Coastal area growth to continue
Ballina Shire Council development application approval figures for the period from November 30 until January 2 confirm that the shire is booming — and they also confirm the findings of the National Sea Change Taskforce.
Ballina Shire approved almost $12.4 million worth of applications for that period, including dwelling applications totalling almost $2 million.
The National Sea Change Taskforce report, released on January 23, says that population movement to coastal areas will continue. Its report sets out a blueprint for future planning and management of coastal areas facing the pressures of population growth and development
The report, titled Meeting the Sea Change Challenge: Best Practice Models of Local and Regional Planning for Sea Change Communities, was prepared for the taskforce by the Planning Research Centre at The University of Sydney.
It identifies the key challs non-metropolitan communities and outlines the planning tools and strategies available to address the challenges.enges facing Australia’Cr Joe Natoli, chairman of the National Sea Change Taskforce, said the report had been hailed as a critical step towards achieving a sustainable future for Australia’s coast by the planners and officials who have seen it in draft form.
“The research identifies best practice planning principles for responding to the governance, environmental, community, economic and infrastructure needs of non-metropolitan coastal communities,” Cr Natoli said.
“It provides more than 140 examples of best practice for managing the effects of rapid growth drawn from Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, the UK and the European Union.
“This will be of immense value to policy-makers, coastal councils and others who have responsiblity for managing the impact of coastal growth and will assist in maintaining social cohesion during a process of rapid change.”
Dr Nicole Gurran, one of the authors of the report, said rapid growth in Australia’s coastal areas was being fuelled by a phenomenon known as amenity migration.
“Amenity migrants are those who relocate to a new area for lifestyle considerations rather than economic factors,” she said
“The growing number of people migrating for lifestyle reasons is challenging the traditional theories that people relocate mainly for economic considerations - which has generated most previous migrations.
“This is clearly not the case in destinations that are valued for their scenic landscapes or opportunities for recreational pursuits, such as water sports and fishing.”
Dr Gurran said several factors suggested that population growth in Australian coastal areas would continue for the foreseeable future. These included:
- The imminent retirement of the ‘baby boomer’ generation, which will produce a sizeable new market for high-amenity retirement destinations;
- The global shift away from manufacturing-based economies towards information, service and consumption-based industries which are less dependent on a metropolitan location; and
- The growing flexibility of work practices associated with new telecommunications technology, which enables some workers to relocate to small coastal centres or the rural hinterland.Cr Natoli said the growth rate in Australian coastal councils during the year to June 2004 was 2 per cent — two-thirds higher than the national growth rate of 1.2 per cent.
Reporting on the release of the report, The Australian newspaper said that cashed-up seachangers moving for pleasure and not business were threatening Australia’s coastal strip as they squeezed out the low paid and put pressure on infrastructure and the environment in the once tight-knit communities.
Tourism, once viewed as the economic saviour of many rural towns, was also taking its toll as councils struggled to maintain services on small budgets for populations that could multiply more than tenfold in peak holiday times.
Taskforce chief executive Alan Stokes told The Australian: “It’s not just an environmental or planning issue. A whole-of-government approach is required because it impacts on almost every area you can imagine.”
Protecting the environment, building infrastructure and maintaining community cohesion had to be considered along with the need to provide education, healthcare, public transport and jobs, he said.
In Lorne, on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, and Noosa, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, the sea-change phenomenon had forced retail prices up and low-income families out. “In Lorne many of the people who work in town now commute daily from Geelong,” Mr Stokes said.
Resort towns such as Port Douglas, Noosa and Byron had resorted to population caps to stem the rapid boom and were also considering implementing visitor taxes to help maintain services.
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