CITY OF THE BIG SQUEEZE

TWO reports today demonstrate the pressures the Gold Coast is under as population growth forces higher density living.

The city is already feeling the pinch. Streets and highways for example are clogged, forcing a determined effort to try to ease congestion through road widening and development of public transport, particularly through the extension of light rail. All the while the State Government is being led to an inevitability it wants to avoid – building another motorway to Brisbane.

The city has state-of-the-art health facilities, but population demands overtook capacity at the university hospital and the Robina Hospital before they were built.

The Gold Coast’s linear shape, with the city hemmed in by the ocean to the east and the mountains to the west, means its growth can only spill northwards up the highway, south through the Tweed or lead to greater numbers of towers.

The Bulletin today reveals another downside of the pressures, with a report detailing how tenants are being squeezed into homes that were built to accommodate, say, a single family yet converted – without approval – into three flats or in some instances, buildings accommodating five or six households under one roof. The 10 properties looked at are owned by one landlord, who is being taken to court by the council over planning laws. As reported, court documents show tenants have been charged up to $240 a week rent for small units with basic facilities.

Our second report is at the other end of the spectrum but still demonstrates the pressure for space. We highlight a couple who are happily preparing to move into what most people would view as a microhome, in a Southport development where the small terrace homes have a footprint of 38 sqm and start at a price tag of $300,000. The dimensions of their small home might shock residents who still enjoy their four-bedroom houses with yards in the city’s leafier suburbs, but the terraces reflect a trend that could become the norm. The days of the quarter-acre block seem numbered, at least along the strip.