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Redland City Council says a prestigious private school has miscalculated the number of koalas that will be affected by a plan to cut down 650 trees of prime habitat for new sporting facilities.
Ormiston College in the Redlands, south-east of Brisbane, has asked Queensland’s Deputy Premier and Planning Minister Jarrod Bleijie for special permission to demolish the koala habitat to expand the school.
The area is a well-known hub for the marsupials, and the plan has sparked backlash in parts of the community.
A koala spotted on Ormiston College campus. Credit: Una Sandeman
The council knocked back a similar development application from the school in 2021, arguing it would interfere with koala habitat and was prohibited by planning regulations.
The latest plans would see three new junior sporting ovals built on a block next to the school, as well as a number of buildings as part of the school’s new masterplan.
The co-ed, non-denominational Christian school takes students from Prep to year 12. It costs between $13,000 and $18,000 a year, and is known for sporting achievement.
The area is a well-known hub for the marsupials.Credit: Una Sandeman
The ecological report submitted with the school’s plans said a third of the koala habitat on the site would need to be knocked down.
“It should also be noted that clearing will occur in areas of the site where low level [transitory] koala activity was recorded,” it said.
The council questioned that assessment in an August letter to Bleijie, saying it supported the project in principle, but called for the koala population to be re-examined.
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“Further investigation into koala activity on the site is strongly warranted considering the high level of contradiction with the ecological report findings and the historical records from [the Atlas of Living Australia],” the officer wrote.
The Atlas of Living Australia, a database that tracks biodiversity, showed more than 3500 koala sightings within a 1km radius of the school.
Citizen scientists have logged 23 koala sightings on the block on the corner of Dundas and Delancey streets in the past year.
In a statement to this masthead, the council said there had been a significant koala population in the area for the past four decades.
“Based on this, the applicant’s conclusion of low koala usage of the site may not be supportable, and council has suggested that further investigation be undertaken,” a spokesperson said.
In April, the college submitted a Ministerial Infrastructure Development (MID) application, which can override any decision made by the council.
Public consultation for the application closed in September. The submissions, which were acquired by local activist group Redlands 2030 through a right to information request, were overwhelmingly against the school’s expansion.
Photos attached to submissions show koalas reportedly in the trees on the block, and many were critical of the school’s plans to replace 652 mature trees with 526 saplings on the campus.
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Koalas were listed as endangered in Queensland in February 2022, and the state has zoned the area around the school as a koala priority area.
The block itself is also deemed a koala habitat by the state and sits inside a habitat restoration area. In 2018, the council made Ormiston its first koala-safe neighbourhood.
One of the factors the planning minister must look at is the environmental assessment of the project, which was undertaken by Brisbane based JWA Ecological Consultants for Urbis, the company running the project.
In Urbis’s MID application, the company said there would be a “net-zero loss to existing koala habitat” and the project would incorporate a koala action plan.
Ormiston headmaster Michael Hornby said the school had taken extensive measures to ensure koala safety, and JWA had surveyed koala populations to strengthen and protect the habitat corridor.
He said the plan aligned with relevant laws and was centred around community consultation.
“The safety of our local koalas has been a priority throughout the entire planning process,” he said.
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