Development call-in: How Harbour Town, Skyridge and Jewel were approved by state government

A controversial Gold Coast shopping centre and a giant housing estate were both approved by the state government against the wishes of the council, as well as a giant tower.

Northern Gold Coast residents were shocked this week to hear news the state government was considering a big change to Arundel.

Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon revealed the government was considering a rare usage of its “call-in” powers to green-light the $150m redevelopment of Arundel Hills Country Club.

It comes just months after the council voted to reject the project.

Arundel Hills Golf Course Community Reference Group committee member Jason Young this week expressed shock at the potential use of the powers wielded by the Minister.

“Through our advice, through Hickey Lawyers, we were aware that the Minister had these powers. But it just doesn’t meet the criteria of a scale to call something like that in. But she has that blanket power – it’s just staggering,” he said.

Artist impressions of Arundel Hills Country club redevelopment. Picture: Supplied.

Governments across the decades have used their powers to ensure projects opposed by the council or resident groups go ahead.

Among the most famous was Harbour Town Shopping Centre 30 years ago.

The initial plan, pitched in late 1987, called for an 80ha town centre that would become home to 80,000 people and a shopping centre at its heart.

However, opposition to the project was swift and massive. Then-council planning boss Lex Bell, for one, declared it would “destroy the city’s strategic plan and future planning of the area”.

It was the final days of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s reign as Queensland premier and his Nationals government and Local Government Minister Russ Hinze was accused by the Gold Coast City Council of agreeing to the rezoning of the Biggera Waters area for the centre, despite no plans being submitted by the developer to either council or the state.

Harbour Town opened in 1999

The council was given only 50 days to set planning conditions for the site, something Alderman Bell said was “physically impossible because no one will give us a copy of the plan”.

By 1989, the government announced it would move ahead with the rezoning despite opposition from the council and business community.

Alderman Bell, by then Mayor, said he was disappointed but not surprised, while Gold Coast Small Business Association president Greg Rix declared the public consultation period a “farce”.

The situation took another turn in March 1990.

The Nationals government was gone and Labor’s Wayne Goss was in power.

His Cabinet overturned the rezoning approval of Harbour Town, by this point a $300m project.

Harbour Town in its early days.

The project appeared to be dead in the water, but by late 1994 the Goss government again changed its tune, and Local Government Minister Terry Mackenroth pushed through a “Ministerial amendment’’ that avoided the need for the developer to go through council’s town planning process.

Terry Mackenroth

The Harbour Town Act was its own special legislation governing the creation of the complex and surrounding development zone.

It opened in 1999.

Fast-forward to 2012 and the state government called in the $1bn Jewel development to prevent an appeal by upset residents.

The project was ultimately built.

Artist impression of the Skyridge development at Worongary on the Gold Coast.

In 2015 then-Treasurer Jackie Trad called in the Perron Group’s multi-billion dollar Pacific View Estate project, today known as Skyridge, in order to unlock more housing

“It represents about 2700 jobs during the construction phase and it’s about delivering affordable, mixed-use housing for what is one of Australia’s fastest-growing cities,” she said at the time.

“It’s a priority for our future.”