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Time for public support of Sippy Downs Plan
9 June 2007
We recently had a joint meeting of University senior staff with Maroochy Shire Council officers and local government and State politicians to discuss a range of issues associated with the Sippy Downs Town Plan.
It was a highly productive interchange, with Maroochy Shire Council strongly committed to a Town Plan, which is currently open for public consultation. It will ensure the emergence of a distinctive university town that could set a new standard for a planned community, integrating opportunities for working, playing and living in a well connected but highly pedestrianised mixed-use urban environment, where the commercial dimension is just one among many emphases. The town and the University will complement one another in an exemplary way.
If we have cooperative private developers in the mix, and that looks a stronger possibility at the moment than at any previous stage, then we are likely to see a very different township, and not just another commercial shopping centre, indistinguishable from anywhere else in the country.
Many of the players are currently working cooperatively to ensure a good outcome. If that happens, Sippy Downs will become an urban centre with great educational institutions, but also be a magnet for new technology driven businesses linked with University research, boutique shops, mixed density accommodation, as well as sporting and leisure venues. All of these will be driven by new urbanism concepts and with carefully conceived design features.
Maroochy Shire Council is to be congratulated in creating this Town Plan, and every concerned resident, not just locally, but throughout the region, should look at it carefully and lend their support if they feel able to do so.
It will be concerned residents supporting a well-conceived university town plan that will provide the support that Maroochy Shire Council needs at this time to be in a position to counter any attempt to compromise the integrated nature of the township.
All of us at Sippy Downs, I am sure, still believe that this area can be a distinctive jewel in the regional crown.
Professor Paul Thomas AM is Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Sunshine Coast.