Upper Coomera Development Proceeds after Possum Captured
NORM Rix has reached the end of a 12-month and $2 million saga, which all started with just one little possum.
Mr Rix, a Gold Coast developer, contacted the Bulletin yesterday to say the possum which was at the centre of a dispute between his company and the Gold Coast City Council, had been safely relocated.
Because of the possum, council officers were demanding that the developer leave more trees standing on the site at Days Rd, Upper Coomera where Mr Rix planned to build a 109-lot housing project.
The six trees involved would have removed six lots from the plan and caused the project to be unviable, so Mr Rix embarked on a costly legal battle.
After paying costs of about $2 million, he eventually won by agreeing to leave one of the trees in place and to relocate the possum.
It is not known how much of ratepayers’ funds were used to fight the legal case but it is believed to have been a significant sum.
Now the possum has been moved to Ruffles Rd Reserve, with the developer even going to the extent of having a house built for the marsupial in its new tree.
‘‘We had to use a cherry picker to get him out of the tree,’’ Mr Rix said yesterday.
Possum problem resolved for $2m
LUCY ARDERN ardernl@goldcoast.com.au
The Gold Coast Bulletin
17 Jan 2012
NORM Rix has reached the end of a 12-month and $2 million saga, which all started with just one little possum. Mr Rix, a Gold Coast developer, contacted the Bulletin yesterday to say the possum which was at the centre of a dispute between his company…read more…
(The Gold Coast Bulletin, 17 Jan 2012, Page13)
This is a ridiculous waist of rate payers’ money and a good example of environmental extremism gone mad. What if a homeless person decided to build a tree house in one of the trees in this area, would the council spend an enormous amount of money to fight for his/her right to stay there? And would the developer pay him/her 2 million dollars to relocate? I don’t think so, I think they would call the police and have the homeless person forcibly removed (and rightly so). So when did we start considering the well being of animals above that of humans?
It’s no wonder we are paying such high council rates to the Gold Coast Council. The possum could have been bagged and shipped out for a couple of hundred dollars or less!
This is just plain crazy!!!
Absolutely agree Phillip.
But you should know by now that the life of a human being is worth far less than a shark, dolphin, turtle or possum. We’re just encroaching on ‘their’ domain so we need to eradicate ourselves.
I kid you not, in 5 year time, the pest control industry will be obsolete because the environmental extremists (terrorists?) will pass laws to ensure that the life of an ant, cockroach and spider is more valuable than us. After all we’re just encroaching on ‘their’ turf.