Squeezy does it
Figures show more people than ever cramming into Coast suburbs
THE Gold Coast’s most crowded suburbs are getting denser but senior councillors say there is plenty of room for more.
City council planning committee chairman Cameron Caldwell said ongoing surges into well-established beachside hubs were evidence the city plan was working.
Visitor hotspot Surfers Paradise continues to cram in the most residents with 4477 per square kilometre, up 785 from 3692 back in 2013.
Surfers Paradise is dwarfed in comparison to Australia’s most dense and also exclusive suburbs. Potts Point in Sydney is the most dense with 16,318 per square kilometre, and Kangaroo Point is the most dense in Queensland with 6804.
The latest ABS figures show Mermaid Beach-Broadbeach is second on the Gold Coast, jumping 563 over the past four years from 3748 to 4311.
Labrador is the city’s third most packed suburb with 3866 people per square kilometre.
Cr Caldwell said it was a requirement of the city plan to direct the majority of development to “infill areas” rather than undeveloped green space – “places like Southport, Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach, Main Beach, all well serviced by infrastructure”.
“As long as we are keeping up with those people who want to live close to the beach, the increases in population in our well-serviced and well-located beachside suburbs are exactly what is intended by the plan, particularly along the light rail corridor,’’ he said.
“Most of our new development is in established areas –
and that is exactly the point.”
MRCagney Liveability expert Stephen Burgess said by making these suburbs more populated, the people who lived in them would become healthier, better educated, happier and more social.
“High densities are exteremly efficient and if you wanted to have high quality public transport, local shopping, local cultural things – the higher the density the more likely you are to have that,” he said from Potts Point.
Mr Burgess said high density areas were cheaper to run as a community, sharing infrastructure, services and assets.
“Notwithstanding some sections of the community will be nervous about increased high density living, denser cities will be the ones that will be able to provide the most jobs (and) access to quality education, while low density cities spend so much of their budget servicing the basic community needs,” he said.
Cr Paul Taylor said there was plenty of room at Broadbeach.
“I don’t think people are feeling crammed in, there is plenty of room to move,” he said.
Cr Taylor said 10-15 highrises were on the books to go up at Broadbeach, with a further half dozen around Broadbeach State School.
“That does concern me with the traffic problems around the school and we are trying to solve that as much as possible. Australians like to have two cars but need to realise they might have to adjust to one,” he said.
Even suburbs with under half the population density of frontrunners Surfers and Mermaid-Broadbeach were humming, such as Runaway Bay which sits at 1725 people per square kilometre. Runaway Bay cafe owner Greg Hill, of Caffene Break, said the business was getting so busy he was planning to open at night.
“We’re not as busy as Surfers or Broadbeach. I would have thought they would have had a higher population,” he said.
“But a lot of the highrises here are residential. In Broadbeach or Surfers they’d be for tourists.
“We’re at the point where we’re looking at opening at nights. We’ve only really been a day cafe, or a morning cafe, but we’ll be opening at night time.”