Former Redlands mayor Karen Williams did not step out of the council meeting as it voted on a developer’s billion-dollar housing project less than two years after she sold her family farm to the same developer, instead casting the crucial final vote.
The detail of Williams’ property deal with Joe Fiteni, whose company was behind the controversial Shoreline development at Redland Bay, is the latest that can be revealed in this masthead’s investigation of developer links with key personnel at Redland City Council.
In 2013, two years after she was elected Redlands mayor and a decade before she crashed her council-owned Lexus while drunk, Williams and her brother Robert Tomaszewski sold the land to Fiteni for more than $4 million.
The 2.8 hectare block was half of the farm where the siblings’ immigrant parents had once grown produce and flowers. No development application had been lodged when the payment was made.
Less than two weeks later, Williams and her husband Peter settled their purchase of the sprawling rural property in Mount Cotton known as Rainforest Gardens, for $1.7 million.
The couple had bought that site from Betty Goleby, a former Redlands councillor herself and the widow of Nationals MP John Goleby.
In November 2015, Williams provided the deciding vote to get the fiercely debated $2.3 billion Shoreline over the line, despite admitting there could be a perceived conflict of interest, without clarifying what that was.
As this masthead has previously reported, the council’s current chief executive Louise Rusan had earlier signed off on an application fee-waiver for Shoreline, despite a registered conflict with another of its developers, Greg Bell.
When asked about the purchase of the flower farm, Fiteni director Adam Souter said the land was bought “for use in the normal course of our development and construction business”.
Williams was mayor of Redlands City Council, which stretches from Brisbane’s east to the bay, and borders the Gold Coast and Logan, from 2012 to 2024.
Williams was elected mayor in a landslide victory in April 2012, just months after her mother’s death meant she became joint executor of half the family farm.
Rainforest Gardens
Following the Rainforest Gardens purchase, the family developed that block with stilted “chalets” that cost almost $400 a night, and offered it as a premier wedding venue.
The venue even featured in the Hollywood rom-com Ticket to Paradise, starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, which was filmed while Williams was still mayor.
The Tomaszewski farm was subdivided into 35 residential blocks, with two larger blocks set aside for later. But Fiteni had a much larger project on his mind.
His company, Edrange Pty Ltd, had bought a 189-hectare Redland Bay property in 2006 for $35 million, 101 hectares of which was included in the new 4000-house development, Shoreline, which was lodged with another local developer, Fox and Bell, in 2014.
At the time, Shoreline was divisive. Outside the Redlands’ urban footprint, it could not be serviced by the existing sewage system, and there were serious concerns about traffic.
When the application made its way to council for a vote in November 2015, Williams admitted there was a perceived conflict of interest between her and one of the developers.
“There have been grumblings in various social media forums, etc, as to my relationship with the applicant,” she said at the meeting.
“I will have it noted in the minutes. However, I will remain in the room and I will vote in the community interest.”
Another councillor raised that in the past she had stepped out of votes where she had relationships with the applicants, and said there was “significant evidence” the developers had attended fundraisers for her mayoral campaign in 2012.
“My gift register is up-to-date and declares any donation over $200. If you have any reason to believe I’ve acted inappropriately at any time, you know the correct process,” Williams said.
Debate went for more than three and a half hours, during which Williams said the infrastructure to be brought in by Shoreline was a “once in a lifetime” opportunity.
“This is $100 million worth of infrastructure that’s not there now, and would never be there unless we had someone who was prepared to take the risk over a period of time,” she said.
The application passed six to five, with Williams casting the deciding vote.
In 2018, housing developer Lendlease took over as the project lead, though Fiteni and other landowners continued to be the sellers of the properties and still own large chunks of land in the area.
While roads and a primary school were built, it was not until 2021 that the state signed up to go 50/50 with Lendlease on a $30 million sewage treatment plant.
Lendlease offloaded Shoreline along with 11 other developments to Thai developers Superlai, who partnered with Stockland three years later.
In early 2026 the plant was finally operational. Until then, waste had been carted out of the estate in trucks. The initial agreement said this should stop once 200 houses were built.
When asked how much Fiteni and the original developers contributed to Shoreline’s infrastructure, Souter said that was confidential information.
Fox and Bell directors Garry Hargrave, Greg Fox and Greg Bell did not respond to questions, nor did Williams when contacted through Rainforest Gardens.
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