Revealed: How Coast new suburb will be built as council puts restrictions on clearing trees
The Gold Coast’s newest suburb must protect any resident koalas on the land before clearing begins for a residential estate to house 10,000 people.
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THE Gold Coast’s newest suburb must protect any resident koalas on the land before clearing begins for a residential estate to house 10,000 people.
A new report to council reveals plans for the Pacific View estate at Worongary and conditions on the build recommended by council officers. The suburb will be bigger than Varsity Lakes.
The movement of fauna on the site is likely to be closely watched with nearby residents at Nerang furious about the recent mass clearing at a MyCentre shopping centre.
CLEARING AT NERANG SHOPPING CENTRE CAUSES OUTRAGE FROM RESIDENTS
Councillors ticked off on the first stage of the Pacific View estate in December after the $3.2 billion project on Hinkler Drive was “called in” by the state government.
The approval for the initial three stages allowed for 158 residential allotments and eight management lots including roads and open space covering about 32ha.
At a council planning committee meeting on Thursday, councillors will be asked to approve stage six which covers another 6ha containing larger home sites.
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The residential lots range from 700sq m to 2021sq m, and the application for the first time shows the type of streetscaping for the new suburb.
Roads will include generous footpaths, boast 2m-wide cycle lanes on both sides, and trees planted on median strips.
The area is currently used for “native forest practices and grazing of livestock”, and includes a high voltage transmission easement that will remain.
An officer said in thethatreport a vegetation clearing and fauna management plan included “provisions for safe koala movement” to a retained ecological corridor.
The conditions set by officers include “ensuring no tree in which a koala is present or a tree with a crown overlapping a tree containing a koala is cleared”.
Vegetation is to be cleared in stages enduring that no more than 1ha will be removed during a day for sites less than 6ha.
At least 12 hours must pass where there is no new clearing, and any koala habitat must be “linked” to enable to move koalas out of the site.
A development source, close to the project, said: “To the best of my knowledge, in all the years they’ve owned it, they’ve found only one koala. One koala doesn’t make a colony.
“There has been cattle on the land for eight years or more. They used it as a grazing property. They have also used the land as a logging site. That’s allowed them to remove a lot of the trees.”
The project faced a series of delays after a Western Australian consortium first bought the large parcel of land form reclusive millionaire Bob Anthes who died in 2004.
After the first approval in December, the Perron Group indicated earthworks would begin in the new year along with a public launch of the project.
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