Developer hopes to cut out council for golf course resort, housing approval

The developer behind the proposal for a five-star hotel, industrial park and housing on rural land south-east of Brisbane has laid out plans that could bypass council and see a state-sanctioned development area established.

Stephen Williams, best known for Riverlink in Ipswich and West Village in inner-Brisbane’s West End, says he is confident the state will add the land in Mount Cotton to the urban footprint and declare it a priority development area, paving the way for major changes.

The land, largely comprising chicken farms and a winery, is in the Redland City Council area, which voted to support an investigation to include the area in the urban footprint earlier this year .

Williams said he had initially been working with chicken farm owners Darwalla and Golden Cockerel, who were seeking a new use for their land as they planned to move their operations further away from the expanding Redlands population.

“The reason that opportunity came up is because of the avian flu risk for having chickens in the Redlands area, and the impact that could have on the activities of Golden Cockerel,” Williams said.

Other landholders represented by Williams include local newspaperman and developer Warren Pryde and the Morris family, who own the nearby Sirromet Winery.

Williams said he was confident applications currently with the state planner and Economic Development Queensland would result in the area being included in the urban footprint and deemed a PDA, which would enable the state to decide what happens on the land, not the council.

The entire urban footprint of south-east Queensland is currently under review, with a draft plan expected by the end of the year.

“We have the ambition to meet some of the missing accommodation needs that are likely before the Olympic Games in 2032,” he said.

Under the plan, Sirromet would be transformed from a winery and events space with glamping facilities to a 250-room resort, complete with an 18-hole golf course, conference rooms and permanent villas.

A masterplan seen by this masthead also includes a wellness centre, an expansion of the glamping facilities, horticultural gardens, a solar farm, and a wastewater treatment plant.

Williams said it was business as usual at the winery for now, but that would be the first part of the plan to go ahead.

The winery would connect the area to the already approved Southern Thornlands PDA. The southern end, made up of land owned by the chicken companies and pegged for a “technology park” and district centre that would include shops and condensed residential housing, would almost hug the already developed part of Mount Cotton.

Between them is the land owned by Pryde and quarry owner Dick Karreman, who is on the project but represented by local developer Fiteni, Williams said.