Gold Coast development: Hopes of slowing towers on Palm Beach light rail route dashed
A move to put the brakes on speculative development along the Palm Beach light rail route has been rejected, allowing mega towers to be built for another decade.
Transport
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A COUNCIL move to put the brakes on speculative development along the Palm Beach light rail route has been rejected, with residents and councillors warning a delay will allow mega towers to be built for another decade.
Gold Coast City Council, after exhaustive consultation, backed concerned residents by proposing density levels around the light rail be lowered, preventing developers from using the tram as an excuse to increase the size and height of the buildings.
However, state Planning Minister Steven Miles refuses to accept reforms around building densities and tower heights on the tram route under the City Plan.
Councillors and anti-development groups say the state government’s refusal to endorse council’s moves to end speculative development along the proposed light rail corridor has left the door open to developers using the prospect of the public transport project to secure approvals for towers to be 50 per cent higher than mapped building heights.
This has forced council to go back to the drawing board to find a way forward for future amendments to the City Plan, particularly around light rail.
Robina councillor Hermann Vorster, who voted against accepting the state’s changes to the City Plan, said leaving the issue unresolved would create tension for decades to come.
“The state’s intervention into our planning scheme has created Frankenstein’s monster which will move south and terrify our coastal villages,” he told the Bulletin following a workshop on the issue last week.
“I couldn’t vote to support their hatchet job and fear the weakened strategic framework will mean a decade of locals taking out the pitchforks with every development application.
“It’s not that the state has left the door open to speculative development – they’ve kicked it right down.”
Other reforms to the City Plan which the council did accept will come into effect on July 4.
Developers who lodge a project after that date will have a year’s grace to have it considered under the previous plan. They then have six years to begin construction, but can also gain further multi-year extensions at any time.
There are still several developments approved in the mid-2010s of close to, or more than 100 storeys which still have active development applications after having been granted extensions during the early days of Covid-19.
Planning committee chair Cameron Caldwell told the Bulletin last month that council was “disappointed” not to receive full approval from the state for its proposed changes to the City Plan.
It was previously revealed that those items not approved by Mr Miles would be advanced as new packages but they “will require public consultation”.
A spokeswoman for Mr Miles on Sunday said it was “up to council to decide whether to adopt the approved parts of the proposed amendment into the planning scheme”.
Development industry sources who are monitoring the situation surrounding the light rail route say there will be a rush by developers to gain approval along the future tram route to the border through Palm Beach to pre-empt potential changes to the City Plan. Any amendments would not be retroactive, meaning any project which has already been approved would be exempt from any moves to limit height or density.
Billions of dollars worth of projects have already been given the green light by council. Community Alliance president John Hicks said the prospect of significantly higher towers was “deeply concerning.”
“It’s hard to know exactly where the state government sits because there has been such little transparency from the state government for their refusal of the council’s decisions,” he said.
“What we can read is that it raises the question over whether the state government sees the future of the Gold Coast with a much higher density than it has now.
“Is it a future that the state wants to impose on all of the coastal strip from Main Beach to Coolangatta?
“This is not the vision of the community or the council and our concern is that after so much consultation and so much to-ing and fro-ing the state has not accepted the council’s position and that is deeply concerning.”
Projects along the light rail are expected to help cater for an extra 440,000 residents on the Coast by 2041. The population is currently increasing by around 15,000 people annually. More than 100 high-rise towers centred around the light rail route in the pipeline are either proposed, under construction or approved by council. Development industry sources have told the Bulletin more are on the horizon, despite the building sector struggling against high material costs and the collapse of several major companies.
‘OUR COMMUNITY WILL BE DESTROYED
SOUTHERN Gold Coast residents fear their community and natural environment will be “destroyed” by the final extension of the light rail.
Stage 4 of the controversial project would see trams run from Burleigh to the border, adding major spots such as Palm Beach and Coolangatta to the light rail route.
Areas surrounding the tram network have proven magnets for developers, and southern Coast residents now say a loophole in the City Plan will see high-rises take over their suburbs if the final stage is approved.
Burleigh resident Rob Richards said previous allowances for developers were not made clear to the community.
He said increased development along the southern tram line would not alleviate the housing crisis, but instead drain construction resources and ruin vital nature reserves.
“It’s going to get destroyed, everything’s going to be destroyed,” Mr Richards said.
“It’s making (housing) far worse, because it’s pushed
up the prices of everything
and no one can afford anywhere to live.”
Mr Richards said that he was one of thousands of community members
rallying against the proposal, and proposed diverting
the tram down the M1 along the route formerly
proposed for a heavy
rail extension.
“It’s just development at all costs and light rail at all costs,” Mr Richards said.
“There’s a ‘silent majority’ in Palm Beach who apparently want this, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody who wants this.”
Fellow resident Jacqueline Worrall urged the State Government to reconsider, saying the light rail extension would create “visual pollution on an industrial scale”, particularly across Tallebudgera and Currumbin Creeks.
“We will become just like Surfers Paradise – soulless and deserted,” Ms Worrall said.
The state government is expected to deliver the Stage 4 business case mid-year.
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