Nook on the Park Paradise Point to close after development application refused

Residents of a Gold Coast suburb say they are “sad and disappointed” that a popular coffee booth will have to shut after a controversial council decision.

RESIDENTS of a Gold Coast suburb say they are “sad and disappointed” a coffee booth will have to shut after being refused development approval by council.

Nook on the Park, at the corner of Nankeen Avenue and Paradise Parade, will serve its last coffee at the end of March after council officers found it was not an appropriate development for a residential area and could impact a local neighbourhood centre.

However residents said the booth, which opens from 7am-10.30am Monday to Saturday, had become a much-loved local meeting point, especially for older people.

“I’d be very sad if it did close,” one told the Bulletin. “It’s a great place to stop and have a bit of a chat.”

Louise Whitcher serves customers at Nook On The Park. Picture: Mike Batterham.

Owner Louise Whitcher, who roasts her own coffee, said she had spent $14,000 on her development application including council fees, hiring a planner and commissioning a traffic report.

She said she was devastated after the application was turned down, saying her booth had become more than just somewhere to buy coffee during the Covid pandemic.

“We really built a good community spirit,” Ms Whitcher said.

“I actually serve a lot of vulnerable people, old people. They live on their own, some of them haven’t seen family for months. They get quite depressed. They get out and have a chat to me for half an hour and I feel good because they are not stuck inside of the house.”

Ms Whitcher said she opened the booth after her previous coffee shop, which she ran in an industrial area in Arundel, was forced to close because of Covid lockdowns.

“It was booming, we were literally ready to employ two more people and then Covid hit us,” she said. “We lost 95 per cent of our business.”

Owner Louise Whitcher at her Nook On The Park coffee booth. Picture: Mike Batterham.

Ms Whitcher said she was unsure what she would do when she was forced to close her coffee booth. She said that after spending so much money on the development application, she could not afford to appeal council’s decision.

“The impact on me is a loss of income to support my family but the impact on the community is huge,” Ms Whitcher said.

“It’s a little community hub, people have met and made friends.”

Council received 67 letters of support of Ms Whitcher’s development application and three opposed.

However Division 4 councillor Cameron Caldwell said there had been multiple complaints about what had been an “unapproved business”.

He said a detailed assessment had been undertaken by council officers as part of the development application process.

“Whilst I appreciate this is not the outcome that the operator and some members of the community were hoping for, it was a robust assessment process to determine whether a commercial use should go into a well-established residential area,” Cr Caldwell said.

“The operator was granted a sunset period in order to transition the operation to closure by 31 March 2022, which in the circumstances was a pretty fair thing to do rather than force an immediate closure.”

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