“DEVELOPING INSIGHTS”
CONVERSATIONS ON SUNSHINE COAST PROPERTY
In our latest Developing Insights, we speak to Tony Shelley, one of the two directors of Barlow Shelley, a major Sunshine Coast engineering group. Tony has been in the engineering, development and construction industry for nearly 30 years, so has vast amount of practical experience to draw from. Hear how he started, where he thinks the local property market is at currently and what he would change if he was in charge. We think he is on the money.
Thanks for joining us Tony. Tell us a little about your background.
I grew up on the Darling Downs in Warwick, Queensland and then studied engineering at the University of Southern Queensland (formerly Darling Downs Institute of Technology) in Toowoomba. I was the first in the family to move away from the family business of meat wholesaling which my parents helped establish as Warwick Meats in 1974. I learnt many a life lesson working for Mum and Dad on the land and in the abattoir and have carried on the same work ethic in my business at Barlow Shelley Consulting Engineers.
When did you first get interested in the development industry / how did you get your start?
I recall in almost the last lecture of the year in Toowoomba that the lecturer mentioned there was a job going at Dan Jepsen and Associates on the Sunshine Coast. I thought I’d best turn my focus to getting a fulltime job after many ‘fun’ years at University so I applied and started in December 1987. I didn’t realise at the time but that was a great turn of fate that brought me to the booming Sunshine Coast, so as a young draftsman and then engineer I worked on many of the major developments on the Coast, e.g. Chancellor Park, Noosa Springs, Peregian Springs, Pacific Harbour, Rainforest Sanctuary. That was an invaluable grounding in the development industry and experience that not many young people have the opportunity to gain in the current marketplace.
Who has been the most influential person in your professional education and why?
I always recall my high school technical drawing teacher, Edgar Rawlinson, telling me one day, “Never let anyone tell you that taking some extra time to get the job done well is wrong”. As a self-confessed perfectionist that really struck a chord with me and, as an engineer, I believe it should be a most important value within our industry because ‘near enough is not good enough’ when you’re designing buildings and roads. I also gained the bulk of my engineering experience working for Rod Tate and Andrew Murray at Tate Professional Engineers where we prided ourselves on being hardnosed engineers who always stuck up for the best outcomes for our clients as they were our paying customers and deserved the best.
The Sunshine Coast is a notoriously cyclical economy. What are the main strengths of the development industry on the Coast?
For as long as I can remember the tourism industry has helped as the holiday makers will always keep coming to the Sunshine Coast and when they stay on to live here, the development industry will keep bouncing back. With our current Council they are making great inroads in bringing more businesses to the Coast but I believe that tourism will keep the Coast and development industry alive for many years.
What has changed in the last 10 years in the industry here?
Bureaucracy! And I must say I’m not a fan at all. In the 90’s and 00’s we were gaining approvals and building stage after stage after stage on multiple developments where both the Council and the developers were quite content with the constraints and approval conditions but now it takes months or years to gain all the necessary approvals. It seems that projects now have 300-400% more ‘paperwork’ for a nett 10-20% better outcome on projects which simply slows the whole development industry unnecessarily.
Overseas investment appears to be here to stay in the Sydney and Melbourne markets. Do you see any overseas investors entering our development market at scale? If not, why not?
I don’t think we will see a great influx of overseas investment on the Coast for some time as we are still a relatively small township with a small population when compared to Sydney and Melbourne and even Brisbane. Investors from say China or India with populations over 1 billion people probably think we’re some backwater province growing pineapples so we need to grow up some more before we attract any serious overseas interest.
What has been your most significant / favourite project here on the Sunshine Coast?
As a young draftsman, my boss Rod Tate took me out to a cow paddock and said, “Here you go young fella, start designing this”. ‘This’ became Chancellor Park Estate and I take great pride in telling people that I designed most of Chancellor Park Estate and I started when there was no University, no schools, no Sunshine Motorway, no sewerage or water supply, not much of anything. As an engineer it’s satisfying to stand back and view the change from paddock to living community.
We have some very successful developers on the Sunshine Coast, most of who keep a very low profile. Who are the most influential people in the industry and why?
During my time in the industry I have personally worked for many of the local developers but I must say that Peter Shadforth and Trevor Harch are two absolute gentlemen of the industry who have personally and professionally given so much back to the industry that they have worked in.
How could the industry improve?
We really need to work out how to reduce red tape and bureaucracy from the development process. I fully acknowledge that there is a need for an assessing authority to monitor and approve development but whereas all private enterprise has worked out how to be more effective and efficient within their industry and reduce timeframes, Local and State Authorities seem to have gone the other way. It can’t take 24 months to approve a development and then 3 months to build it. It just doesn’t make sense.
What does the next five years look like here on the Sunshine Coast?
We seem to be on the crest of a very busy time at the moment and being 9-10 years since the start of the GFC I reckon we’re due a for a market correction. Thereafter, its onwards and upwards for the Sunshine Coast as our population will continue to increase along with the development industry.
What do you get on your soap box about?
Unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy!!
Thanks for joining us.
August 2017
