Ann Wason Moore: How to make Palm Beach residents happy over light rail, development on Gold Coast

There are some questions that are just impossible to answer - for the Gold Coast, one of them is: “What in the hell does Palm Beach want?” Ann Wason Moore tries to find an answer.

LIKE the existence of God, like a tree falling in the forest, it’s an enigma for the ages … what in the hell does Palm Beach want?

I know I’m asking for it, and by crikey I know they’ll let me have it, but I’m truly perplexed as to how on earth anyone can make this southern suburb’s very vocal anti-light rail residents happy.

When Mayor Tom Tate announced the option for light rail to sidestep Palm Beach, turning right at Nineteenth Avenue to follow the heavy rail corridor to the airport, I was certain I would hear the celebration from my place in Mermaid.

But no.

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Listening to ABC Gold Coast on Monday morning, I heard presenter Matt Webber interview area Councillor Daphne McDonald and she was anything but jubilant about the alternative plan. Then came the callers. One suspected it’s a council conspiracy to build high-rises down Nineteenth Avenue, another rang in with even grander theories of corruption at the highest level.

Beautiful Palm Beach.

It seems there is just no pleasing this extreme Palm Beach population. They’ve positioned themselves as the anti-vaxxers of infrastructure issues.

It’s Not In My Backyard writ large. It’s their needs before the rest of the city’s.

Too bad if the bulk of us would like a functioning, accessible piece of public transportation — such as modelled in every successful city around the world — this crowd says “no” and the rest of us must agree or be targeted.

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Believe me, I know.

Every time I write something about the light rail, I get tagged in abusive posts on these “community-minded” pages.

Fair enough, I’m putting my opinions in print, I can cop that. I don’t mind if they disagree with what I write and I really do respect their passion, but what I don’t respect is personal attacks; and beyond that, an inability to compromise or even converse.

It’s one thing to disagree and work on a solution together, it’s another to refuse to engage in any discussion and then call people names.

Drone images of Sunland's Palm Beach development Magnoli under construction.

Take this comment from one such community supporter: “The light rail needs to be stopped all together. It harbours crime, drugs and tourists from China. None of the latter is wanted in this country. The three have already wrecked THIS country.”

That commentary is hardly helpful.

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To be clear, I am not a blind supporter of light rail, it has its issues and these must be addressed. Personally, I think Councillor Hermann Vorster’s call for the State Government to create a uniformed marshal service to clamp down on drug users and fare evaders on Gold Coast trains, trams and buses is spot on.

I’ve previously written about precisely that, along with the need to take care of our businesses during construction. And yet still I was called a “muppet” and an “idiot” by the anti-light rail brigade.

Seriously, how does anyone make this mob happy?

I can’t say I’ve always been a fan of Tom Tate, but full credit for trying to find a solution to this Palm Beach problem.

Alas, according to their social media pages, they’re not happy with any light rail option presented and would prefer to derail the entire project, or at least send it away from the Coast at Burleigh. Which is not what the rest of the city wants, as demonstrated by the numbers using light rail, but I guess it’s Palm Beach First.

Palm Beach is one of the Coast’s most hotly debated growth spots.

I would love to know what the suburb as a whole thinks. Is this just a vocal minority? Certainly most business owners in the area support the original path of the light rail along the Gold Coast Highway.

I am genuinely interested, and have in fact taken the time on many occasions to try to hold peaceful, considered conversations with the group’s leaders, in an attempt to understand what could pacify this civil incivility.

Look, I understand that it’s hard to watch your city change. And sometimes things were better in the old days, but we can’t go back.

Certainly we can do things better - but to do so, both sides need to be prepared to compromise.

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We need to listen to concerns about over-development, but we also can’t demolish and forbid all high-rises. By closing off our beachside suburbs to all higher density development, we are denying the very lifestyle we sought to others. By stopping progress, we restrict the future.

Our city has changed as our population has exploded — but as it has grown, so too have the opportunities for our residents and our children.

Maybe it is true that the Palm Beach brigade don’t need the light rail … but maybe what they really want is a time machine.

Neither, sadly, is a realistic option.