Sea Glass: DVB tower to go ahead after council loses expensive legal battle to stop Broadbeach tower

A last-resort bid by the city council to stop development of a luxury beachfront unit tower has ended in an expensive failure. FIND OUT WHY

A last-resort bid by the city council to stop development of a luxury Broadbeach tower called Sea Glass has ended in an expensive failure.

The council, which lost an earlier attempt at a cost believed to have been around $500,000, has another potentially large bill coming.

It not only has been refused the right to fight the Sea Glass approval in the Court of Appeal but also must pay developer DVB’s court costs.

Artist impression of the proposed Sea Glass tower

Joel Brown, the head of development for the Sydney group, yesterday said it had been a long journey to achieve the Sea Glass outcome, noting the original development application was submitted in March 2021.

“Costs incurred by DVB Projects post the council decision to refuse the application run into the millions.

“Notwithstanding that, we are extremely excited to deliver Sea Glass as initially intended.”

The city council rejected DVB’s quest for development approval in mid-2021 on grounds that included the project being an overdevelopment of the site.

DVB won an appeal to the Planning and Environment Court in December 2022 after an exercise that it said cost it $2 million.

Joel Brown of DVB

The amount that the council spent fighting that appeal was not been disclosed.

A month earlier mayor Tom Tate revealed the cost of fighting a developer appeal over Main Beach tower La Mer.

“Now that the referee has blown his whistle, I just hope we abide by the decision and learn.

“(The cost of) this one will be half a million dollars.”

A negotiated outcome saw the height of La Mer reduced from 35 to 25 levels.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court has rejected the council request to take the Sea Glass issue to the Court of Appeal.

Artist impression of the proposed Sea Glass tower

A main issue raised by the council in the hearing was whether Sea Glass would have varying site cover to reduce its dominance and provide landscaping areas.

It also questioned whether the tower would be slender enough “as required”.

The Supreme Court ruled that issues raised by the council did not involve questions of law and leave to appeal should be refused.

Artist impression of the proposed Sea Glass tower

The council suffered another knock-back in September when the Planning and Environment Court overturned its refusal to allow the Spyre group to build a luxury tower on the Lark cafe site at Main Beach.

Sea Glass, which will sit on a $14 million site overlooking the ocean in First Ave, will mark DVB’s Gold Coast debut and will have 35 full and half-floor apartments and be capped by a 1450 sqm penthouse.