Brisbane council unveils 20-year Mount Coot-tha draft plan with no zipline

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said the staged approach would let the council work out what can be built and paid for. "That will allow us to systematically go through and map out projects that can be delivered and what they will cost," he said from the Mount Coot-tha lookout on Tuesday. "This is a 20-year plan, so it doesn't have to all be done at once, it can be done in an affordable way." The summit would be prioritised because of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games, he said.

A zipline on the mountain was pledged in 2016 when the LNP went to the election and was championed by former lord mayor Graham Quirk; the multimillion-dollar project was designed and assessed by the council. Plans for a separate giant zipline over the Brisbane River, from the cliffs at Kangaroo Point to the City Botanic Gardens, were funded by the state government earlier this year.

Schrinner confirmed the mountain plan contains "no ziplines". "You won't see Mount Coot-tha turned into a theme park, you will see it as a nature-based place that people can come and enjoy," he said. He commended the agency for a plan that "strikes a balance between protecting our unique natural environment and providing plenty of things for people to see and do".

Community consultation shaped the draft, according to Brisbane Sustainability Agency chief executive Tracy Melenewycz. "We engaged with over 4800 community representatives to form a draft vision," she said. "The vision is very much focused on protecting what matters and what makes Mount Coot-tha special, renewing those assets and spaces." The agency heard feedback from almost 5000 people, with community members vocal about not wanting a zipline to go ahead. Further feedback will be collected at pop-up stalls in the CBD and around Mount Coot-tha over the next four weeks.

Private investment opportunities are limited, Schrinner said. They include the Nine and Seven TV studios, which are listed for sale and represented by Savills, which has also visited the unlisted 10 News site. Schrinner said the sites would not become residential development. "It's currently zoned for utility purposes, which covers the TV use, but we have envisaged for quite some time now that if it wasn't used for that, then there would be an ecotourism opportunity, such as function centre, visitors centre, potentially an eco hotel," he said, adding that any such use would have to avoid disrupting the natural environment.

Almost 700 submissions were received on reimagining the quarry, which the council believes may have operational capacity for another decade. The agency identified possibilities including informal green space, nature-based tourism, off-road cycling and other outdoor adventure pursuits, and water-based activities. Renders show an arrival hub with public transport connections, water activities, a cafe and picnic lawns, and the botanic gardens would be "enhanced" under the plan.

The council's Labor opposition leader, Jared Cassidy, called the plans unattainable and said Schrinner was focusing on the wrong issues. He said the proposal added to the lord mayor's "shopping list of visions with no plan", citing booze on ferries, buses on ferries, flying Ubers, river taxis and water scooters. "Have we seen any progress on these? No, because the lord mayor knows he won't be around to answer for them 20 years from now," Cassidy said. "Yes, we must do forward planning. But the lord mayor should get on with the crises facing Brisbane today."