POWER AND THE PEOPLE
CITY planning officers walk a tightrope as they try to find a balance between enormous opposing forces.
On the one side is the Government and the targets it has imposed on the Gold Coast City to provide 158,900 extra dwellings by 2041 to house a population surge, requiring a juggling of zonings, densities and building heights under the proposed City Plan that will change the face and feel of the suburbs.
Pressure was applied to designate development hot spots, with Labrador, Biggera Waters and Southport West declared areas for higher densities and high rise. The idea has been to use existing infrastructure in those places to ease the burden of building on greenfield sites in the northern end.
Elsewhere, higher densities and tower developments are accompanying the extension of light rail.
Matters are coming to a head, but instead of a whole-of-city stand that might be expected as the council builds a final draft for a blueprint to meet the demands of the Government’s Shaping SEQ Plan, councillors appear to be backing off in piecemeal fashion as they feel the blowtorch from that other powerful force in the City Plan debate, the people.
Significant changes were made to reduce the impact in Labrador, Biggera Waters and Southport West, where residents were not happy.
And yesterday, there was another major change. Protesters against high rise development at Palm Beach were handed a win, with planning chair Cameron Caldwell and all other councillors at a special meeting on City Plan consultation showing they had heard what the people had to say. Area councillor Daphne McDonald, who has been anti-high rise, was not present as councillors backed a new recommendation to reduce building heights and densities along the showpiece beachfront street, Jefferson Lane.
It is hard though not to be cynical in this instance and in the case of the wateringdown of the Labrador-Biggera Waters proposals, given an election looms in March. Elected representatives should listen to the people when communities are upset, but when looking around Palm Beach it is evident the high-rise horse has bolted well before light rail rumbles over the horizon.
We should expect that in light of the people-power victories, pressure groups will mobilise in other areas where City Plan proposals will change the face and lifestyle.
It will be interesting to see how the council handles these, and whether it finds itself backed into a corner as it tries to appease voters in an election climate and tries to convince the Government that other options must be found.
Mayor Tom Tate has rightly ruled out a population cap, so does the council push for more greenfield development in the north to protect densities and heights in established suburbs even though the Government wants it the other way?
Councillors and officers have been the architects of this planning conundrum, for years allowing chopping and changing on conditions and approvals, and allowing developers gains here and there with setbacks, heights and densities.
WHAT on earth has possessed people of normal intelligence to believe the global warming religious mobs’ constant ravings that we are about to destroy the world?
Their motto is – My mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts.
Facts are simply a nuisance and if anyone dare try to publish facts they are pilloried and even sacked if they hold a responsible position. Professor Ridd comes to mind.
They ignore the fact that their dire predictions have never come to fruition. They simply make new false predictions.
It would take many pages to fully enumerate their falsehood. However, I will state some of them.
The polar ice caps will melt by 2010. The Antarctic ice cap is actually increasing.
Polar bears are becoming extinct. Their population has increased.
The ocean islands are going under water. About 80 per cent of them have increased in area.
How about Victoria’s guru, Andrews, not building dams because it will not rain again?
This simply scratches the surface of this madness.
We, democratic countries, are being sent into oblivion. I predict that the day will come when common scense will return, but only after we have done irrepable financial damage to all democracies.
OUR democracy continues to decay from within thanks to devious and demented saboteurs aggressively
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Look around the world’s failed states. War, starvation, malfeasance, corruption, dictatorships, despots, theological terror, misogyny, child abuse, nepotism, crime etc. An international smorgasbord of misery, imprisonment and death for so many. As Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all the others”.
There is not one successful and happy communist or socialist country.
But our very own vociferous socialist sponge-brains try to tear us down using the great climate change delusion as their smokescreen, scaring our kids.
If Australia’s governance continues to be hobbled by the whims of a few odd-bods and misfits in the silly Senate, and as our local government councils, our bureaucracies, our instrumentalities, and our justice system continue to be inundated by Lefties and greenies, then Australia is just playing the fool – with hungrier neighbours watching and waiting.
ScoMo has to start kicking butt as Australians want positive action from a positive leader. Punt grasping consultants.
We have fires and we have drought. We must do what we can about the changing climate and emissions but not be stampeded into folly. China and India laugh at our stupidity as they con the useless UN, and ramp up their own power-stations and smog.
Luckily for ScoMo I am from