Community
21 February, 2024
Walking, not just talking
THE Unity Team has been on a walking tour of the Cairns CBD with city stalwart and property investor Fred Mellick to identify ways to bring more life to the inner city.
Mr Mellick took division 5 candidate Nathan Lee Long around the CBD this week looking at public spaces that could be upgraded as well as identifying empty buildings that could be transformed into housing.
Unity is keen to have more people living in the city centre to help curb anti-social behaviour, attract more visitors, retailers, restaurants, cafes and other businesses.
Mr Lee Long said there were challenges with converting buildings into homes, including access, configurations and fire safety.
“In a post-COVID world, Unity will conduct a review of the Cairns CBD commercial study with a focus on stimulating CBD living and increasing the number of permanent residents in the CBD,” he said.
“We need not just grow into the suburbs, we need to increase the number of people who live and work in our CBD”.
Deputy mayor Brett Moller said it was not just a council responsibility to activate the CBD, it involved building and business owners and the community working together with the council to focus on streets such as Aplin, Grafton and Lake.
Cr Moller admitted there had “not been a big uptake” to a council plan offering incentives to building owners to upgrade the facades of many empty premises.
He said Unity’s third of seven policies was to further diversify the region’s economy.
That included the 2032 Olympics, the expansion of the NRL to 18 teams and the region’s natural proximity to Asia and the Pacific “to expand our profile as a tropical new world city”.
“We have long partnered with the PNG rugby league to support their bid to become the NRL’s 18th team,” said Unity leader and Mayor Terry James.
“Hosting this team will enable the investment into Barlow Park, enable the hosting of regular NRL games and facilitate more flights from Port Moresby to Cairns,” he said.
“We have signed the MOU, and our experience on the team will ensure that we see the process through.
“To bring new events to Cairns, we need to work with Tourism and Events Queensland to partner with the events industry to make Cairns the regional events capital of Australia,” said division 2 and TTNQ board member, Nikki Giumelli.
Other aspects of their economic diversification policy include health, manufacturing and production, education, tourism and events, retail and sports.
