WATERS RUNS DEEP
Biggera Waters is today a booming suburb but it had plenty of false starts on its way to the modern era.
ONE of the Gold Coast’s biggest shopping centres and some of the city’s most expensive properties can be found in Biggera Waters.
More than 9000 people call the suburb home today where property prices are high, trending towards an average prices of $1m and seeing recordbreaking sales in 2021.
But the stress is also high with data released earlier this year revealing Biggera Waters residents are among the most vulnerable to mortgage stress in the entire city.
With commercial development continuing to roll out, Biggera Waters remains a suburb in flux.
Things have changed significantly since Harbour Town Shopping Centre was first pitched 35 years ago, sparking a long-running legal battle to prevent it from becoming a reality.
The origins of the modern suburb can be traced back 150 years.
Like many future Gold Coast suburbs, settlers began buying up land in the early 1870s, with the earliest residents a mixture of farmers and fishermen.
As Southport grew and became the region’s urban centre, development of the township began to spread further north.
Labrador was established in the late 1870s and became the area’s waterfront tourist centre while the area today known as Biggera Waters became increasingly busy.
The area’s name came from the creek which runs through it and originates in the Yugambeh language for red ironbark tree.
By the late 1880s, large tracts area were starting to be subdivided and there were enough residents for the Southport Divisional Board, the earliest predecessor to today’s Gold Coast City Council, to build a bridge across the creek and unlocking the area to more residential development, though this largely failed to eventuate at the time.
It also led to Marine Pde being extended along the Broadwater from Southport, through Labrador to the creek.
As the 20th Century arrived, the Southport township’s population continued to increase but the area around Biggera Creek continued to revolve around farming and fishing.
Attempts to dredge Biggera Creek for gold also proved fruitless.
Among the most prominent landowners of the era were the Sigantos, who built their home near Land’s End and the Proud family which controlled nearly 500ha of agricultural land.
Their integral role in helping to develop the area was later recognised with streets named for them.
Farming declined during
the First World War and much of the remaining land from the Proud property was subdivided for housing, creating much of the modern layout for the area.
By the late 1930s, an aerodrome was approved for the area because of its flat landscape and easy access for water planes.
Construction began but rapidly halted at the beginning of World War II forcing its resources to be diverted.
The project was revisited after the war but was considered surplus to requirements and abandoned.
Large scale development finally began in the 1960s once a modern bridge was built over the creek at Land’s End.
By this point, most of the land was owned by real estate agent R.G Oates who had begun buying up the land in 1939.
He dubbed it Angler’s Paradise and made a significant profit on his investment.
Fast-forward to the 1980s and the northern Gold Coast was undergoing a dramatic shift.
The decade’s property boom brought with it billions of dollars in investment and the transformation of the suburbs which had once been part of Southport, including the newly gazetted Biggera Waters.
At the time, the average prices of residential lots were just $56,000.
Seeing an opportunity, Lewis Land Corporation bought up significant tracts of land for residential developments, including Huntington Harbor, Key Biscayne and Paradise Point Keys.
PRD Realty director, Gordon Douglas told News Corp in 1986 that the opening of the Seaway two years earlier was the silver bullet to Biggera Waters becoming the city’s next growth area.
“Our research has looked at the stimulus to tourism and the resulting growth in the city’s infrastructure and population,” he said.
“The ongoing effect of the bar project is massive.’’
Having seen success with its residential projects, Lewis Land unveiled its biggest Gold Coast project: An 80ha town centre which would become home to 80,000 people and Harbour Town, a giant shopping centre, at its heart.
Opposition to the project was swift and massive, with then-council planning boss Lex Bell declaring it would “destroy the city’s strategic plan and future planning of the area.”
NEXT WEEK:
THE HARBOURTOWN WAR