CANETOPIA
PLANS TO TRANSFORM NORTHERN SUGAR FIELDS INTO 60K-HOME CITY
THE Gold Coast’s northern cane fields will be transformed into a 60,000-home city as part of a secret proposal put forward by 71 Norwell landowners.
The Norwell Valley Consortium is asking for developer expressions of interest to build Pacific City on 4975ha of green heartland.
An international expression-of-interest campaign has also been planned through leading property firm Colliers.
At least 217 properties would form the initial collective sale; another 71 lots could be added.
According to the pitch document completed before the COVID-19 pandemic, Pacific City represents “an unprecedented opportunity to develop a potential new city in a bayside location fronting the pristine water of Moreton Bay”.
Under the plans, Pacific City would feature:
● A “significant city centre” and employment precincts as well as “sustainable ecological and tourism-based outcomes”.
● The potential for up to 60,000 dwellings, based on the preliminary masterplan.
● The masterplan proposes six precincts – employment, north, central, south, transitoriented and flood/vegetation.
● The planned Coomera connector would run through the western fringes of the city, providing a major transport link, while the Ormeau Railway station and M1 would be just 1km and 4km respectively away from the centre of the development.
The proposal has the backing of Mayor Tom Tate who said it would create jobs critical to reversing the COVID-19 economic slump.
“I welcome investment of this type in the city – it will bring jobs and more residential buildings,” he told the Bulletin yesterday.
“One thing about the Gold Coast is we are allowed to dream big. We had our origins that way. So we are not afraid to look at big ideas and make them happen.”
The land owners have pooled together to sell the properties in the face of the long-term decline of the cane industry.
However, the biggest challenge facing the project would be a green light by all three levels of government.
The first major hurdle would be the the rezoning of cane fields.
Currently the area is classed in the Shaping SEQ regional plan as an “investigation area”.
The pitch by the consortium calls for the declaration of Norwell Valley as a priority development area (PDA) similar to Southport or Parklands within three years, allowing for significant building to occur.
It calls for the potential approval or early release within four years and the approval of a masterplan and development rights within six years.
“Importantly, however, the support for the current cane farming is tempered by the evident declining viability of the industry,” a town planning report by Urbis said.
“It is broadly considered inevitable, despite all protection afforded under the above strategic intents, that the Rocky Point Mill and the surrounding farming land use will eventually cease. While the broad support of landowners, and the acknowledgment of this by both local and State planning instruments, the full analysis and documentation of feasibility over time, and the economic viability of future alternative land uses has apparently not been fully undertaken.”
The report said discussions held with Palaszczuk Government representatives acknowledged the declining state of the cane industry and that there was “evidenced general support for a new vision for the area”.
It recommenders an economic feasibility assessment be done potentially in partnership with council and state bodies, to “fully ascertain the timing and key thresholds of the current agricultural activities”.
The Bulletin first wrote about the merger among land owners in September 2016.
At the time it was believed the parcel of cane land more than 10 times the size of Surfers Paradise, bordered by the M1, Moreton Bay and two rivers, could fetch well over $1 billion.
ONE THING ABOUT THE GOLD COAST IS WE ARE ALLOWED TO DREAM BIG.
MAYOR TOM TATE