Did You Have Your Say? THE PUBLIC CONSULTATON PERIOD FOR THE DRAFT CITY PLAN 2015 HAS NOW CONCLUDED.
We will update this page with information about the progression of the draft and the submissions Council received over the coming months.
Media Releases:
New City Plan risks distinctive local character
Your City, Your Future – Is the Gold Coast being Short Changed??
Stories from Recent Editions of Leaftales:
AUGUST:
COUNCIL’S NEW TOWN PLAN STRIPS AWAY PROTECTIONS
JULY:
GOLD COAST CITY PLAN 2015 IS A ‘SKELETON’ PLAN
LOVED TO DEATH OR CHERISHED FOR THE FUTURE?
WHY A LOCAL PLAN IS VITAL FOR SPRINGBROOK
JUNE:
WHAT IS GECKO’S TAKE ON THE DRAFT CITY PLAN 2015?
THE CASE AGAINST THE HUGE PLANNED POPULATION GROWTH FOR THE GOLD COAST
HOW DOES A BIGGER GOLD COAST POPULATION GET AROUND?
NEW PLANNING SCHEME PUTS DISTINCTIVE LOCAL CHARACTER AT RISK
WILL THERE BE STORMY WATERS IN THE DRAFT CITY PLAN 2015?
ARE TALLAI & WORONGARY BEING TARGETED FOR DEVELOPMENT?
COUNCIL’S NEW TOWN PLAN STRIPS AWAY PROTECTIONS
Just when Gold Coast is struggling to keep up with a ballooning population, council’s new town plan (City Plan 2015) wants to strip away protections for our special areas.
extra 2 people to every 3The forecast population growth is massive. For every three of us here now, there could be an extra two in 20 years’ time.
We’re concerned City Plan 2015 will be a ‘skeleton plan’ without enough muscle to protect what we love about our city – things like the hinterland, the wildlife, and the distinctive character of places like James Street, Burleigh Heads.
We believe the lack of detail in City Plan 2015 will allow unwelcome development to occur. More than that, even good development will not be matched by enough infrastructure (transport, parks, community facilities and the like) to prevent a reduction in the quality of life we now enjoy.
Picture this: on the way to your favourite park, there’s more and more cars on the road, and when you get there, more and more people are trying to use the same facilities.
That’s what could happen with an extra 320,000 people living in the city by 2035.
Council’s City Plan 2015 is now open for submissions. If you have pride in your city and are concerned that the City Plan puts at risk protection of our special areas, you have until 20th August to make your voice heard.
It’s only by putting in a submission that you can have an influence.submission form image
We’ve prepared the following notes to help you with your submission. Just copy any content you want to submit from the notes, then click on this link https://www.research.net/s/draftcityplan2015.
This will take you straight to council’s City Plan online submission form where you can paste your selected content directly into the text box in section 3 of the form. Don’t forget to add your name and address in section 1 of the form before submitting.
Please note: There is no reason you can’t make more than one submission. However, be aware the online submission form may allow only one submission from each computer unless cookies are deleted before accessing the form again.
Notes for Submission
GOLD COAST CITY PLAN 2015 IS A ‘SKELETON’ PLAN
The new draft Gold Coast City Plan 2015 has stripped protection of the City’s environment and amenity to the bone, leaving a ‘skeleton’ of a plan without enough muscle to protect our quality of life.
According to the Mayor, the new plan is only about one-third the size of the current planning scheme. Much of the content that protected what we value has been removed. What’s left is much more of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach across the city, from Yatala to Coolangatta, from Surfers to Springbrook.
The lack of detail in the plan is likely to increase community uncertainty and potential conflict regarding the impact of future development. This is a particular concern as the city’s population is forecast to grow by 320,000 over the next 20 years from the current population of about 540,000. With this level of demand for new housing and jobs, there are likely to be very strong pressures on land and infrastructure, requiring a strong plan to protect the character of our local areas.
This local character is under particular threat due to removal of all local area plans from City Plan 2015. For example, the removal of the existing local area plan for Springbrook means that strengthening nature conservation links on the Springbrook Plateau is no longer a clearly-stated objective. Currently there are 31 local areas plans for localities such as Springbrook, Burleigh, Nerang and Currumbin Hill.
Local area plans are very important for large and diverse local government areas like the Gold Coast because a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach does not work well enough to take into account that diversity. This principle is well recognised by Brisbane City Council, with the recently-released Brisbane City Plan containing 61 neighbourhood plans. Notably, Brisbane City is the same size as Gold Coast.
In an increasingly competitive globalised world, cities with a diversity of attractive local places are highly regarded. 21st century planning emphasises ‘placemaking’, that is creating a distinctive sense of place rather than having an urban ‘monoculture’ that replicates the same design features throughout the city. Focus on placemaking has been shown to produce economic benefits for a city as well as improving community wellbeing. Cities like Vancouver and Melbourne, which regularly rank among the most liveable in the world, have used very detailed local area planning over decades to achieve that distinction.
Unfortunately, the Gold Coast City Plan 2015 does not include the detailed local area plans required to enhance local character and diversity. Council should reinstate the local area plans and put muscle on the skeleton plan.
LOVED TO DEATH OR CHERISHED FOR THE FUTURE?
We have two types of green spaces: those for recreation and those for conservation. They must be considered separately for they have different functions and serve different human and ecological needs. However, all green spaces are valuable to a city and need protection, maintenance and rehabilitation to ensure they sustain us and other species for the long term.
Where Is Our Green Space?
Our green space network consists of Springbrook National Park, Regional Conservation Parks, Conservation Reserves, State Forests, and parts of flood plains, neighbourhood parks, formal playing fields, coastal reserves and our beaches. In addition, there is private land that has various voluntary covenants which conserve it from development, such as Land for Wildlife. Some areas that we might think of as protected bush often are privately owned and can be developed to some degree at a future date.
Before Today?
Over decades the Gold Coast City Council has purchased land to add to this green space network using the ‘green levy’ to try to keep pace with population growth. But this ceased in 2012 when the current Council decided it was too expensive to purchase more land (even though land prices were arguably at an all-time low).
Since then most of the green levy has been put into maintenance of the existing protected estate. This is where there is a problem with the draft City Plan. As far as can be seen there is no provision for an increase in green space to cope with the projected population growth.
Draft City Plan 2015 Into The Future
The City Plan projects a population increase of 300,000 more people in just 20 years. The current population is around 540,000, a two-thirds increase on the existing population. What impact will this have on our green space network and what impact will it have on the people who live here?
Population growth is seen by all levels of Australian government as essential to economic success regardless of the environmental costs of unending growth and despite evidence from other developed countries like Denmark or Finland that endless growth is not necessary to sustain a good standard of living. Those countries rely on quality of product, not quantity, to maintain their economies.
At first glance the City Plan looks relatively benign regarding the preservation of our open spaces and conservation areas. Apart from the Investigation Areas around Tallai and Worongary and small pockets to the north, additional urban density will be confined to its current limited area, leaving our valleys, rural areas and mountains much as they are in terms of development.
The Living with Nature Strategic Outcomes (3.7) section of the Strategic Framework is full of positive statements such as “the ecological processes and biodiversity will be protected through the greenspace network” and ”coastal environments are protected for their ecological, economic and recreational values”.
The Natural Landscape areas (3.7.2.1) are to be retained and enhanced to perform essential functions such as nature conservation, cultural heritage, scenic amenity and other greenspace values vital to protect the city’s ecological assets, biodiversity values and landscape character.
However, then we come to other statements (3.7.3.1) that state “development does not erode and wherever practicable, contributes to the expansion of the extent, function and values of the greenspace network.”
Regrettably, long experience tells us that it is rarely practicable for development to extend the greenspace network. Instead we find that developers maximise lot potential and opt for an offset, i.e. buying land elsewhere or making a financial contribution to Council in compensation. The offsets often have different ecological values and are far from the bushland/coastal area that had been sacrificed to development. Gold Coast City is also running out of land that can be used as offsets.
The Economics Of Greenspace
Economic uses of the greenspace network include nature-based tourism, supposedly where it does not conflict with ecological function and scenic amenity, but also allows development of facilities for nature-based activities.
Quite what the definition of nature-based activities is remains unclear. Is it an accommodation facility for people who want to go bush walking or a quad bike track through good quality bushland or a zipline (flying fox) across a pristine valley?
‘Nature-based’ sounds friendly enough, but if there are too many facilities for which the bush must be cleared and there are too many people using any area, it degrades progressively. Future generations may not realise an area is degraded, because they have no experience of what it was once like, but the degradation continues and the area’s ability to sustain ecological functions and the wildlife species that depend on it recedes and the quality of experience for visitors declines.
Impacts of Population on Green Space
All people—now and in the future— will need green space for passive and active recreation to maintain their physical and mental health.
They will also need the conservation areas to refresh the soul and give peace of mind that our amazing local flora and fauna have places in which to thrive.
While the City Plan recognises this to some extent with the statement that the “Gondwana Rainforests of World Heritage Areas in Springbrook National Park define our city and we must continue to value and protect these assets”, our greenspaces are more than just Springbrook which is a small, fragmented National Park with limited capacity to absorb increased tourist and resident visitation.
A large increase in population requires a commensurate increase in the provision not only of parks and playing fields, but also conservation areas to provide essential ecosystem services to our city. Ecosystem services include clean air, clean water, water supply, soil stability on our steep slopes and floodplains, climate control in a warming planet, refuges for native plants and animals, and opportunities for research and study, to name some.
The alternative is crowded parklands and playing fields that must be booked in advance, and degraded bushland where people desperately seek refuge from an increasing congested city.
Gecko has fought many battles over the past 25 years on the Springbrook Plateau and elsewhere to stop inappropriate development, including golf courses and a cableway, which would have resulted in a gradual degradation of these “assets”.
We do delight in the fact that the Gold Coast region is one of the most biodiverse, i.e. it has more variety of native plants and animals, in Australia and we want to keep it that way.
Green Space and the Broadwater
Our current campaigns include retaining the Broadwater, Wavebreak Island and the northern section of The Spit in its natural form and not allowing it to fall victim to the latest ASF Consortium possible proposal for a mini city on Wavebreak Island and The Spit and a non-viable cruise terminal.
The City Plan is conspicuously silent on the future of the Broadwater. It is not mentioned in the Nature Conservation section despite the high levels of marine and terrestrial biodiversity. It does get a mention in Landscape Character (3.8.2.1) where it is considered a significant feature and states that the natural, non-urbanised appearance is protected for its contribution to the city’s outstanding scenic amenity, image and role as a major tourist destination. The Plan also clearly states “the undeveloped character of the islands and the open waters of Moreton Bay and the Broadwater are protected.”
How this can be done when a majority of Councillors continue to support the ASF possible proposal is a mystery.
Skeleton Green Space Terminology
It is essential that the City Plan provides us with the tools to protect our greenspace network, particularly our conservation areas. Mere motherhood statements will not be sufficient when arguing with a development application.
Most of the wording of the City Plan is so broad it can be interpreted many ways and it is our experience that development is generally favoured over conservation, because of the so-called economic benefits. The costs are rarely counted and failure to conserve our green space will result in a steady decline of these natural assets that are recognised in the City Plan, but not enforced, as essential to the tourism future of the city and the health of its residents.
The City Plan was designed by the Mayor’s technical advisory committee which consisted of all those professions engaged in the development and construction industry. There were no representatives from the social, community or environment sectors on the committee despite requests to be included.
The City Plan reflects the views of this development-oriented committee and the future of the city is seen through the narrow and distorted prism of economic development before all else.
It is up to us as residents to broaden this view and ensure our green spaces live and grow for all our sakes, as we too are part of the web of life