Development battleground as choice to be made between light rail and Norwell cane lands

The Gold Coast’s biggest development fight is where to fit one million people. The choices made will have lasting consequences, writes Paul Weston.

The northern cane fields or the light rail corridor, where do you fit the one million people living here within two decades? It’s our biggest planning question.

Mermaid Beach MP Ray Stevens has accused the Gold Coast City Council of turning Millionaire’s Row – where house prices average $3.4 million – into a “sardine city”.

Residents at Mermaid Beach, Nobby Beach, northern Miami and Burleigh, east of the highway should be protected from wall-to-wall high rise, he says.

Speaking up for his residents, his solution is to develop the canelands and build upwards around train stations.

Mermaid Beach MP Ray Stevens is standing up for residents against council-approved high rise development. Picture: Liam Kidston.

His remarks fired up City leaders. Some privately say Mr Stevens belongs in Jurassic Park.

Their point is Light Rail Stage 3 from Broadbeach to Burleigh is costing $1.5 billion.

Our taxes and rates are not just funding a 6.7km tram track, but upgrades to major utilities like water, sewerage and electricity.

City planners estimate those upgrades can accommodate 30,000 to 32,000 new units.

The City Plan is focused on higher density around train stations. Look at Helensvale.

But what about the opportunity to develop the 7000 hectares of farmlands, around Norwell.

Norwell Valley on the Gold Coast. Picture: Supplied.

In 2021, area councillor Mark Hammel, before becoming Deputy Mayor, posted about the “massive untapped potential in the development of the cane fields”.

But he cautioned the fields should not be covered in houses, with opportunities to spread the growing Yatala industrial estate east across the Pacific Motorway.

Asked by your columnist, he says the cane lands will not be a single housing solution.

“That area simply doesn’t have the infrastructure needed to support major residential

development at this time,” Mr Hammel says.

“Is Mr Stevens, on behalf of the State Government, committing to fund all that infrastructure

needed in the cane fields?”

Light Rail construction at Miami. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

Finding out what will happen next among the cane crop is a bit like Kevin Costner, as Ray Kinsella, trying to understand “the Voice” at the start of 1989’s Field of Dreams.

Council officers are writing up a brief so the City is prepared for infrastructure needs.

The only information on public record is 70 Norwell land owners last year signed off on an exclusive arrangement on property services.

The development would include “residential, commercial and industrial lots”.

From feedback to the City Plan, Mr Hammel is convinced residents do not want more people where there are not enough facilities.

About 180,000 new dwellings must be built on the Coast in the next 20 years.

He says there will be population uplift in all suburbs – including those along light rail Stage 3 living in the Mermaid Beach electorate.

“If we walk away from that opportunity, like Mr Stevens suggests, we’ll be forcing significantly more development into our outer suburbs – suburbs that aren’t yet equipped with the necessary infrastructure to handle that growth,” Mr Hammel says.

Actor Kevin Costner in "Field of Dreams".

The cane lands are a long play Field of Dreams for more Gold Coast housing.

The light rail is being built – and Ray, “the Voice” tells me that people and developers will come, they most definitely will come and live in high rise units.

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Originally published as Development battleground as choice to be made between light rail and Norwell cane lands