FutureOfCairns has been accused of making misleading statements about False Cape in the leaflet that was delivered to the households of Cairns.  In particular, the developer’s lawyers objected to the photographic material.  Actually the biggest and meanest lawyers in Queenland have threatened to sue our pants off over the contents of that leaflet.  FutureOfCairns has investigated all of the supposed issues and found that there is no basis in any of them.  This article provides a clear demonstration that the visual simulation provided in the leaflet was as accurate as such a visual impression can be.  The supposed issues of digital distortion being used to magnify the presence of False Cape from the Esplanade was dealt with previously (this article was published before the nasty lawyer letter was received), as was the supposed use of a telephoto lens to magnify the proximity of False Cape from Machans Beach.  The remaining supposed issue was the presentation of the lot layout on a 3d view of False Cape.  Using a CAD or mapping program to display lot boundaries over an aerial photo is a standard means that planners use to view the fit of subdivision layouts to the landscape.  Colours shown in the overlay were the colours in the developer’s own plans, other than house placeholders which were displayed in lighter colour for clarity.  Additionally the lot layout image was clearly captioned in a way that explained that subject of the image.  The lot layout image was chosen as a direct response to a demonstrably false remark from a number of Cairns City Councillors, that ‘you wont be able to see it from the Esplanade’ and was in no way tilted at the developer.      FutureOfCairns has good reason to believe that the developer will follow all of the development conditions imposed by Cairns City Council.  Unfortunately the conditions imposed by Cairns City Council are so ineffectual as to be nearly worthless.  The central issue examined in this article is whether or not the Visual Impression Proposed  Stage 1 is misleading.  It is claimed that the colours used in the image have been excluded by the Cairns Hillslope Development Control Plan.  FutureOfCairns went to the council’s planning department last week and asked for this list of colours last week and such a thing was not available – there is no printed hillslope colour guide for homeowners!  The next approach was to find a hill similar in character to False Cape and which was within the same hill slope development category as False Cape to see what impact the application of the hillslope building code has on house visibility.  A suitable hill was located just west of Skyrail and a camera location on the verge of the Cook Highway was selected (turn-off to old Marlin Coast Nursery).  At that location, the scale of the scene in the leaflet and of the background view were very similar (1700 – 1800 m from subject).   Allotments in the subdivision on the hill southwest of Skyrail average approximately 0.9 ha, which is approximately 10 times the size of the proposed False Cape allotments.  To compensate for this difference, the number of houses in the view of the hill was increased by copying all of the houses in the photograph and pasting them in other locations on the hill.  There were 9 original houses and in the final view there are 29 houses.  That allowed 3 houses for each block with a 60-80 m wide frontage and 4 houses on each block with a frontage greater than 100 m.  A 25 m wide block was assumed when counting houses, whereas many of the lots in the proposed False Cape development are only 20 m wide.  Also the house clips that were copied were of houses partially hidden by dense rainforest, and these same houses would be more visible in eucalypt forest.  House clips where then placed back ‘into’ dense forest, a situation is unlikely to occur at False Cape for reasons including the relatively thin character of the forest over there and the presence of a second road.   To our eye, the results are very similar.  The general visibility of the houses and colours of houses is not notably different.  In particular, the right hand side of the background scene is very similar.  If the council is enforcing hillslope building codes in the same way that it did for this very prominent site, then it is clear that the proposed development at False Cape would be highly visible.  Can you pick the copied houses from the original houses?  Follow this link to a copy of the original photo. If you wish to make any comments, go to the False Cape forum, click post and start typing.