Article: Homes face demolition for bridge

[ozbob]

From the Queensland Times click here!

Homes face demolition for bridge

Homes face demolition for bridge

15th May 2010

IPSWICH residents are outraged their homes will be swallowed up to make way for a bridge to ease congestion in the CBD.

Ipswich City Council claims the bridge across the Bremer River linking North and East Ipswich is still in the early planning phase.

However, residents of Canning Street in North Ipswich have been sent letters telling them their houses will be resumed next year.

The residents were told their properties are needed because the bridge approach will bisect nearby Norths rugby league ground.

The council letter says the residents have to move out because their properties are needed "for public recreation purposes".

Norths Rugby League Club says it is facing the risky prospect of having to move if the bridge goes ahead.

Meanwhile, rumours abound that houses will have to be resumed to widen Jacaranda Street on the East Ipswich side of the bridge.

Council works committee chairman Trevor Nardi said talk of resumptions on Jacaranda Street was "pie in the sky", but he sympathised with Canning Street residents.

"Somewhere down the track we'll need that new bridge. I've always said it would be closer to eight years," Cr Nardi said.

"In the short term Jacaranda Street would not have to be four lanes but it would be in the long term. In Canning Street, I'd like to talk to the residents and the council officers to get both sides."

The council says it will have to buy up to six properties in the street and promised to "seek to negotiate a mutually agreeable price based on an independent market value of the property."

Marilyn Dumpleton, 59, and her 63-year-old husband Sid have lived in Canning Street for 25 years and planned to stay there after Sid retires from the railways next year.

"Where are we going to get a place for what they are going to pay us for this place? It's already been rezoned to recreational land," Mrs Dumpleton said.

A woman who lives beside the Dumpletons said the council's approach upset her.

"We understand compulsory acquisition, it's the method they used," said the woman who didn't want her name published. "We just got a letter basically saying, 'We're taking your house; there's nothing you can do about it'."

None of the people The QT spoke to in Jacaranda Street knew about resumptions, although Brenda Stephens welcomed the idea.

"It's got to happen for the betterment of the town," Mrs Stephens said. "I haven't got any problems losing my house as long as you get enough money to relocate in Ipswich."

[ButFli]

Resuming houses to make way for a bridge is fair enough but resuming houses so a Sporting club doesn't have to move? That is a bit suss.

[Golliwog]

Does legislation even allow that? I know there was a little bit of a kerfuffle when they first started the busways as the legislation (as I understand it) only allowed for resumptions for railway as when it was originally written busways were unheard of.

[#Metro]

Land may be aquired under the Acquisition of Land Act 1967
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=Aquisition+of+land+act+1967

[ButFli]

So it seems they can resume land for a bridge, a recreation ground and a not-for-profit organisation. I'm sure the present situation could fit into any of those but just because something is legal does mean it is right.

Parliament could easily change the law so Government could resume land for whatever purpose they wanted with no compensation. At least this time it fulfils a public purpose.