7 Storey-building approved. Here’s what you need to know

Save Currumbin Ltd has joined local resident in commencing a legal action to ask for the overturn of the approvals at 776 Pacific Parade Currumbin.

Click here for a copy of the Originating Application 631/2026 filed in the Planning & Environment Court against Council and the developer John Fuglsang Developments Pty Ltd.

We are asking the Court to set aside the City of Gold Coast approvals because, as our expert legal team’s material alleges, that they construed the law wrongly about how height is supposed to be measured and so incorrectly,  in our respectful view, treated it as a 3-torey building when it presents much higher.

You can help support the legal challenge and also the lobbying of the State government to intervene to:

• Save tourism on Southern Gold Coast (which relies on its green public amenity)and
• Save Wildlife on the green vegetated cliffs of Currumbin (compromised by excavation of Currumbin Hill and animal habitats and green corridors),

by :

1. Voting No  on our home page and asking all your friends and social media contacts to do the same
2. having your and your networks  say in How Can I help page
3. donating to Save Currumbin Ltd (a Not for Profit public company limited by guarantee whose community Objects are in its Constitution),
4. commenting on Gold Coast Bulletin articles about the legal challenge
5. commenting on Facebook and other social media and circulating the flyer.

We are confident that Council made a mistake in assessing building height in storeys in the Planning Act Regulations (which has no reference at all to the notion that same ought be measured ‘in a vertical plane’ – a notion that had disappeared from the legislative definition years ago). In addition to Council approved this 7-storey building as a code assessable development application, they have arguably failed to address in that assessment, relevant aspects of the Planning Scheme compliance.

The building is arguably out of character with the area, built as it is proposed, into the landslide prone vegetated Currumbin Hill Escarpment at 7-storeys in what ought to be a 3-storey zone. The development in its current form is likely to adversely affect Tourism and the Environment and perhaps will be the subject of State Government intervention to protect the Currumbin Hill escarpment. See:

• Loss of Public Amenity when looking West from iconic Currumbin beach-Dr. Nick McGowan  (attached)
• Ecological damage by developments on the escarpment by Dr Victoria Baker ( https://savecurrumbin.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/191108_Appendix-B-Ecological-Impact-Assessment_Dropbox-1.pdf) See Gecko Environmental Council’s Submissions to Council below.

The Approval’s conditions are also arguably inadequate to protect against the real and serious risk of landslide adjacent to neighbouring structures and a public walkway. That is not an issue before the courts but once the technical point about height is ruled on, close scrutiny needs to be had of the Geotech issues of building in this sensitive area prone to landslip and landslide.

A safe construction methodology for the temporary support of the excavations would require the inclusion of ground anchors as Council ought to remember were needed when similar works for the Rocks Resort to the North on the same strip generated a landslide that had to be rectified with ground anchors. Ironically the last report obtained by the developer from Core Consulting did go into detail of these type of necessary supports but these recommendations appear NOT to have found their way into the conditions of the approval and this poses an unacceptable risk to neighbouring properties and the public who use the path along 774 Pacific Parade.

Community submissions were made to Council throughout the assessment process from:

• Friends of Currumbin Inc (attached)
• Gecko Environmental Council (attached)
• Community Alliance Association Inc (attached)
• Tugun Progress Association (attached)

For most of 2025, Council seemed to take onboard the community’s concerns and numerous expert reports and rightly pushed back on the Tasmanian development company’s numerous attempts at code compliance for its 7-level building under OTH/2025/12 as ‘not properly made’ . The Council went so far as to tell John Fuglsang Developments Pty Ltd in its letter of October 2025 that it would not accept any more attempts, and the process has come to an end. See attached/linked Council’s letter to the developer 13 Oct 2025 following Response to 4^th Action Notice.

Then mysteriously, the developer (presumably after discussions with Council) lodged a newly numbered code application form OTH/ 2025/79 for the 7-level building with plans almost identical with those rejected- Mr Storey stated “ In our view, the proposal is 7 storeys based on Councils previous determination….The current application has not resolved any of the non-compliances identified by Council in its non-acceptance of change application OTH/2025/12.”   Yet Council did a 180 degree ‘flip’  from their previous position as stated in their letter of October 2025 and said it now (in November 2025) was magically “ properly made”  and in short order went on to grant approval with very inadequate conditions. From documents obtained from Right to Information- it’s clear that internally Council’s  staff in planning thought the second change application was impact assessable, yet the ‘powers that be’ gave the nod that it was OK as code, not impact, assessable. This is an anomaly on many levels.

The argument put simply is that the proposal ought always to have gone “impact” assessable in accordance with numerous legal and town planning experts. (For more of these resources go to: https://savecurrumbin.com/objections-submissions-advices-776-pacific-parade-oth-2025-12/ .

Last time Save Currumbin and the community did a campaign to restrict overdevelopment along the Pacific Parade strip was in in 2019 (long before the old Elephant Rock Café on 776 Pacific Parade was demolished). That was very successful. We got over 1 million supporters hitting our social media as a result of which Council unanimously resolved to amend the City Plan from 15 m to 12 m cap limit along Pacific Parade as well as prohibiting a late-night entertainment precinct. However, when it went up to Steven Miles who was then Premier and acting Local government Minister, those amendments as well as others put up by GCCC were not signed off on. Had they been, we would not be here today in this terrible position. If developments like this on and through our Currumbin Hill were impact assessable, it would need to be advertised and go through a more rigorous process and be likely met with hundreds if not thousands of adverse submissions from the community that such a development is unacceptable, unwelcome and significant.