The results are in and it is official, people cannot wait to build in the Whitsundays. Figures this week confirmed the belief that the Whitsundays was luring big time developers – more than $151m worth of development was approved by council last year.
This figure represented a $100m increase in approvals from 2000, when council gave the nod to $48.1m worth of development, which at the time was a staggering amount given the shire’s size compared to other centres including Mackay and Rockhampton.
According to Whitsunday Shire councillor Charlie Large, it confirmed the Whitsundays had become an attractive market for developers and purchasers. Strangely, only 456 projects were approved in 2005, almost 50 less than five years ago however Cr Large said the reason was simple. “We are seeing much bigger developments being put up around the shire and that is why the number of approvals has dropped, but the quality of projects is of a much larger scale five years on,” he said.
The figure also represented a small chunk of the planned development for the Whitsundays, with the Whitsunday Development Corporation predicting a further $2 billion of projects planned for the shire over the coming years.
