Revealed: How residents can win the war against light rail development

Light rail is being blamed for the Gold Coast’s emerging “Gotham City” skyline. Unlimited height is allowed within 800m of a station. Can these super towers be stopped?

• Inside story: the tram gangs
• The truth about light rail – support from residents

THE trams are being blamed for the Gold Coast’s emerging “Gotham City” skyline. Unlimited height is allowed within 800m of a station. Can these super towers be stopped?

At the recent Main Beach Association annual general meeting, resident leader David Hutley explained why “the light rail overlay is the key to all of this”.

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The Gold Coast's light rail overlay map — see the red section – allowing for more development around the tram lines.

On the council mapping, the western side of Tedder Avenue is protected by a three-to-four-level height limit but east allows for unlimited Surfers Paradise-style super towers.

“Now who designates it? I don’t know,” Mr Hutley said.

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“But if you look on the council website, there is a map that shows that everywhere from here down to Burleigh is covered by the light rail overlay on the beach side of the light rail, plus Chevron Island where they are starting to build high-rises now.”

Main Beach residents living in towers surrounded by landscaped gardens are protesting after council recently approved The Monaco, Masthead and Main Beach Parade mega towers on small housing blocks.

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What light rail on the Gold Coast will look like in urban growth areas.

“If you look at the planners’ approval report for 3547 Main Beach Parade you will find there are about six paragraphs saying this doesn’t fit the City Plan but we are applying the light rail overlay. You can’t win,” Mr Hutley told the meeting.

All the developments were denser with less setbacks than required under the City Plan, and approved by council officers under code assessment. Which means that no one has the right to protest any aspect of the development or take the result to the Land Court.

The type of medium rise buildings to be built around light rail in urban areas on the Gold Coast.

“In effect, our democratic rights as citizens and ratepayers have been completely negated by the light rail overlay, My feeling is that it is a waste of money to campaign against each individual building within the light rail overlay. We will never win.”

An experienced town planner, invited to address residents, agreed with Mr Hutley.

But he revealed what he called the mapping’s “fundamental flaw”.

“It is designed to encourage a certain type of built form, podiums, towers with active street frontages — the sort of thing that you would expect along a light rail line. That is the sort of stuff you want (there),” he said.

View of the planned 39-level Main Beach Parade tower on the Gold Coast.

“You want to have stuff presenting to the street. You want wide pedestrian spaces to walk down and have that urban environment around a light rail corridor.”

But here is a distinction no-one has made in the planning debate — these mega towers are not on light rail but 800 metres away from the line or station.

“We are not dissected by a rail line,” the town planner said. “Those provisions that relate to all these design amenity-type things aren’t applicable to Main Beach in my view.

“That is the fundamental flaw of the current overlay. It doesn’t provide distinction. It says ‘hey, we are in this light rail area, this is the built form you should have’.”

An artist's impression of The Monaco, Main Beach.

So the key here is not fighting to remove the light rail overlay map, rather all stakeholders understanding how to interpret and apply this new planning toy.

“This issue here is that council officers understand it. Ensuring that councillors

are given the right information by officers,” the town planner said.

The Gotham City skyline can be stalled, if the development site is not trackside by the trams.

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