Katie Page triumphs over Gold Coast Council for 10-storey building
Developer Katie Page's proposed 10-storey high rise on Main Beach Parade will proceed, after Brisbane’s Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed an appeal from the council.
The wife of retail king Gerry Harvey got her 10-storey approval despite Gold Coast Council’s 1982 overlay map relevant to the Main Beach Parade beachfront site designating a maximum building height of three storeys.
The initial judge had concluded that the proposed development met the applicable performance criteria but this was appealed by the council, which considered the judge had misconstrued the planning scheme and thereby erred in law by approving a development with such height disparity.
The council must pay Page’s costs in the case, where she was represented by D. R. Gore QC, with B. D. Job briefed by Mallesons Stephen Jacques.
The appeals court ruled it was common ground that the overlay map’s reference to a maximum height was not prescriptive. The land to the immediate west of Main Beach Parade is within a 25-storey designation.
Page’s application proposed a seven-storey building with a partial eighth storey, but because of floor to ceiling heights, it amounted to a 10-storey building for the purposes of the relevant planning scheme.
The proposal is considerably lower than the tall towers that visually dominate to the west of Main Beach Parade. It is also lower than three nearby beachfront high-rise developments, namely Golden Sands (18 storeys), Hibiscus (12 storeys) and Beachside (16 storeys), which are also to the east of Main Beach Parade.
The initial judgement by Judge Michael Rackemann in February 2011 noted it was set to have an architectural quality higher than “what applies to many other buildings in Main Beach.”
“Whilst aesthetics are necessarily somewhat subjective, the building incorporates a range of interesting design features including in respect of materials, patterns, textures and colours.
“It will, I find, be designed and constructed to a high aesthetic standard,” he ruled.
Page paid $15.5 million in 2007 for the 882-square-metre block.
