YOU’VE SQUAT TO BE JOKING
A HOUSE in a prominent Southport CBD location has been occupied by squatters and turned into a rubbish-filled eyesore. The area is due become home to a trendy high-rise called Oxford on Southport, but local councillor Dawn Crichlow says neighbours are living in fear. “It’s dangerous, they’ve knocked out all the windows, if it goes up in smoke it will affect the people living in the area because it’s riddled with asbestos,” she said.
KICKED in walls, smashed windows and graffiti tag murals – welcome to the Gold Coast’s $1.5 million hell home.
Vagrants have been spotted regularly walking in and out of the dilapidated weatherboard home located near flash multimillion dollar developments in the heart of Southport’s CBD.
The group of illegal residents who call the site home barely make any effort to disguise the vandalised main road squat, which is festooned with rubbish clearly visible from its prominent location on the corner of Queen and Scarborough St.
The area is due become home to a trendy high-rise complex called Oxford on Southport which “represents an exciting opportunity to contribute to the gentrification of Southport as a world-class CBD environment”, according to a development application accepted by council in June 2016.
Property searches reveal PSR Southport MP Investment Pty Ltd paid $1.5 million for the site in July 2016.
The application for the first of two potential towers was submitted to the council three days before Christmas 2015, which boasted plans for 324 units, retail space, childcare centre and pool.
But neighbours live in fear, according to Southport councillor Dawn Crichlow, who has called for the squatters to be moved on and the building demolished.
Southport Chamber of Commerce president Laird Marshall also weighed in to say it should be a council requirement that developers knock down buildings on sites earmarked for development rather than allow them to become decrepit.
Cr Crichlow was furious to learn nearby disabled residents were afraid to leave their homes for fear of the vagrants. She said she has written to the site’s owners – PSR Southport MP Investment Pty Ltd – multiple times without receiving a response.
“It’s dangerous, they’ve knocked out all the windows, if it goes up in smoke it will affect the people living in the area because it’s riddled with asbestos,” Cr Crichlow said.
She said the building was at risk of becoming the latest ageing home in the city's CBD to burn down because of squatters this year. “(Neighbours) are scared – they don’t know if the place is going to burn down like a few other places in Southport,” she said.
Cr Crichlow said it was “disgusting” that she had not received a response from the company, which lists Wollongong, NSW, as its postcode.
She said the council had issued show cause notices asking the building’s owners why they should not be penalised but the process was taking too long.
The Bulletin made a number of unsuccessful attempts to contact the developer’s town planner.
A CITY that depends on tourism has an especially great need for clean and presentable streets.
The image we present to the world, not just during major events like the Commonwealth Games, but every single day, is vitally important.
One bad review on TripAdvisor can inspire many others, gaining a momentum that can do lasting damage to our image.
We cannot allow any part of the Gold Coast to look or feel, in even the smallest way, like the rough streets of a rust belt city.
So it is disturbing to see a smashed up house in the heart of the Southport CBD strewn with rubbish, tagged by graffiti and inhabited by squatters.
The fact that the house is located not in some squalid backstreet but on a major thoroughfare used by tour buses is especially concerning.
This is not the image we wish to present of the Gold Coast.
Aside from tourism, one of the city’s other great assets is development.
Smart developers understand that there is a symbiotic relationship between the two industries.
Poor quality development could harm the city, and in turn the tourism industry.
Less tourists would mean less visitors, including those from the southern states and China who so often fall in love with our city and return to invest in property here.
So it is incumbent on the development industry to do its part to ensure our city wears an attractive face.
By and large, this is what happens. But the owners of the Queen St site that has been allowed become an eyesore and a magnet for vagrants are failing to play their part.
It is understandable that a site may remain vacant for a number of years before building work begins.
Sites must be assembled, detailed plans drawn up, approval sought from council, finance sourced and contractors appointed before a single shovel can hit the ground.
But that is no excuse to allow eyesores such as the one in Southport to come into being in the meantime.
A certain basic level of proper order should be maintained.
What is most disappointing in this instance is that council appears to lack the authority to quickly impose a solution to the problem.
The suggestion by Southport Chamber of Commerce president Laird Marshall that developers should be required to quickly demolished buildings on sites approved for development rather than allow them to lie idle for extended periods deserves serious consideration.
And if the developer fails to enact any such conditions, then council should be given the power to send in the bulldozers themselves, knock down unseemly slums – and send the developer the bill.
It may be the only way to ensure that eyesores such as the one on the corner of Queen St and Scarborough St cannot happen again.