Council Approves 11-Storey Bilinga Tower

Plans for an 11-storey apartment tower have been given the green light as a mid-rise development boom takes flight along a beachside strip opposite the Gold Coast Airport.

Golden Four Drive—stretching from Currumbin to Kirra—has become a hotspot for residential developers with a string of similar-sized proposals filed over the past couple of years.

The latest scheme to be approved by the Gold Coast City Council is for 81 two and three-bedroom apartments on a 2024sq m site site at 89-91 Golden Four Drive in Bilinga.

It was filed by an entity associated with Sydney-based solicitor Farshad Amirbeaggi in November last year.

Several submissions against the Turner-designed proposal were received from residents, who raised concerns about over-development along the strip as well as the tower’s proposed height and density, and privacy and traffic congestion. 

The approval of the development came after several amendments to the original plans.

These included decreased site coverage, increased setbacks, revised building design to break down its bulk and mass, a change to “a more coastal colour palette” and replacement of its rooftop communal area with a full level of apartments.

“The development’s site cover has been significantly reduced from 61.6 per cent to 52.1 per cent,” the submitted planning assessment documents said.

“In order to achieve such a dramatic reduction in site cover, a unit has been removed from each typical residential level … [but] to maintain a similar yield to what was originally lodged, an additional floor has been added.”

The proposed tower will reach a height of 34.5m, which is within the council’s provision of a 50 per cent uplift on the area’s mapped building height limit of 23m.

“It is evident that the proposed building height of 11 storeys will accord with the established character of the area which includes numerous buildings of up to 11 storeys and a number of buildings that exceed the mapped building height,” the development application said.

Under the amended plans, the building’s communal area has been relocated to the ground floor and level one.

Also, by positioning balconies on the edges of the building fronting Golden Four Drive “the building comprises increased visual permeability which reduces building bulk and creates slender form”, the documents said.

▲ Renders of the approved 11-storey apartment tower earmarked for a site at 89-91 Golden Four Drive at Bilinga.

According to the planning assessment report, the area is “clearly transitioning to a mid-rise tower built form environment in the order of 9-11 storeys”.

“The local character of the area consists of a variety of building forms and scales and, importantly, which is undergoing change in response to the City Plan and thriving local property market,” it said.

“Bilinga is developing as a mid-rise spine along the eastern side of the Gold Coast Highway, providing a transition between Tugun and Coolangatta.”

Among the other plans filed for sites along the strip is a 10-storey apartment tower earmarked for a 1246sq m site at 301 Golden Four Drive comprising 17 apartments, including 14 three-bedroom apartments and two two-storey, four-bedroom apartments with private courtyards and swimming pools, each ranging from 260sq m to 372sq m.

Topping the boutique tower will be a 420sqm four-bedroom penthouse with an 88sq m balcony and private cinema, gym and outdoor terrace with a swimming pool.

Nearby, Brisbane-based developer Cielo Group has lodged plans for a 10-storey boutique apartment tower in Bilinga, its second project on the Gold Coast. 

It is proposed for a 1000sq m beachfront site at 90-92 Pacific Parade and will offer 18 three-bedroom apartments—three per level across the building’s lower levels and two per level across its upper levels—as well as a single four-bedroom penthouse.

Cielo Group also has plans for a similar six-level project on a 500sq m site nearby at 55 Golden Four Drive comprising five full-floor, three-bedroom apartments and rooftop amenity.