FEWER HOMES ON COAST

A LACK of available land is cribbing the Gold Coast housing lifestyle with the number of new homes falling almost 25 per cent in the past year.

About 2800 houses were built on the Glitter Strip last year, down nearly 1000 on 2016 figures.

The trend is in contrast to what is happening elsewhere in the state, with approvals for new homes up strongly in north and central Queensland.

“A lot of guys (in the industry) are saying to me that the overall fall in approvals is a result of the availability of land and not everyone wants to live at places like Pimpama where the infrastructure from a traffic point of view isn’t great,” Master Builders Gold Coast boss John Duncalfe said.

THE days of quarter-acre housing on the Gold Coast are over, with new figures showing approvals for housing have plummeted over the past year.

Figures released by the Master Builders Association Queensland show housing approvals have fallen 23.6 per cent over the past 12 month.

More than 2800 homes were built in 2017, down from 3729 the previous year, a change attributed to a lack of available land.

This defied the statewide trend, where approvals are up strongly in north and central Queensland.

Master Builders Gold Coast boss John Duncalfe said a lack of land meant Gold Coasters would have to accept a growth in highdensity redevelopment of existing housing properties in older suburbs such as Southport and Burleigh Heads.

Mr Duncalfe said the face of the city would change with an increase in units being built instead of houses.

“A lot of guys (in the industry) are saying to me that the overall fall in approvals is a result of the availability of land and not everyone wants to live at places like Pimpama where the infrastructure from a traffic point of view isn’t great,” he said. “Having said that, there is lot of new work happening but Gold Coasters will have to get their head around the mentality of knocking down older houses and rebuilding on the site.

“Unfortunately the dream of a quarter-acre is definitely a thing of the past and we have to look at increasing our density.”

Approvals for buildings of less than four-storeys was down 17.7 per cent across 2017 while towers higher than four levels were down 32.9 per cent.

Despite these falls, Gold Coast approvals remain significantly above 2015 levels.

Industry figures told the Bulletin they were not concerned about the dramatic drop, pointing to strong figures recorded in January.

Housing approvals from December to January were up 12.1 per cent, while there have been significant boosts to unit approvals.

In January, approvals for unit buildings above four storeys rose 428 per cent, while those below four levels increased 138 per cent.

City planning boss Cr Cameron Caldwell said he was not concerned by the dip in approvals in late 2017.

“There will always be slight market fluctuations but overall confidence remains high,” he said.