Future Gold Coast: Mayor Tom Tate on sustainable development in the city’s future

The days of driving solo in the car or taking your teenagers to school are coming to an end, writes Mayor Tom Tate who warns halting development would turn the Gold Coast into Monaco or Hong Kong.

GETTING the lifestyle balance right for the Gold Coast has always been my primary focus.

There is a fantasy from some keyboard warriors that if all new construction stopped tomorrow then people would stop moving to the Gold Coast, solving all our problems.

It is obviously ridiculous. It’s akin to saying that “the trees swaying back and forth creates the wind”.

If we stopped all construction tomorrow housing would become short, pushing existing house prices up and out of the reach of young families from being able to enter the housing market.

Traffic congestion is an ongoing issue. Picture: Glenn Hampson

Eventually renters would be unable to find homes to rent as well. Unemployment would rise as general costs rise due to the high cost of housing for workers.

The Gold Coast would become unaffordable to live in except for all but the super-wealthy. We would eventually become a Monaco or Hong Kong which has some of highest price property prices in the world.

That’s not what I want for our kids nor grandkids.

Construction not only provides jobs now, but commercial, industrial, retail, tourism and infrastructure construction provides jobs for Gold Coasters well into the future.

Finding the balance is the key. We need to cope with between 13,000 to 16,000 people moving to the Gold Coast each year.

Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate. Picture: Jerad Williams

Let’s not forget our natural birthrate outstrips our death-rate around 1.8 to 1. Expanding families need homes and jobs as well!

Since my election as Mayor in 2012 my approach has been to build up and not out.

This strategy maximises our green, open space and recreation areas while seeing housing and units being built where our infrastructure exists and can be upgraded in place.

This means our green, recreation and open space has remained at over 50 per cent of our city.

But it also means we have to rethink how we live and especially how we get around.

A single person driving around in a four-door car is not sustainable for our city.

People will need to embrace public transport like light rail, ferries and buses as well as active transport like bicycles, scooters and walking.

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The Gold Coast is growing rapidly. Picture: David Clark

The days of driving your teenage kids to school rather than them walking, riding or busing is not sustainable.

Encouraging people to switch to other modes of transport requires the construction of supportive infrastructure and I’m all for that.

Nowadays construction jobs represent only 11 per cent of all employment – well down on the heady days of yesteryear where the city went through booms and busts depending on the construction industry and the property market.

Our broadening economy today has the health sector as our biggest employer, providing over 14 per cent of local jobs - a big turnaround since 2012.

Our construction industry is crucial, but it’s now one piece of our city’s more balanced employment and economy jigsaw.

Tom Tate is Mayor of the Gold Coast.