REVEALED: what the City Plan review on Gold Coast skyline will cost
Mayor Tom Tate has warned council CEO Dale Dickson he was “anxious” about the impact of a review on the economy. READ WHAT HE HAD TO SAY
Council
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UPDATE: THE review of the City Plan changes which will determine heights and density of buildings along the Glitter Strip will cost ratepayers more than $54,000.
Councillors along with senior staff have been sent an email from council CEO Dale Dickson after Palm Beach-based councillor Daphne McDonald asked a series of questions about the urgent review into the City Plan amendments.
Mr Dickson in his response said council had sent a brief to Ethos Urban and PSA Consulting on July 6 and engaged the planning firms four days later.
“The cost of the peer review, including two independent consultants and economist to assist with scenario testing, was $54,500,” he wrote.
Asked if council officers were interviewed, Mr Dickson said interviews were not held “due to the nature of the review” but planning director Alisha Swain had held an “inception meeting” to explain the scope of the work requested with the consultants.
An experienced industry planner told The Bulletin: “It’s a lot of money for a short review. It’s very strange. You’d expect those people who had carriage of the process (developing the City Plan changes within council) would have been interviewed.”
Mr Dickson has strongly defended the peer review, which came as a surprise to many councillors, saying the it had been contracted to “well respected, independent planning consultants”.
“This a well-established “quality assurance” measure often deployed as a final check of important, complex, technical work,” he said.
Mr Dickson revealed the review would provide written feedback and recommendations to Community Alliance, Property Council of Australia, Urban Development Institute of Australia, Planning Institute of Australia and the Institute of Architects.
A priority request is reviewing “the risk of any unintended consequences” from the revised Plan which will require scenario testing where development applications are compared under both schemes.
The review will look at an early investigation by consultants on setbacks and site cover on medium density and high density residential buildings.
The development industry lobby groups want the economy to be boosted with fewer building restrictions while the Community Alliance wants to know what is the cause of the hold-up on hard fought reforms to remove ugly high density buildings.
The review is expected to be debated by councillors at a planning committee meeting on Thursday.
EARLIER:
MAYOR Tom Tate warned council CEO Dale Dickson that he was “anxious” about the impact of the City Plan changes as the Gold Coast’s economy worsened during COVID restrictions.
The Bulletin has obtained an email from the Mayor in mid-June where he talks about the City Plan amendments being prepared by council officers to be ticked off by then State Development Minister Cameron Dick.
Cr Tate included Deputy Mayor Donna Gates and planning chair Cameron Caldwell in his email, and admitted “I am anxious to understand what sort of scenario testing” had been conducted to see the impact of the changes on the ground for the construction industry.
Sources suggest the Mayor was concerned about new height and site restrictions in hot spot development suburbs like Palm Beach and Labrador impacting negatively on development applications and potential jobs for young apprentices in the construction industry.
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“I believe this is particularly relevant given the local and global impacts of COVID-19,” he wrote.
“In this context scenario testing will assist the State to better understand their State interests, for example whether or not through our proposed amendments the City’s SEQRP dwelling supply and population targets might be impacted.”
The ShapingSEQ Regional Plan 2017 sets a target for the Coast to accommodate 351,100 additional people and 158,900 extra dwellings by 2041.
Council viewed Labrador, Southport and Biggera Waters as a targeted growth area, but the community protest at town hall meetings on City Plan changes sparked a rethink leading to the aim of an additional 12,000 dwellings to be reduced by 25 per cent, to 9000.
Cr Tate asked the CEO what sort of scenario testing had occurred and suggested weighing up the changes on eight to ten development applications, comparing what would happen under the current scheme to the future amended version.
“Dale we have seen the release of updated unemployment figures for Australia yesterday which indicate the highest rate of unemployment for 20 years. We know the Gold Coast is particularly exposed to this given the importance of tourism, hospitality, education etc and the unemployment figures are likely to get worse before they get better,” the Mayor wrote.
“I believe it is essential that we understand the full potential impacts of the Planning Scheme amendments on the community (e.g. jobs) and the industry (e.g. confidence and investment) given recent world economic developments.”
EARLIER:
AN independent workplace consultant was appointed almost two months ago to stage a secret investigation into the turbulent relationships in council’s powerful planning department.
The Bulletin can reveal the consultant was engaged in mid-June to undertake the inquiry into the leadership of the directorate, which focused on the working relationships between senior staff.
But until late last week many councillors had no idea — and some of them still don’t understand what happened and why the roles of three respected staff members at council have ended.
Two senior executives left last Friday and another, in the Office of City Architect, will not have their contract renewed when it expires in early November.
A council insider said: “Many of the councillors are asking what is going on. They have no idea.”
Council CEO Dale Dickson, who has declined to comment publicly at length about the internal staffing matter, informed councillors and other senior staff by email late on Friday.
The Bulletin understands the staff and councillors were told “this decision has not been taken lightly”.
The council administration has had a shake-up with at least another three officers forced into acting positions.
Council has sought the support of the consultant to provide back-up advice to the planning team.
The external recruitment process could take up to three months and occurs at a critical time when the directorate should be sending the City Plan amendments to the State Government.
SECRET COUNCIL REVIEW OF CITY PLAN CHANGES
A recent development application showed for the first time tensions between planning officers and the City Architect’s section. Planners wanted to approve a high-rise development and their colleagues were more focused on amenity and site coverage.
The tensions with the directorate, staff and some councillors have been obvious to major developers fronting with complex development applications.
“Some of these officers don’t get along,” an experienced development industry consultant said.
Many councillors were also ignorant of a confidential review of the City Plan amendments.
The community consultation for the City Plan had led to packed meetings at development hot spots at Labrador and Palm Beach, scaling back high-density projects to cater for future population growth.
As council finalised the plans in recent months, developers were not silent in warning the council administration of the consequences.
“Up to 90 per cent of these property applications will not occur or be changed under the City Plan amendments,” the development industry source said. “The key is it might force the (economic) close down of the Gold Coast during the pandemic.”
The controversy is likely to be debated at a planning committee meeting next week.
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