A-Line obstacles for Oceanway planners

I FELT inclined to point out the incorrect assertion made by Ms Tory Jones, Mermaid Beach independent candidate in the State Election, published in the Gold Coast Bulletin on October 29, 2020 where Mr Jones states, “It is incorrect to report the A-Line seawall is inside people’s properties along this (Mermaid Beach) stretch of coast … where private property titles extending seaward of the A-line inhibit construction of the Oceanway. The pathway parallel to Hedges and Albatross avenues will be entirely on public land.”

It is Ms Jones’ assertion which is, in fact, incorrect.

Indeed, the building of structures seaward of the A-Line wall is generally prohibited per various State and Local Government planning and environment protection regulations and legislation. Actually, the rules go further, that building of structures should be set back 8.1m landward from the A-Line.

Ms Jones may be unaware that the A-line marks the apex of top of the seaward slope of the wall. An 8.1 metre clearance landward of the A-Line is intended as a clearspace for ongoing seawall maintenance as walls deteriorate over time as they are intended to do, due to ongoing erosion to the seaward side. The design and implementation of the A-Line came in 1968, following consultation with Delft University, as a result of a series of closely occurring cyclones which impacted Gold Coast beaches in the immediately preceding years.

A City of Gold Coast Council map showing the A-Line, as it sits at the southern section of Mermaid Beach and also Nobby Beach, clearly shows, in contrast to Ms Jones’ assertion, that the A-Line does, in fact, sit inside property boundaries between Seashell St in the north to Wave St in the south. Any Oceanway constructed within this location will therefore either have to be constructed on reclaimed private land or on land seaward of the A-Line where it will interfere with the coastal dune erosion protection system, not to mention, destroy dune vegetation. Above all, this ‘hard’ infrastructure will be destroyed during periodic erosion events and the associated debris will be a dangerous hazard and require expensive removal following such events. Following such erosion instances, the Oceanway will have to be reconstructed, only to be destroyed again at the next, inevitable, erosion event.

I thought, considering one of Ms Jones’ significant election issues seems to be the Oceanway, the abovementioned issues and realities are important considerations.

My family business is responsible for the Salt Village residential resort precinct at Kingscliff (www.saltvillage.com.au) where we constructed a 1.2km oceanway as centrepiece infrastructure, which the community now enjoys. We planned for an oceanway at Salt Village in advance and were able create it with appropriate setbacks and environmental impact considerations. Unfortunately, Mermaid Beach planners had no such foresight all those years ago and therefore the alignment of an Oceanway in the Mermaid Beach area does not practically or environmentally fit within the constraints of what’s already there.