22/12/2025
BILLINGHURST CRES TOWNHOUSE UPDATE:
I'm generally pro development within reason as we need the housing but some simply don't make sense.
I've hated this Billinghurst Crescent townhouse development since the application was first lodged and the developers now want to make it even worse. Previously, 49 of the 150 homes were to have 4 bedrooms but they lodged revised plans on Friday to increase all 150 to be 4 bedrooms. That's 101 more bedrooms in the development and not a single extra car parking space (1 less actually).
Below is the email I have sent to Cr Donna Gates today.
Hi Donna.
I hope you're settling in for a wonderful Christmas time with your family.
I noticed on Friday that the developers of the above site lodged a revised application on Friday. I waited in anticipation to see if they had decided to downsize the development due to the entirely foreseeable mayhem it will create for parking and driving along Billinghurst Crescent. I was shocked to find today that they want to change all 150 homes to be 4 bedrooms rather than 49 x 4 bedrooms and 101 x 3 bedrooms - an increase from 499 bedrooms to 600 bedrooms. What makes it worse is that there is no new parking allocation, and in fact, the new plan reduces total spaces from 318 to 317.
I have looked through the new application and I can't see that a revised traffic impact assessment has been completed to factor in an additional 101 bedrooms.
Here are my main concerns that were valid for the previous lodgement and even more concerning now:
TWO CAR SPACES PER HOME WITH NO USABLE DRIVEWAY - we know the average cars per 4 bedroom home on the northern Gold Coast is slightly above 2 cars so the allocation is already short of needs, even if your rules allow it. We also know that for homes with a double garage, very few actually fit 2 cars inside the garage so there is generally at least 1 of those cars in the driveway. This development does not include a useable driveway in any of the home designs so cars that don't fit have no alternate parking option.
GARAGE DEPTH - of the 150 homes, 64 have a garage depth of 5,500mm, 85 have 5,700mm and 1 has 6,300mm. We have a proliferation of large utes being sold in Australia so I will use the highest selling Ford Ranger as the example. The Ranger is 5,446mm long without a tow bar so to fit this into a 5,500mm garage, you'd need to be lined up perfectly straight, nudge the back wall, and hope the garage door wasn't set inside the 5,500mm. The 6,000mm wide road will mean you can't line up straight as you enter the garage as the Ranger needs 6,450mm width to do a half turn. I expect reversing these larger cars out will be dangerous at busy times.
NO TURNING LANES INTO THE DEVELOPMENT - by my reading of the plans, there will be a median strip opposite the driveway, blocking eastbound cars from turning across traffic into the driveway. This means that every car coming from the west will have to head down to the Turnbull Drive roundabout and double back. This roundabout is already very difficult to navigate at school drop off and pick up times. It appears that there is no dedicated left turning lane into the development. The plans don't show a precise location for the entry keypad but if I have guessed correctly, there will only be room for 1 car at the keypad and 1 behind it, across the footpath. Any more than this and Billinghurst Crescent will be blocked. Having lived in a gated estate for 17 years, I know it's a very regular occurrence for visitors, couriers, etc. to have trouble getting the gate opened for various reasons so I foresee blockages on Billinghurst being a regular occurrence. At a minimum, I believe the Council should insist on a dedicated left turning lane for 6 to 8 cars.
17 VISITOR PARKING SPOTS FOR 150 HOMES - do the residents have to coordinate to only have 1 visitor for every 9 homes at any one time? I compared this with the Coomera Parks Estate development at 26 Yaun St, Coomera. This development has 49 visitor parking spaces for 91 homes, plus a number of those homes have driveways long enough to house additional cars. I know from visiting that development a number of times while friends were living there that it was always very hard to find a parking spot even with that many visitor bays.
NEW YELLOW LINES/PARKING EXCLUSION ZONES - the traffic management plan calls for yellow lines to block street parking up to the Assisi oval. This section is already used extensively for parking on school days so the schools will have less parking available. There won't be enough parking within this development for the foreseeable amount of cars so where will the overflow parking be? The only options I can see are the school and church car parks plus the BP service centre and I'm sure none of them will be willing participants in this.
I have zero qualifications in development or traffic management so if someone with no qualifications can pick up such obvious problems, why don't the experts see them?
I acknowledge that this development doesn't directly affect me as my children have finished school but I spent 13 years taking my children to and from Assisi Catholic College. Traffic was regularly above capacity and difficult to negotiate so it will only get worse with this development and the general traffic increase with all the other new developments in Upper Coomera.
I know we desperately need more housing in the area but I believe a better plan for this site would be a number of 5 - 8 storey apartment blocks with more open space and more parking.
Regards,
David Ryan
