We must protect green space for future generations

In response to the recent Gold Coast Bulletin editorial following the decision on the Arundel Hills development. We can’t just create housing and be ignorant to the values of our city that make it the place we and future generations of Gold Coasters want to live in. Pockets of green space like Arundel Hills Golf Course are the green lungs in our suburbs. They serve as critical fauna corridors, green visual breaks and a key part of local stormwater networks.

Sites such as the Arundel Hills Golf Course also have a role to play in the availability of land for sport and recreation – another key feature of the Gold Coast lifestyle we must be prepared to protect. These are spaces that cannot be replaced.

The proposal to carve up the Arundel Hills Golf Course for 380 house blocks would have seen nearly 16 football fields (78,000sq m) of vegetation lost, the filling of four small local waterways and the decimation of a key local feature.

A short-term win for 380 homes for a major long-term loss. A loss that the community said should not be allowed – a position City officers and the elected council have backed.

People have righty asked, what’s the difference between this golf course development and what you allowed at Parkwood? It’s a fair question. The Parkwood wave pool proposal, including the pre-existing approval for aged care on another part of the site delivers over 500 dwellings and only takes up a total of 10 per cent site coverage.

The Arundel development would have taken up nearly 50 per cent of the site. Importantly, over the past decade, the Arundel Golf Course has already been developed for housing that reduced the amount of land available for the golf course, with the most recent of these approved through the P&E Court in 2018.

Parkwood maintains the sports and recreation outcome by keeping an 18-hole golf course and adding the opportunities for surfing, along with other ancillary uses. The Arundel proposal would have removed the sport and recreation opportunities.

Parkwood maintains the open green space and environmental corridors and leaves the current visual amenity for the majority of surrounding residents.

The Arundel proposal would have removed the green connections and replaced people’s green space with small house lots.

The current projection for new dwellings needed on the Gold Coast before 2046 is more than 161,000 new dwellings. These are not just dwellings for new residents from southern states or overseas, they are dwellings for our kids, and grandkids.

The only option is to go up. We simply do not have enough land within this city’s boundaries to keep carving out detached housing blocks.

What we do have are areas of our city that can accommodate dwelling growth through a mix of options – the majority being unit developments, but also townhouses, terrace houses, duplexes, secondary dwellings and the subdivision of large blocks into two or three smaller blocks.

We must protect open green space and sport and recreation space in the right areas.

I am proud of the council decision to back our planning scheme, our city officers’ recommendation and Arundel residents and protect this open green space for future generations.

Mark Hammel is Division 1 councillor and City of Gold Coast Planning chair