The family pushing for a new festival site on the Sunshine Coast is planning to build a $35 million tourist park nearby.
Coochin Creek Property, directed by Robert and David Comiskey and their father Paul, has applied to build a 150-site tourist park on 43ha of former strawberry farm at the end of Roys Road.
The site is east of the 150ha turf and strawberry farm that the Comiskey Group wants to transform into the largest festival and outdoor event site in Australia, hosting up to six events a year attracting up to 35,000 people a day.
Another of their companies, Comiskey Management Services, already has approval to build an eco-park of 100 campsites and ancillary facilities on the 43ha of land, which adjoins the Coochin Creek Esplanade and Pumicestone National Park.
The eco-park application was approved by the Planning and Environment Court late last year after the company appealed Sunshine Coast Council’s refusal of it in 2022.
The court approval is subject to a number of conditions, including that no more than 300 guests and staff be accommodated overnight, that the reception/administration building not be used as a food and drink outlet or bar for the general public, and that a number of improvements be carried out on Roys Road.
The new application seeks to increase the number of sites by a third to 150 and alter the mix from campsites only to 75 campsites and 75 cabins with one, two and three bedrooms.
The proposal now before the council would also double the floor area of the reception/administration building to 1000sqm and introduce a water park, putt putt golf, jumping pillow, indoor recreation centre and basketball and pickleball courts, in addition to the pool and tennis court that were already approved.
The previous eco-park application had described the site as three to five times larger than a tourist park, recognising visitors would be coming for the “natural environment offerings by the eco-park as opposed to differing reasons for visiting a beachside tourist park”.
The new application still refers to the proposal as an eco-park and maintains that nature-based tourism will continue.
The Comiskeys have the Sandstone Point Hotel and Big4 Holiday Park, Eatons Hill Hotel, Eumundi Imperial Hotel and The Doonan.
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A planning report with the new application indicates they have observed a growing demand for holiday cabins.
“With respect to the introduction of cabins, Coochin Creek Property Pty Ltd have utilised their extensive knowledge and experience in the tourist park sector and recognise there is a growing market trend and demand for enhanced family accommodation purposes in the form of holiday cabins,” it says.
“It is important to note that whether it is defined nature-based tourism or a tourist park, the proposed facility has a clear focus to provide for an ‘eco park’ and associated activities that enable guests to appreciate, interpret and conserve the natural environment.”
It goes on to say guests will still be able to appreciate the natural environment through eco-tours along Pumicestone Passage and activities such as sailing, boating, kayaking, stand-up paddleboarding, swimming, fishing and bushwalking.
Access to the park would be along an access road on an easement through an adjacent property and there would be parking for each site plus 63 visitor parking spaces.
It says Roys Road is sometimes inundated but proposes two flood gauges at the lowest points in the road that would feed information to the onsite park manager, as per the previous court approval.
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The park boom gate would be shut and guests would not be permitted to leave the site if the road was flooded. They would be evacuated to a hillock in extreme events, the report says.
It says that some parts of the park site would be within the one in 100-year flood zone but cabins and campsites would be above it.
The application proposes to irrigate an area of the site with effluent treated at an on-site sewage plant and to direct stormwater through bioretention basis and swales before it is discharged into Pumicestone Passage and Pumicestone National Park.
“It is important to note that the existing strawberry farming use has resulted in the site being primarily cleared of vegetation over time and requires the use of large quantities of chemicals adjacent to the adjoining sensitive Pumicestone Passage and National Park,” it says.
“The proposed eco-park use would result in significant landscaping additions throughout the site and stop the chemical usage/spraying of crops in such close proximity to these sensitive receiving environments, thereby resulting in an improved environmental outcome.”
The report says the park, as non-urban land free of urban infrastructure, will protect the landscape values of the regional inter-urban break between the Sunshine Coast and Caboolture and Brisbane’s north.
It says there is a growing demand for caravan parks and there will be a shortfall of 900 sites by 2046, so there is an economic need for the park.
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