l.u.m.

The Seisui precinct sits on what was part of the Hyatt Coolum, which operated 'with' (not just in) the community for the last 25 years. During the tough economic times the Hyatt engaged with locals by way of offering access to sports, entertainment, hospitality, investment, holidays, functions, the arts, and of course significant employment and involvement in the long supply chain that resorts require. The Hyatt also introduced Coolum to a world wide audience. Locals actively engaged with the resort and were proud of the facility as a long standing asset of the community, much as you might feel about a university or a hospital.

Running a large resort is a big risk and one of the hardest parts is to maintain enormous amounts of necessary employment to keep things going, matched against uncertain visits by paying guests. While locals were engaged with a wide range of activities these actually helped to fill the significant gaps between peak tourist seasons. So it was a win win scenario.

Then an outsider comes along and says he's going to make it better, with big flash new buildings, dinosaurs and antique cars, with nary a mention of the beach, the lifestyle, and the locals that helped make the resort a winner. Then almost unbelievably and almost instantaneously, this has all been taken away from the community.

Along come Sekisui with a big flash idea, big development, big tourist plans. In regional Australia, as in many regions of the world, you are not considered a local unless you have been here for 20 years or unless you have made some significant effort for the community, so Sekisui were inevitably seen as outsiders and the original proposal was lumped with the negative association to resorts.

Imagine if the community assessed the proposal based upon their previous positive association with the local resort. Maybe the Sunshine Coast locals deserve to hear actual initiatives that can engage them again with the good experiences they had with the former resort, and, since this is riding on the back of resentment and discord, this needs to be detailed and sincere. Would it matter if these initiatives were basically the same or similar to those used at the former Hyatt? No, it might actually provide some comfort and understanding.

Our Yaroomba.... (1) Finding middle ground.

(ling under their breath about what's happening at Yaroomba, or strutting about after their pyritic victory over the invading developers, and at the same time articles are appearing in the papers about great new deals with big resort companies. Wow, the big end of town coming to little ol Yaroomba! Again, this is a disconnect between what different groups think is going to happen, and the gap seems to be widening from both sides. Everybody is so certain of their position they keep jumping into the media to push their future victory to higher and higher expectations. Someone has to come crashing back to earth, née Yaroomba.

Rather than let this battle keep mounting, and in the expectation that there might one day be a compromise of sorts, what are the steps to looking at some middle ground? How do these groups eventually meet, because that is what the government requires to effectively approve this development. Without some consensus, any approval will leave the Council with winners and losers and they don't want either, or rather, they need both groups on their side for different reasons.

Councils will not intervene to broker these types of consensus because they can be seen to be bias, and this means certain death in local government. The former Premier of the State Government tried to take it under his wing and was roundly outed so it is likely that the current State will not touch it.

Meanwhile this is media fodder made in heaven, well Yaroomba, and they are getting years of mileage out of it. Better still, the issues are so big they can flip flop between them without ever being seen to be taking a side, and of course they will eventually champion the winning side and say they always took this or that view. That's just what the media does.

The planning system has a set of perfunctory consultative rules and these have been followed once, to no success for the developers, so one might think they would be looking for some common understanding this time round. Sensible thinking, but not unless the big end of town shows some humble understanding and offers a fig leaf, or is that a fig tree, or better still maybe a Maleleuca. It is Yaroomba you know.

some perspective about the author

Over the years I have written small articles for the local papers, so this is a series (this is No.1 of 6) about some of the issues regarding the Sekisui development precinct at Yaroomba. This potentially involves over a billion dollars of new development including a 5 star resort, residential, and retirement villages. To give the author some perspective.... 

Adrian Just is a registered architect based at Yaroomba , and is current Chair of the Sunshine Coast region for the Australian Institute of Architects, past president of the Cleantech Industries Association, and sits on the Sunshine Coast Council Cultural Heritage Reference Group. His firm (Archicology t/a) Architecture About People has delivered approximately 200 community projects, and has recently designed 25 townhouses for Sekisui House, currently under construction. He has previous professional experience in environmental management with the State Departments of Environment and Heritage, and the Premiers Office-of-the-Cabinet.

Adrian can be contacted on 0412 117772