The long-running legal challenge by nearby residents to the $300 million redevelopment of the Pacific Palms in Cairns, Queensland, including a retirement village, is over, Paradise Palms CEO Dennis Halpin said.

A Gofundme fundraiser by The Save Paradise Palms group had been trying to raise at least $140,000 to fight Cairns Regional Council’s approval to rezone the former 70ha Kewarra Beach golf course site in the Planning and Environment Court. However, it is “no longer accepting donations” with the amount raised $13,055.

Court documents also reveal upcoming hearing dates have now been vacated – including a four-week trial scheduled in September. Mr Halpin said a settlement had been reached and he expects the settlement to be ratified in the court in the next four to six weeks.

“The upshot of that is once the court ratifies it, we can then commence our development,” he told Cairns Post.

“I can confirm no one is paying anyone anything under this settlement.”

Approvals granted in November last year are for rezoning and the division of The Palms site, as it will be known, including the once famous Kewarra Beach 18-hole golf course into five lots.  Further subdivisions must go back to the Cairns Regional Council.

Mr Halpin’s plans have evolved to include a 330-lot residential subdivision, a Catholic primary school, a tourist caravan park and villas, water park, retirement village and open-space wildlife corridors.

Mr Halpin and a group of investors, known as PPNQ Developments, bought the site in 2015.