Cast aside the hustings, now it’s time for real work
Congratulations to the Gold Coast’s newly elected councillors, and the familiar faces back for another term. It’s been a long and arduous campaign for many. No doubt exhausting. But here’s the bad news. As they no doubt well realise, the really hard work is yet to begin.
The challenges caused by a population that continues to grow far faster than anyone dared imagine will leave this council facing some exceptionally difficult choices.
This columnist was fascinated by the debate surrounding a proposed development at Foxwell Rd in Coomera.
The area is already one of the Gold Coast’s most heavily congested. It is an area this columnist avoids – especially during the dreaded school run. Though it is congested at almost all times of the day, and every day of the week.
If the area must be visited, I know to allow an extra 15 minutes, especially if it’s peak hour and I have to pass through the roundabout outside Dreamworld.
And yet right in the centre of this traffic nightmare a developer is proposing to build a number of towers of between 16 and 25 storeys, containing some 700 units.
At first glance, given the traffic issues the area already faces, the idea appears wholly ridiculous.
One would expect Coomera residents to be up in arms, and indeed many are singularly unimpressed.
But it is interesting to note that the debate among locals has not been all one-way traffic.
It is a mature, sensible, considered debate, that shows people on the ground have a real understanding of the challenges the city faces.
“There’s clearly a need for more high density housing in the area due to the housing crisis,” one person wrote. “The only solution is to level out the supply to demand ratio. Traffic is the least of the worries of all the people struggling to find a home.”
It was far from the only such contribution.
“They look nice, great mixture of bedroom size units. Close to the shops so makes it easy for people to walk to,” another person wrote.
“Need to (allow for) density, hopefully the price will make it affordable for people to purchase. A sign of things to come as our population increases.
“Allows for public transport to be increase viable services to the area. Obviously some traffic issues need to be addressed.”
And another: “It’s honestly the perfect place to build high-rise living as much as locals might hate the idea. With the shopping centre next door, a stone’s throw from M1 and the Coomera Connector, a satellite hospital, good schools nearby, a TAFE college and all underpinned by 720 new homes. Foxwell Rd would need to be upgraded but we can’t shy away from the truth it’s providing 720 new homes in a desperate market. I’m sure people will be lining up to buy or rent.”
This column does not mean to suggest that the majority of people hold these views. Manifestly, that does not appear to be the case.
But there is a mature and sensible debate happening among ordinary people about how we deal with the needs of a growing population.
It’s a problem that is not about to go away, with Australia’s migration intake 125,410 in January alone – by some distance the highest on record.
People are not stupid. They know the Gold Coast’s population is rising. They can see with their own eyes the effects of the housing crisis in the hordes of people sleeping in cars in tents throughout the city.
They feel the pain of exorbitant rent hikes.
In the past this column has felt councillors, fearing a backlash, were wary of having a necessary tough conversation with their electorates about the compromises needed to deal with these problems.
Compromises that inevitably must include higher buildings and higher densities. It’s a reticence that ultimately led to the imbroglio with the state government over amendments to the City Plan, something that has still not been sorted out.
But the discussion around the Urbana proposal – with two of its four towers to be used solely for rental – suggests people are ready to have a level-headed debate about the way forward.
It suggests, for one thing, that if more is done to solve the transport headache, people may be more accepting of the higher densities we will inevitably need to solve our housing crisis.
Despite some sterling efforts from Deputy Mayor Donna Gates, council has also not to date succeeded in squeezing enough out of the state government in terms of transport infrastructure for the fast growing north of the city, with the focus appearing to be on light rail in the south.
Plans for $2.5 billion worth of road upgrades in the area still seem achingly far away.
We need more leaders to stand up in this new council, people who will grasp the nettle and lead this difficult but necessary debate.
The alternative – gridlock and homeless camps at every turn – is not something anyone wants to see.
Congratulations councillors. But the really tough stuff starts now.
GOLD MEDAL FARCE
How extraordinary that a review prompted by concern over the likely cost of rebuilding the Gabba for the Olympics has managed to recommend an even more expensive option – a new stadium in Brisbane’s Victoria Park.
Now the Miles government is pushing a stranger option still by instead favouring a $1.6 billion remodel of the white elephant QSAC stadium in Mt Gravatt that almost no one is asking for.
Since the day Queensland was awarded the Olympics the planning for the Games has been an absolute farce.
As this column has repeatedly noted, we were told during bidding that it was to be a Queensland Games, not a Brisbane Games. Something to benefit the whole state. It appears that was a lie.
How else to explain the fact that the far easier, cheaper and frankly better option of using the People First Stadium in Carrara – formerly the Heritage Bank Stadium – continues to be given so little consideration.
Apart from changing its name every five minutes, the place is hard to fault.
Anything spent to make it ready for the Games would be far less than needed elsewhere. And no one could possibly suggest it would be dollars wasted on a white elephant.
Yet they just don’t want to know in Brisbane.
Mayor Tom Tate had a point this week when he complained that regional Queensland was being “ignored”.
People are not stupid. They know the Gold Coast’s population is rising. They can see with their own eyes the effects of the housing crisis in the hordes of people
sleeping in cars in tents throughout the city.