Gold Coast: "Gray" Space - and an ambitious Vision for Urban planning

Gold Coast: Shut-up about “Green” space – just for a moment.

- by Ken Sekiya

With the rising awareness to Environmental issues, the awareness of benefits to allocating “Green” spaces is rising. This has led to much urban development to allocate “Green” spaces for leisure and recreation use.
Besides the Local-use, “Green” spaces also serve to be Tourist attractions – becoming a potential space to showcase local flora and fauna; space for cultural installations; and space for cultural activities.
“Green” spaces may also serve to be a “beacon” for attracting people, providing opportunities for Food & Beverage businesses, surrounding the area.
However, with this “Green” mentality has led compromise in Urban planning – The use and allocation of other forms of space, such as “Gray” spaces.

“Gray” spaces – or better defined as constructed pathways and concrete parks – is often compromised to allow for larger shop spaces. However, the benefits of “Gray” spaces are very much understated in planning: which may contribute to sense of Safety, Business exposure and expansion, Leisure space, and space for Cultural activities. 

“Gray” space is often viewed in the same manner as road traffic: space for movement from A to B. This view, however, ignores the need for traffic to stop and Window-shop – providing opportunities for purchases to be considered – instead obliging potential customers to move-on. This view also ignores the need for “Personal space”, where wider “Gray” spaces provide individuals more freedom of movement, and sense of safety. 

Furthermore, to limit the use of “Gray” space, for the purpose of Pedestrian traffic limits the use of space by businesses to provide an Outdoor experience – such as outdoor seating for Restaurants and Cafes; and for use of space for Street markets; small individual activities; and large-scale cultural activities, such as Parades. Wider “Gray” spaces may also encourage use of non-motorized vehicles, such as Bicycles.  

However, despite Gold Coast’s advantage of being a “low-density” city, urban planning have been compressed and limited. Potentially – strategic allocation of “Gray” spare can be viewed as strategic tourism and business investment: rather than a narrow-minded view as “wasted” space. 

A Gold Coast-specific example of relatively good "Gray" space planning, is the development of Surfers Paradise's new Esplanade, which has received good feedback by locals and tourists alike.
Such, “spoilt” use of space – for “Green” and “Gray” usage, should also be seriously considered to develop a unique image, unlike that existing in Cities across the rest of the Asia-Pacific regions.
Especially when considering that our major Tourist markets, in Asia, are tourists from high-density cities. Hence, there being an opportunity for the contrasted use of space from other major Australian and Asian cities that will give an element of attraction that will be both a key factor for establishing a unique image for the Gold Coast.
This can also be further enhanced, if Gold Coast plans to develop as a “Cultural” and/or “Academic” capital of Queensland (if not Australia). In essence, such ambitious urban planning can be envisioned, as planning to make the Gold Coast the “Paris” of the Asia-Pacific region.

Other benefits will also include, lowering of travel distance to local businesses, closing the gap between Gold Coast’s diverse cultural centres, and diversifying the Gold Coast – making the city more attractive to justify multiple visits by domestic and international tourists.

It will be “costly” indeed, and take time, but Napoleon’s Paris wasn’t cheap or completed over-night either. But with a strong leader – or group of leaders – and Local support, the Gold Coast can develop easier than the manner that Paris was planned and developed, where Napoleon didn’t have popular support for his ambitions.

Gold Coast :– development here needs to be more widespread - capitalising the wide-open sky and space that we appreciate - contrasted to the manner that urban development is occurring at the moment: concentrated in Tweeds/Burleigh, Broadbeach, Surfers, Southport, and Runaway Bay.
Gold Coast needs to show that it is a “City” worth being based in, and visiting – not a big patch of sub-urban housing for Brisbanites. 

More about the Author: 

Guest writer for "Community Urban Planning" - may not necessarily reflect the view of other Authors.

Proud Gold Coast born and bred - over 20 years - and several years elsewhere - currently based in Surfers Paradise. 

Twitter on https://twitter.com/#!/ki_sekiya

Home-Blog on http://kisekiya.blogspot.com/

water: planning for sustainability

The attention of the general public (as a group, not individuals) is generally focused on the present, but that should not be true of governance. One of the reasons for planning is to attempt to forecast issues and design around them, this is among other things the role of the town planners.

Water (as we all know) comes from the tap, and as long as it flows everyone ignores it. However it was (or so it seems to me) just a short while ago we were in the grip of a serious drought and water restrictions.

At that time (if you weren't yet living here) we experienced a drought where the normally regular summer high rainfalls failed to arrive. This resulted in a very worrying drop in the Hinze Dam levels to around 30% capacity:

As you can see from the data in the above chart the November 2001 through to Feb 2002 rains failed to arrive. Strangely this was regarded as the 2002 2003 drought (even though 2003 rainfalls were more or less normal). However people were (quite rightly) concerned about this as it was the first time that such a situation had occurred. Importantly though, it wasn't the first time such a weather pattern occurred.

Had we then had low rainfall for the 2007 year (I wrote my masters thesis on this in 2005~6) we would have been in a similar situation or perhaps worse. Looking at the last hundred and something years of data, we see rainfall in Southport and Springbrook (where the Hinze Dam catchment area is) like this:

Quite seasonal, and quite a significant amount of rain between Jan and April, but not much between June and Sept. The vertical bars on that graph represent the ranges of rainfalls, and the blue and green lines the average. You can see that 0 mm of rain in Jan Feb and Nov are not unheard of, so nix out climate change having an influence here ... Fundamentally this is about population growth, exceeding the carrying capacity of the existing paradigm and a lack of planning.

People started worrying and the Gold Coast City Council (amid a backdrop of hysterical media) succumbed to pressures and signed up to a pipeline to Logan to get some 35 Mega-liters of water per day from Logan to supplement the 180 Mega-liters per day being drawn from the Hinze (and to a lesser extent Little Nerang) Dam.

The GCCC responce also included an examination of alternatives which included the Coomera Pimpama Water futures plan. The Council was thinking in terms of Business As Usual (BAU) and obtaining more water (we always have to have more don't we) and began looking at alternatives like:

• getting more water from Wivenhoe (as if they have too much for Brisane's expanding thirst)
• pulling in more from a 'water pipeline'
• desalination (ask someone who lives in Tugun about that)
  

The council produced a number of documents suggesting that water demand would go up like this:



And offering suggestions on how to cope with this such as:

I however took a different point of view and thought that (basing my views on "Ecological Modernisation" concepts) that we could achieve more with less by moving into the modernisation process rather than just doing "Business as Usual"

As the population of the GC community is expanding, I undertook an examination of the water needs of the community via both the BAU method and looking at what could be done with a two pronged approach. 1) the inclusion of water efficiency in the home and 2) the suppliment of community water with rainwater tanks. Note that water efficiency is not just the simplistic (and unpalatable) "demand management" strategy where you use showers which produce an annoying mist or give people egg timers to suggest they have shorter showers.

I factored in a very modest 1% per annum reduction in community water requirement and I also added another "what if" situation of the rain water tanks. Factoring this in I came up with the following projection of water demand.




So, following the GCCC model of Business as Usual the water needs of the community grew exactly with the community population (as they projected) to nearly 480 Mega-liters a day, while the use of modernization principles to reduce water demands brought a growth to 250 Mega-liters per day but with a much slower peak. Adding in the water tanks with modernisation brought the overall use to a point lower than 2001 usage figures even with a population increase from 450,000 to over 1,100,000.

So there really is potential for the community here to cope with population growth via planning and modernisation.

community spirit

Crime seems to be prominently reported in the media recently and with the focus on the city remaining the old "business as usual" it makes how wonder how you can have "Famous for fun" and not expect this sort of outcome? ...

Well assuming you are't some sort of tea-totalling religious prude who is "shocked" when people are uncouth... This is exactly why long term locals don't see much good in the push to encourage "Party Party Party come to the coast and let your hair down".

Discussion focuses on responding to the shooting of a police officer by "building a community", so I ask how can you build a community in a place where transience is high and people do not live and work anywhere near the same locations.

The Gold Coast maybe a huge city, but there is a case to argue that we are becoming a satellite suburb for Brisbane.

services: or the lack thereof

For a city with the population of the Gold Coast we seem to have less services than one would expect in a capital city. This may seem to be an "of course" sort of statement, but given that the population of the Gold Coast is now at about what the Population of Brisbane once was (and perhaps is home to many who work in Brisbane) it seems an oversight.

One of the things which Dick Smith points out in his discussions of population growth is the expansion of need for services such as Police Services.

Perhaps the current spike in armed holdups (and here too)on the Gold Coast is a poignant reminder that such needs are being overlooked in the community?

urban density - a case for applying planning

It would seem to me that Planning is something one does in advance, you know, in preparation for something. On the face of it one definition of planning could be:

1. the act of formulating of a course of action, or of drawing up plans

So before doing something, you work out what to do and how to do it. On the Gold Coast however urban planning is done reactively, that is to say in responce to something. Essentially we are in catchup nothing is really done to address the reduction of quality of life or services to the people who live here. For instance: Southport has for quite some time has been the quiet town which sat across the river from the excesses and noise of Surfers Paradise. Perched on the edge of a gentle ridge that overlooked the broad water, this house represents the sort of home people had back in the 60's 70's and perhaps even the 80's. Quiet streets close enough to the shops, with sunny aspects and lovely sea breeze Just next door to it is this quaint place ... but you can see in the background the mark of things to come ... with the high rise madness from Surfers spilling over into Southport now ... the main street is now totally changed... with this cluster and looking in the other direction you see more ... and clearly this isn't enough, with this vacant block indicating that more is on the way... already you can no longer see the Southport Guardian Angles church which I was lucky to come back to Australia in time to at least capture during the construction phase: (or should that be destruction?)

 

that pit is where my primary school used to be ... and is now gone, and the church hemmed in on all sides looking less and less meaningful, and in fact no access for church goers (like my dad). 

   

 which brings me to my point: it seems that the values of the community are more and more being eroded and destroyed simply for short term profits and benefits of the few. I say the few because having lived here since the 1960's I can personally vouch for there being precious few benefits in all this "development" but quite a few removals of my personal quality of life. Gone are the quiet beaches, gone are great beautiful fishing areas, we did not benefit much from employment (most jobs are still in Brisbane). What we have instead is more traffic noise, more congestion, more pollution. And it doesn't stop there. It was just a few short years ago that we very nearly ran totally out of water here on the Gold Coast. Unsurprisingly at that time the main criticism of the residents was "why are we allowing more people here when we don't have enough water for the existing population". It seems that the answer to that problem is to do not much about providing more water, but to shove in some more people grab more bucks from the developers fees and pretend we've kept jobs up with temporary jobs in the construction industry. Looking at Southport from the sky you can see (in the red) exactly which areas are going to get another high-rise in the near future.

 

the place with the arrow at the bottom is the pair of houses pictured above. You can see by the shadows the highrise already there. When you add to this new construction to the already high population of the region it does not take a scientist to work out we've got growth problems. Strangely there is very little planned development for infrastructure such as roads and nothing I'm aware of for water (except for the Desal in Tugun) and the existing dams and flood mitigation devices in Brisbane. While the Coast may be "Famous for Fun" its more infamous for just being a showcase of exploitation and greed; pushing around the locals while fat cats make money.

Its like the old Vulcan logic:

   

 transformed into "the greed of the few outweighs the needs of the many" So, are we living in a democracy or in a self perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes ...

Growth

Back as recently as 1970 this is what the Surfers Paradise skyline looked like:
Back then the population was about 70,000. The developers were just starting to ramp up and the first of the "canal estates" was just being developed.

Thing have changed since then and the population is now at 515,000

Yes, that's about seven times more people in the same place.

You can guess that this puts extreme pressure on the environment and the community lifestyle.