3 days ago
Sunshine Coast residents unsure if homes will be resumed for transport project
A man on Queensland's Sunshine Coast says he and his neighbours have been forced into a "horrible" limbo as they wait to learn if the government will take their homes.
Shaun Taylor said he was told before last year's state election that his Mountain Creek home had been marked for resumption to allow for the eventual construction of a rail line.
But the LNP government said in March that it would renege on its election promise to build the line to Maroochydore, instead stopping construction at Birtinya and running a "metro-style" bus service the rest of the way as part of a new multi-billion-dollar public transport project dubbed The Wave.
That announcement was initially met with relief by about 10 property owners at Mountain Creek, including Mr Taylor.
But nearly six months on from The Wave announcement, and a year since discovering their homes were in the firing line, the residents are still struggling to get answers about the fate of their homes.
Mr Taylor said they were unable to move on with their lives until they did.
The electrician settled in Causeway Court nine years ago with his young family.
They believed they had found their forever home, but Mr Taylor said they could not even sell it without losing a considerable amount of their initial housing investment.
"We thought, 'Oh, let's just move', but we spoke to an agent and they said you won't get your value for your property. If anything, they'll low-ball you," Mr Taylor said.
"There's two people down the street from us whose houses weren't even on the [resumption] list, they want to sell up and retire. But they can't because nobody's interested. They've had their house on the market for almost six months.
Mr Taylor said he spoke to local member Brent Mickelberg in March but had not spoken to him since.
Instead, residents received a letter which included a "direct line" to someone within the transport department to talk to about the project.
"First of all the number didn't work, and then when I did get through about three weeks ago they didn't even have a design team or a planning team," Mr Taylor said.
Mr Mickelberg was not available for an interview.
In a statement, a Department of Transport and Main Roads spokesperson said investigations were still underway into a preferred corridor for The Wave's "metro-style" bus service.
"The Queensland government understands the impact this may have on property owners and is committed to progressing this work as quickly as possible," the spokesperson said.
"Investigations into the preferred corridor are expected to be completed in 2026 and our priority will be to confirm impacts on properties."
According to state government figures, public transport patronage across the Sunshine Coast region stands at less than three per cent.
A dedicated transport route, known as the CAMCOS corridor, has been set aside for 25 years.
But new alignments, including the one that left the Mountain Creek residents in the firing line, have been made in recent years to support the technical requirements for Queensland Rail to safely operate trains.
Alex Jago from advocacy group Better Transport Queensland said he did not want give affected residents "false hope" but it was possible that buses could run along the original corridor.
"The difficulty of putting a train line into Maroochydore was one of the drivers for going to a bus solution there," Mr Jago said.
"A bus is a lot more forgiving in terms of how steep it can go, how tight it can turn."
He said The Wave would be a "game-changer" for the region — one of the largest urban areas in Australia by population to not have a dedicated, fixed-route public transport system.
"Not just for the Olympics but for everything we do from the 2030s onwards," Mr Jago said.
"There's a heck of a lot of people moving to the southern part of the Sunshine Coast. That does create massive travel demand, and a lot of those people will need to travel to Brisbane.
