Community engagement that will be used to inform the City's new planning scheme opened today with Acting Mayor Donna Gates urging all Gold Coasters to have their say.
"Managing population growth is one of the biggest challenges facing the Gold Coast and it is vital we tackle it together," Acting Mayor Gates said.
"Further growth is inevitable, but we can influence how we grow, where we grow and what our different neighbourhoods look like.
"We have expert planners at the City, but we also need our community to tell us how they see the future of their neighbourhood, where they think they will work, what services they will need to have nearby," she said.
Acting Mayor Gates said this was the first stage in the Planning Scheme Program which would prioritise community and stakeholder engagement throughout.
She said the feedback would be used to develop a Local Growth Management Strategy (LGMS) which is a non-statutory planning document focused on our city's overall strategic plan for growth, rather than focusing on the technical details of the planning scheme.
The engagement will help us understand community priorities for growth and change and help us shape community discussions on how to plan for the future. This includes community views on potential scenarios to accommodate growth and greater housing diversity in our well-serviced neighbourhoods.
The engagement commences today (October 1) on GChaveyoursay.com.au and will close on 23 October. Vision for Change workshops will also be held by the City. Interest can be registered on GChaveyoursay.com.au.
About our New planning Scheme
- The City's current planning scheme commenced in February 2016, when the Gold Coast population was around 570,000 people. With our population expected to reach more than 1 million people by 2046, a new Planning Scheme is required.
- The new Planning Scheme will ensure the Gold Coast can accommodate almost 390,000 more residents, over 160,000 new dwellings and more than 174,000 jobs by 2046.
- Every Local Government is required to develop a Planning Scheme and review it every 10 years. It is a shared vision for the community to manage city growth and change. It regulates what new development should occur and how.
- Developing a new Planning Scheme is a significant multi-year undertaking and subject to a statutory process under the Planning Act 2016 and the steps outlined in the Minister's Guidelines and Rules.
- Community and stakeholder engagement will be prioritised at every step of the program to ensure the final outcomes are aligned with our community's aspirations for Gold Coast 2046.
- The Local Growth Management Strategy (LGMS) will provide the overarching strategic blueprint for our new Planning Scheme as our user-friendly guide to managing population and employment growth over the next 20 years.
