Palm Beach tower future
The future Palm Beach skyline will be dotted with 13-level towers replacing beachside shacks and three-storey walkups, according to new planning documents.
Investors in an old unit block, who have approval for a nine-level tower, have put forward new designs to council for a 13-storey building on an 817sq m Gold Coast Highway site.
Their town planners have produced graphics, which for the first time shows how the higher level will be acceptable and its impact on the street outlook.
Officers at a planning committee meeting on Tuesday will recommend approval of the 13-level tower after supporting much-improved design plans. Councillors, including new Palm Beach representative Josh Martin, will vote on the recommendations.
Only 20 residents have submitted objections, all of them wanting the 29m height limit to remain, saying their suburb should not become another Surfers Paradise or Broadbeach.
A 14-level tower application in Jefferson Lane last year sparked 750 submissions.
Officers said objectors had raised the issue of light rail but a decision was yet to be made on Stage 4 of the trams south from Burleigh to Coolangatta.
An Elanora resident wrote: “The height is too tall. Will be ugly. We don’t want Palmy like Surfers and Broady. Stop the concrete.”
But a council source said: “By going for the higher height, the setbacks have been improved, and there is much better landscaping. The fact there is only 20 objections, is this saying this is the sort of height that Palm Beach wants?”
Officers in their report said the development was on a major highway and allowed for the future road widening of Jefferson Lane which may support walking and cycling paths, street trees and shared car and bike use.
Officers said the 50 per cent uplift in height could be granted because the project fitted with “local identity” and “sense of place” within the City Plan.
The greenery of Burleigh
Hill and Currumbin Hill provide visible “bookends” to Palm Beach to the north and south and are complemented by the adjoining Tallebudgera and Currumbin Creeks, officers wrote in their explanation.
“The linear strip through Palm Beach – is characterised by low to high-rise development with a strong emerging character of tower forms straddling the Gold Coast Highway,” officers wrote.
“The subject site is located within the middle portion of Palm Beach and forms part of the 3.5km contiguous strip adjacent to the Gold Coast Highway where a more intense built form is envisaged within the suburb, where tower forms are commonplace and highly visible.”
Officers also referred to “photomontages” provided by the applicant which showed how the development will “sit within the local area” given other recent approvals.
The graphics showed the tower would not dominate the character of the laneway, and supported the existing “sense of place”.
The transformation of Palm Beach has continued, with plans for a new tower on the beachfront.
Two of the suburb’s beach shacks will be demolished to make way for a 10-storey tower on The Esplanade between Twenty Third and Twenty Fifth avenues.
It will have 15 threebedroom units, topped with a single five-bedroom penthouse.
Meanwhile, prolific developer Ignite Projects has bought the Laurieton House complex on Jefferson Lane in a deal with around $7m.
It was bought from Sydney based developer Daascon, in a deal negotiated by amalgamation specials GV Property Group.
Ignite, headed by Josh Foote is scrapping Daascon’s planned 14-storey tower in favour of a nine-level building.
“These older unit blocks like Laurieton House have well and truly had their day, but it’s great to see a local developer see the potential in the property and look to build a project that neighbours would be much more happy with,” GV Group boss Antonio Mercuri said.