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Work is expected to start in January on a new specialist medical centre across the road from Queensland’s largest private hospital, which lost its Supreme Court appeal this week to stop it being built.
Ramsay Health Care Australia, the owner of Greenslopes Private Hospital, took Brisbane City Council and Ron Build Pty Ltd to court in an attempt to prevent the new Hunter Street medical centre going ahead.
After losing in the Planning and Environment Court last year, Ramsay appealed to the Supreme Court, which gave the new medical centre the green light.
The proposed medical centre at 68-72 Hunter Street, Greenslopes, which the Greenslopes Private Hospital tried to prevent in court.Credit: Ron Build
In their judgment, Chief Justice Helen Bowskill, along with Justices Sue Brown and Thomas Bradley, dismissed Ramsay’s appeal.
“No mistakes or errors in law have been shown to have been made by the primary judge,” Bowskill said in the published ruling.
“I would refuse leave to appeal, with costs.”
At the centre of Ramsay’s appeal was confusion over the definition of the word “complementary”.
Under the City Plan, there was a requirement for new developments in the area to provide “a mix of centre and community activities that is complementary to the Greenslopes Private Hospital” – but the plan did not specify what complementary meant in that context.
“There was evidence before the primary judge [Planning and Environment Court Judge Amanda McDonnell] that, from a town planning perspective, ‘complementary’ is ‘about uses that support one another’,” Bowskill said.
“In addition, there are other parts of the ordinary meaning of the word, as informed by dictionary definitions, which seem more apt in this context than the one adopted by the primary judge: for example, ‘to suit or go well with, enhance the good qualities of…’.
“The primary judge appears to have been persuaded, by Ramsay, to accept an ordinary meaning which imposes a high bar for complementarity (‘that which completes or makes perfect’). Having done so, however, her Honour was persuaded that the Ron Build development met that high bar, on the basis of findings of fact from which there can be no appeal.”
Ron Build is owned by Brisbane developer Ronnie Tarabay.
With the court case concluded, Ron Build was expected to start construction in January. Three homes that had been on the site – along with the former Press & Brew Espresso cafe – have already been removed.
The medical centre, with its 15 consulting suites, was expected to be open by mid-2027.
The council approved the development in September 2023 and Ramsay launched its appeal to the Planning and Environment Court the following month.
The court ruled in the council’s and Ron Build’s favour last December, which prompted Ramsay’s unsuccessful appeal to the Supreme Court.
The question of whether it intended to appeal to a higher court was put to Ramsay, but the company declined to comment.
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