Court lets Hawthorne childcare appeal proceed on a revised plan

Only one element was contested. Harmony Balmoral Pty Ltd, a co-respondent by election, opposed the proposal to restrict the Riding Road driveway to left-in and left-out access, replacing the all-turns access in the application when the council decided it. The council and the other parties did not oppose the change. The judgment records that the fifth co-respondent, the Body Corporate for Mirador CTS 43200, was excused from the hearing.

The court’s order is that the appeal proceeds on the application as changed. The judgment does not decide whether the childcare centre itself should be approved.

The numbers

The judgment lists the changes ITK sought. Gross floor area falls from 1,004 to 986 square metres, and deep planting rises from 10 to 10.5 per cent of the site area. The Riding Road crossover moves about 0.9 metres south. The car park and turning areas are reconfigured so refuse vehicles can enter and leave in forward gear, and landscaping, acoustic barriers, fenestration, articulation and roof form are refined.

On traffic, Harmony Balmoral’s engineer, Mr Trevilyan, said the access change would send up to 40 per cent more development-generated traffic onto local streets, with about half of it using Lawson Street. He estimated about 23 vehicles an hour in the peak period would be directed into Lawson Street, against existing volumes of about 50 vehicles an hour and 550 a day.

ITK’s engineer, Mr Holland, said the increase had to be weighed against Lawson Street’s status as a neighbourhood road, for which City Plan anticipates about 2,500 vehicles a day. The judge accepted Mr Holland’s unchallenged evidence that a reasonable portion of drivers would turn left in peak periods anyway, because right turns on Riding Road mean waiting for a break in two lanes of queued traffic. The judge found Mr Trevilyan’s other points not compelling, and found it unnecessary to resolve the dispute over his travel-route assumptions.

Harmony Balmoral also argued the public had been denied a chance to comment. The court noted the delegate’s report recorded 543 submissions on the original application, and that some of those had already raised a possible left-in, left-out arrangement and the redistribution of traffic to surrounding streets.

What’s next

With the minor-change question settled, the appeal continues on the revised plans before the Planning and Environment Court. The judgment does not set a hearing date for the appeal itself.

The judge also noted that ITK’s experts argued the changes give a better outcome than the refused application, and said that is not the relevant test.

For another Queensland planning decision, see our story on Redlands homes fast-tracked.

Source: [2026] QPEC 43, Queensland Judgments. Coverage by The Australian Developer.