Revealed: Every Gold Coast suburb’s growth as population reaches one million mark

An astonishing council report has predicted massive population growth across the Gold Coast, with one northern suburb to double in size. SEE HOW YOUR AREA FARES

A new forecast predicts the population of the Coomera area will nearly double in the next 16 years, becoming home to almost 63,000 new arrivals.

The “astronomical” growth is the stand-out finding in a council report that predicts population rises in every part of the Gold Coast, with big jumps also expected in Southport and Surfers Paradise.

Under the forecast – which was based on several data sources – Coomera and Upper Coomera will see 62,851 new arrivals, taking its population to 118,065 by 2041.

City planning committee chair Mark Hammel said council needed to consider how infrastructure could be provided to accommodate the extraordinary projected growth.

“It’s a lot of people. The projections under the current City Plan and where we see those dwellings being delivered, shows an absolutely massive increase to occur in Division 3 – the Coomera part of our city – and major increases in Division 6 (Southport) and Division 10 (Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach),” he said.

“While they are the largest, they are closely followed by Division One (Pimpama and Ormeau) and Division 7 (Labrador). What this table says is every single division, therefore every single suburb has a projected growth over the next 20 years.

“As part of the new planning scheme, we need to analyse if where we currently see where that growth is happening, is the right location or even if it’s even actually viable.

“Is there enough infrastructure upgrades that can occur or enough land that is left in Division 3 to actually achieve that growth.”

Mr Hammel encouraged the community to give feedback during consultation for the new City Plan. It could influence growth being redistributed through other parts of the city.

He added that the City’s projections on growth were “not set in concrete”.

“We need to have a very open, honest, transparent discussion with the community about the fact that we are projected to hit a million residents before 2046,” Mr Hammel.

“With that, there’s a projected need for another 165,000 dwellings. Through our local growth management strategy, we have that discussion with the community on where is the best location for that development to occur.”

Mr Hammel said the City’s community facility review – which prompted the data – would provide a plan for the building of more facilities if the population increased.

Flashback to four years ago — residential housing around the Coomera River on the Gold Coast. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt).

On the likelihood of reaching the 62,000 figure for Coomera, he replied: “My gut instinct is that is an astronomical increase to expect to occur anywhere in the city in a 20-year period –it’s probably not physically possible.”

More detailed work might show the figure was achievable across 30 to 40 years.

Lifestyle committee chair Glenn Tozer, whose committee oversaw the reporting, said council was being more strategic in the way it thinks about community facilities.

The previous approach saw “villages” evolve which had their own community centres where two councils had operated with Albert Shire and Gold Coast City.

“The biggest thing we are finding is population growth levels, particularly in the north of the city, are changing the way we have to prioritise infrastructure delivery,” he said.

“As more people move into the north of the city we need to make sure there are great facilities like the Pimpama sports hub.

“The challenge we have is it’s quite difficult to buy land and plan for infrastructure after development has been delivered. We kind of need to almost predict the future, and the Community Service and Facilities Review starts to consider those trends.”

Follow @PaulWestonGC