While the major battle continues - (to try and stop the subdivision occurring) another battle has begun.
The basics are that Roy Lavis has built ANOTHER road on the hillside to join his property (the one where all the battle is going on) and his son's property. It was built originally, we believe, because his son needed concrete poured at his house but his access road was so steep they could not get trucks in. So they simply pushed a road through conservation listed rainforest across from the Lavis access road to the second property and then bitumened it.
No approvals were applied for, to any authority.
Since the debate about the main subdivision arose the existence of this road has come to light. In addition, because it was poorly constructed whenever heavy rains occurred the side edges of the road have eroded and washed tons of red mud down the driveways and into Mansfield Street. The silt has filled gutters, run into the creek and clogged neighbours yards and driveways.
After notifying the council of the problem the area has been inspected and the council is aware of the problem. However, Mr. Lavis has claimed he did not know he needed a permit and has now applied, retrospectively, for approval to build the road.
Council has told us that this is common and they, and the courts, tend to approve these applications without penalty - if they would have approved them in the first place, had the application been put in appropriately. The example given was the householder who puts up a fence or a garden shed not realizing they needed approval first.
Well the principle may be reasonable but in this case given the knowledge the council already has about the fragile nature of the hillslopes, given the works are now known to be contributing to erosion and pollution, given that Roy Lavis is Cairns' biggest developer who should know about development approval requirements, given that very few garden sheds get driven through rainforest on hillslopes.....it is impossible to agree that this is the same as a householder in Mooroobool erecting a lawn locker without approval.
In this instance the road is creating further damage and just because it has already been built does not mean it should be allowed to stay nor that it can't be rehabilitated back to rainforest. At the same time it is hard to agree that the builder of the road should not have to face some legal ramifications for doing this work without approval, which has caused damage to others and the environment.
