Last night (21 January 2020) the Currumbin RSL was the venue for a public meeting/ Southern Gold Coast ‘Town Hall’ to discuss amendments to the Gold Coast City Plan (2016). GCCC hosted the event to take the community through the Round 2 of the Our City Our Plan process (namely to highlight fresh proposed amendments not previously advertised by Council but which Council has decided to adopt from submissions received in Round One and to field questions and receive feedback from the community.

See our Article on Round 2 and Article #2 on Round 2

Whilst the event was held in Currumbin (the suburb from which Council received most of the submissions from Round One), many of the attendees were not Currumbin residents but came from Palm Beach Burleigh Heads, Coolangatta. Those residents expressed in no uncertain terms their frustration and anger over several developments going ahead in their areas which those residents feel the Council should not have approved by reason that many of them ‘push the development envelope’ by seeking relaxations from the City Plan requirements for height, set-backs, car parks and density, etc (i.e. seeking greater height and density than allowed as of right by the codes). Many people were outraged that developers were allowed to build many more storeys than the City Plan codes set out as a base line and that they could build right up to the boundaries of homes. One lady almost in tears told Councillor Cameron Caldwell (Chair of the Council’s Planning Committee) that her property was being shaken to pieces by the sheet piling construction methods employed by developers of a high-rise development so close to the foundations of her own home at Palm Beach which suburb has seen an ‘orgy of development’ in 2019.

Councillor Caldwell told the Palm Beach residents vocalizing their concerns that the Council listened to them and that’s why heights were substantially reduced moving forward. He also denied that the Light Rail Stages 2 and 3 would add to over-development because the fact of the existence of Light Rail in an area would no longer be a factor to allow developers to seek increased density. Nonetheless the residents were upset because much of that over development has already been built or approved and there’s a 12- month window for other developers to ‘have a go ’before the law’s jaws fall on the development bonanza along that strip.

The residents said that car parking was already inadequate, and they feared that with the extra room the Light Rail would take up along the Gold Coast Highway, the car parking would be further reduced. Residents were angry that council had their head in the sand if they thought that it was OK to allow developers to only build 1 car park per apartment when many people would have 2 or more cars in their families. This has led and will lead to residents of these mega structures spilling their cars into the street and taking public car park spaces. Where are visitors to the beach supposed to park? 

It is obvious that developments along the shoreline must be more strictly constrained to not exceed baselines of reasonableness in terms of density, carparks, setbacks and site cover and that greedy developers must be forced to ‘stick to the rules’ and not exploit performance based criteria in the City Plan to harm residents and visitors and to provide more car parking on premises not less. If the emerging suburbs on the North Gold Coast got these constraints (with relaxations triggering Impact Assessment and thus considerations of the Strategic Framework benchmarks and principles) why not the shoreline suburbs on the Southern Gold Coast where there is a thin line between the highway and the sea, where ordinary folk both residents and visitors need to be able to bring their families and their surfboards and park to use a fundamental Aussie human right of visiting the beach?

A representative of the indigenous community complained that the Light Rail was not taking into consideration the spiritual/cultural concerns of the first nation peoples especially around Burleigh and Tallebudgera.

Some residents thought Light Rail was a good idea as it took cars off the street and allowed people the ability to catch a tram to the beach and park on the other side of the highway. Some residents said this was not going to be the outcome because there were insufficient stops planned along the route. Some residents worried that the rail would push car parks off the Highway, and this would seriously and negatively impact businesses along the highway.

Many residents there on the night were against the Light Rail continuing through Burleigh, Palm Beach and down to the airport. One resident sardonically suggested if its sole raison d’être was to provide transport between the airport and the North end of the Coast, why not get rid of the airport.

Seriously though, if the Light Rail (G:Link) Stages 3A (6.4 km from Broadbeach to Burleigh) and 3B (to Coolangatta) are a fait accompli (as it seems they are, at least for the section to Burleigh (3A)), then Council needs to be sensitive to these concerns and do something to alleviate the downside. Not giving developers an excuse to increase density is a start. However even then the community expects protections to be hard wired into all remaining areas of “G:link” to state there will be NO increased density allowances in the City Plan for areas contiguous to the Light Rail; especially Currumbin. We do NOT want the views of bureaucratic/academic ‘big picture’ types far away like Infrastructure Australia chief executive Romilly Madew prevailing. She has stated from her ivory tower in Phillip Street Sydney that she wanted G:Link to trigger land use changes to promote what he calls “urban renewal”and increase density in surrounding areas”. Did she consult with the residents of Palm Beach, Currumbin, Tugun about this opinion? The community does NOT agree with those views. We want less density not more.

Whilst we also welcome less congestion and more parking it cannot be at the expense of amenity.

Both those aspirations of the community for less congestion and less density are not mutually exclusive to the common man. We can have more public transport, less congestion and more public car parking. However we do NOT want it at the expense of loss of amenity of a very narrow strip of coastal beauty that makes the Southern Gold Coast beaches the envy of the world. Keep the density in the North and West and keep it away from the beaches access to which is a fundamental right of every Australian family who should be able to park, take their board out, surf and swim and enjoy a day at the beach. Creating concrete canyons is not the answer but a recipe for disaster. G:Link should not be linked in the City Plan to any increase in density along the Gold Coast Highway from Burleigh to Coolangatta. If this cannot be assured, the Community don’t want it and would rather the money be spent on hard rail further West.

Some residents brought up the not unreasonable suggestion that assuming there will not be increases in density along its path, the light rail should be a subway along the (Stage 3B) stretches South from Burleigh.

Maybe a mini tube system or minibus shuttle system that connects new council car parks on the Western side of the freeway to the top beaches along Palm Beach, Currumbin right down to Rainbow bay would be a more innovative approach? (That was not brought up at the meeting but something worth considering perhaps).

In any case, Council must also build more public car parks in those areas where lax enforcement of car parking codes has caused an under supply of public car-parking or in an area of strong visitor growth such as Currumbin which, because it is consistently considered one of the best beaches in Australia (NO 2 last year) and hosts large public beach events like Swell and the Anzac ceremony every year, simply needs more car parks (introducing metering is not going to be enough) .

As far as Currumbin residents are concerned, the acute lack of car parking is a BIG problem and will only get worse. Alas these issues are not on the agenda of this round of Our City Our Plan but we want it on the agenda for consideration quite independently of this amendment process.

In terms of what is on the agenda for this Round Two of Our City Or Plan, we as Save Currumbin agree with the substantially different proposals which essentially adopted the Save Currumbin submissions, namely lowering the maximum building height along Pacific Parade at Currumbin to 12 meters and not going ahead with a late night precinct for the area. These and the other proposed changes in Round Two are agreeable to us and we want them implemented into law as soon as possible. We expect that notwithstanding the state government legislative framework that effectively allows developers a moratorium period to lodge submissions within 12 months of the changes based on the ’old laws’, that GCCC would be very circumspect in considering those applications in light of the fact that the amenity of the residents which informs the existing laws (whose codes such as Ridges and Significant Hills Overlays should ‘trump’ any artificial exploitation of the 15 M building height overlay greedy developers may use to justify trying to squeeze 5+ storeys into what should be a 3 storey zone)  would be seriously and negatively affected should developers be allowed to unreasonably ‘push the development envelope’.

We implore Council to consider and adopt the balance of our Submissions made in Round One regarding the protection of the vegetated slopes and escarpments of Currumbin Hill, especially those between Woodgee Street and Pacific Parade.

Council’s response to this submission is to say that a) its not necessary as the Council will enforce the Ridges and Significant Hills Overlay and the Landslide hazard Overlay Code and this is adequate protection and b) the escarpment is not on the State Government Environmental maps and so outside the scope of this Round of Our City Our Plan.

However, Save Currumbin respectfully disagrees (see our earlier Article #savecurrumbin wildlife habitats from concrete tombs) and say further as follows.

With a development on Pacific Parade currently before the Courts and so we cannot comment on it too specifically, Council officers in the first instance either ignored or gave insufficient weight to the Ridges and Significant Hills Overlay and allowed a development that would have denuded the escarpment behind the lot (to the West) of all its vegetation and dug out from the base of the hill, 1,400 cubic meters or earth and rock and built apartments into the escarpment thereby obliterating not only the wildlife on the escarpment but also the landform itself. If it were not for the lobbying efforts of Save Currumbin with elected councillors convincing them to oppose the granting of the DA, the overlay codes would not have been enough to Save this iconic green ridge of Currumbin. Also, that DA because it sought to exceed the height limits went Impact Assessable and so was on Save Currumbin’s radar and we had a chance to Save Currumbin hill. If another DA goes in lower but still butchers the hill and its vegetation and destroys the habitat corridor for wildlife, we may have no notice or power to stop it UNLESS the vegetated escarpment is protected under the Vegetation and Biodiversity maps.

Current deficient Biodiversity Map

Current deficient Vegetation Overlay Map

Also Save Currumbin have obtained Queensland’s top experts who all advocate for the preservation of Currumbin’s vegetated cliffs and escarpments including the most prominent one between Woodgee Street and Pacific Parade.

We obtained an ecologist report by Forest Rehabilitation Ecology’s Victoria Bakker of the importance of this vegetated escarpment as a bio-diverse corridor that provides coastal continuity for land animals and birds. Council last night Council Officer Amanda Sheers (formerly Amanda Tzannes) Manager of City Planning said Council adopt the ‘principle of continuity’ in this Our City Our Plan on other areas of the Gold Coast, yet they have ignored this one as they have not properly considered our expert reports (notwithstanding the State Government Maps which we believe by oversight have failed to include this small area on their maps of Currumbin critical corridors).

We have done an article on the endangered species on that vegetated escarpment between Woodgee Street and Pacific parade: See Article

We obtained a report from Queensland’s top expert Geotech engineer to say that excavating at the base of the escarpment between Woodgee Street and Pacific Parade could cause instability of that part of Currumbin Hill which is mapped as prone to landslide hazard. It is undeniable that the more lot owners along Pacific Parade excavates into the base of Currumbin Hill the greater the risks become. Yet Council say they will abdicate their duty of care and not consider the likely cumulative effect of lot owners excavating into that part of Currumbin Hill because they only will look at approving or disapproving a DA on a case by case basis. See generally our Submissions

Placing the vegetated escarpment on the maps is thus essential to protect the continuity of the biodiversity that runs North South and East West along Currumbin Hill and will lessen the risk to life limb property and wildlife as all other safeguards may be illusory or less than adequate.

Placing this vegetated escarpment on the maps or otherwise creating a fresh designation overlay will add an extra lawyer of protection so that not only is the flora and fauna of that ridge protected (some species in it are listed as endangered from the Council’s own website). Save Currumbin’s submissions prepared by Queensland’s preeminent town planner Greg Ovenden from Reel Planning contains evidence of the cultural significance of the Woodgee Street escarpment to the first nation peoples the Bundjalung Minjungbal nation and also an extensive report by an amenity expert Nick McGowan that maps out the crucial importance of the vegetated escarpment to the overall visual amenity of Currumbin. Accordingly, any development on lots along Pacific Parade whether Code or Impact assessable must not be able to clear vegetation off that escarpment as of right as landowners. So, if its not in this Round of amendments, it ought to be in the next round that this added layer of protection is given to this wildlife rich green ridge as the iconic ‘shopfront’ of Currumbin so famous for its natural elements.

We have already made an extensive summary of those recommendations in our earlier Article Round 2 Consultation Our City Our Plan 6 Jan – 4 Feb 2020. In that article you will find links to all the relevant information including Attachment D to the 4 December Report which will form the basis of the recommendations for Round 2.

Save Currumbin thanks Council for the hard work they are doing in leading the community through this complex process of amending the City Plan.

We are happy they listened to the Currumbin community and adopted most of what we asked for and look forward to working with them to finish all the amendments and fine tuning necessary to Save Currumbin from overdevelopment.

We are also very appreciative of their whole team coming out last night. Included in their team that night were:

The City Architect Leah Lang

Manager Planning City of Gold Coast Amanda Sheers

Director Economy Planning and Environment City of Gold Coast Alisha Swain

Executive Coordinator City & Regional Planning City of Gold Coast Kelli Adair

Coordinator Program & Spatial Management (Strategic Urban & Regional Planning) Economy Planning and Environment Martine Cousins

Chair of Economy Planning & Environment Committee and Councillor for Division 3 City Gold Coast Cameron Caldwell

Councillor for Division 14 (Currumbin) City Gold Coast Gail O’Neill

We have previously thanked Gail for her support of our change submissions: See Article

Councillor for Division 13 (Palm Beach) City Gold Coast Daphne McDonald

You are invited to have your say on the significantly different items through a second round of public consultation that runs until close of business on Wednesday 12 February 2020 (extended from 4 Feb).