A deep-fried issue
According to McDonalds’ website, the company is all about “creating feel-good Macca’s moments for our people, customers and communities” but what happens when the community tells Ronald McDonald to please take his burgers and fries elsewhere?
Guess what? Suddenly, feel-good Ronald is replaced by corporate Ronald who ignores the wishes of the people who lodged 422 objections to plans to put a 24-hour McDonalds drive-through outlet smack in the middle of a Hendra residential area and 200m from a school and goes ahead regardless.
Lord Mayor Schrinner’s Brisbane City Council, to absolutely no one’s surprise, sided with the billion-dollar American-headquartered conglomerate and approved the development application, the pleadings of ratepayers kicked into the weeds with the council safe, perhaps, in the knowledge that the Mums and Dads of Hendra could never afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to pursue their fight through the courts. What a shameful betrayal of the community and further proof, if any was needed, that the appeals process is broken and the province solely of the wealthy.
Happy meal, anyone?
More Newstead builds
The Energex electricity transmission tower in Skyring Terrace is set to be flanked by highrise apartments with a development application (A006870288) lodged by the Consolidated Property Group for a 25-storey building comprising 235 apartments to be built on the vacant site on its western side and an announcement by Kokoda Property that it has finally settled on the purchase of the former Riverside Marine “sand pit” site on eastern side.
Kokoda CEO Mark Stevens said that the project, dubbed Teneriffe Banks, would now proceed and that a “Sydney builder” had been engaged while declining to name the company. The CPG property will be built by Hutchinsons.
Mr Stevens said demolition of the former community centre, once heritage listed and then curiously and handily un-listed by the Brisbane City Council, would begin over the coming months.
Last time I checked the asking price for a three-bedroom riverfront apartment on Level 3 at Teneriffe Banks was $6 million.
Night Feast returns
Nice to see Night Feast (October 15 – November 9) returning to New Farm Park with strong support from the city’s restaurant community.
Some residents living in the immediate area are less than enthusiastic about the noise, crowds and traffic that it generates but I think the principle of the greater good applies here.
Not your average cup of Joe
No column would be complete without your correspondent whining about the rising cost of his morning cup of coffee.
Stopping for a cup in the course of our morning walk – my wife sprints and I stumble in her wake – we paid $14 for two cups at a café that forms part of the Howard Smith Wharves precinct. At what point, you’d have to wonder, do people turn away.
Creative embellishment
This month’s Hyperbole Award goes to the developer seeking approval to build 1100 apartments in six towers, five of them of 30 storeys, on a site in Donkin Street at West End.
A monstrous blot on the landscape? Certainly not, for according to architects Studio Plus it will “celebrate the meeting of river and city.”
How nice. I’m sure local residents will be dancing in the streets to celebrate this junction and the prospect of thousands more people and cars descending on their suburb.
Flying the flag
In the light of recent events, I decided to show my love of country by displaying a modestly sized Australian flag on our balcony.
According to the Department of the Prime Minister’s website, you can obtain a gratis flag by contacting your federal MP and so I wrote to our local federal member, Labor’s Madonna Jarrett, saying I was a resident of and on the electoral roll of the federal seat of Brisbane and would like to respectfully request the provision of an Australian flag.
Alas, Ms Jarrett’s office has just informed me that due to a “limited budget”, I won’t be getting my flag.
I’ve got a pair of thongs and a pair of undies emblazoned with the Aussie flag that I could dangle from the balcony but have been threatened with divorce should I do so.
Maybe the council could step up and send all ratepayers an Aussie flag in place of the expensive newsletters we now receive telling us what a great job Lord Mayor Schrinner is doing.
