Turning a decaying golf course into homes for approximately 1200 people seems like a no-brainer in the middle of a housing crisis.
But not on the Gold Coast, where the local council has emphatically rejected an application for a new 380-house estate on the site of the Arundel Hills Country Club.
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“I have no appetite to turn the Gold Coast into western Sydney, or outer Melbourne,” said Hermann Vorster, a councillor who sits on the City of Gold Coast’s Planning and Environment Committee.
The course, unused by golfers since mid-2022, has been a battleground between Arundel Hills locals and an interstate developer that bought the golf course with a view to building over it.
Its plan was to raze about 77,800m2 of vegetation, including established trees home to koalas, and fill in four waterways.
Kangaroos also inhabit the site, which was the scene of a viral video in 2021, when a large mob of roos confronted a golfer attempting to tee off.
The development would have been “catastrophic” for the area’s fauna, Planning and Environment Committee chair Mark Hammel said in a meeting on Monday.
The developer’s proposals for block sizes of an average of 470m2 — compared to the suburb’s current 800m2 average — would lead to a population density that is “out of character with the established area”.
“The proposed development would create significant adverse changes to the established residential and golf course character that currently exists,” Hammel said.
“Significant earthworks, removal of vegetation and new roads through cul-de-sacs would all contribute to dramatically changing of the current residential, open space and sport and recreation environment that is currently enjoyed by Arundel residents.”
Vorster went further, slamming the proposal’s potential impact on the “lifestyle” for residents of the Gold Coast.
That is despite him acknowledging the “enormous social issues and dislocation within the city” being caused by a “housing shortage”.
“It is something that urgently needs to be addressed,” Vorster said.
“(But) in attempting to address the housing shortage, what we must not do is sacrifice what makes the Gold Coast lifestyle so enviable.
“Because, it’s actually our lifestyle that underpins our prosperity. People come to the Gold Coast for its lifestyle.
“I have no appetite to turn the Gold Coast into western Sydney, or outer Melbourne. It’s quite dystopian.
“We don’t want that here on the Gold Coast.”
The developer, Arundel Estate Developments Pty Ltd which bought the golf club and course from Chinese-owned Zhongsheng Management, is expected to appeal the council’s rejection.
Local Jason Young, president of the Arundel Hills Community Association, urged the company to “keep your hands off” the green space.
“Green space is green space. You can’t replace green space,” he said after the council’s decision.