Furthermore, given the interest shown by Caloundra City Council Green Hills has also arranged for Division one Councillor Dick Newman to facilitate the meeting.

The group is principally concerned the SEQRP proposes an urban footprint that is about three times the area allotted for urban purposes in Maleny under CCC's recently adopted City Plan.

Meanwhile, Mr Summers who assisted the community with submissions on City Plan, many of which were accepted by CCC, will present a structured four-fold approach to the issues this coming Saturday including:

1. Identifying what a regional plan is and how it fits with other local government planning documents.
2. Examine the regional plan and its implications for Maleny, Witta and Conondale.
3. Draw relationships between the regional plan and CCC's City plan.
4. Identify the implications of the regional plan for Maleny's future.

"There are serious implications for Maleny," Mr Summers said.   "Significant changes would be needed to the City Plan to bring it in line with the SEQRP and those changes may result in significant effects on the lifestyles enjoyed by Maleny's residents."  Mr Summers added that he was not trying to "excite the community" and that he hoped CCC would reach a similar conclusion to his in requesting changes to the SEQRP, thus enabling a united council and community to the state government on any modifications.

One of the ways the SEQRP works is to set minimum lot sizes for some types of development and identifies overall limits to urban areas.   It's the first time in Queensland's planning history that there has been a proposed plan that has legal force and effect operating at a regional level.   Previously there were State Planning Policies affecting the operation of local government planning schemes, according to Mr Summers.

"Local governments and courts will have to consider the SEQRP in making decisions on development applications," said Mr Summers. "Where local planning schemes are inconsistent with the SEQRP, local governments will have to amend those plans to bring then into line with the SEQRP.

If you would like to view Mr Summers reports prior to the meeting, visit his website www.paulsummersplanning.com.au and click the Maleny Community Groups link to the left of the page.

Meanwhile, the OUM adhered to its comments in TRN last week, stating that the SEQRP was a discussion document and that the inclusion of land in the urban footprint does not necessarily imply that those particular parcels of land will be developed for urban purposes.

Green Hills is looking for a good turnout at the meeting, during which more than half the duration has been tabled as a forum for resident's questions.   Paul Summers and Green Hills are looking for the public's response to the plan so that they can register their issues with the OUM by the February 28 cut-off date imposed by the OUM.

"In order to achieve the plan, the OUM is going to need to receive a lot of submissions from the ordinary people of Maleny on this issue," said Mr Summers.   "Not just those in planning or ecological groups."

Photo: Urban footprints ... Map Shows the current City Plan (hatched)

 and the area identified by the SEQ Regional Plan (red).