Jason Rose

PARTS of the Queensland coastline will be declared off-limits for development under a coastal planning policy released yesterday that claims sea levels will rise 80cm over the rest of this century.

Under Queensland’s planning laws, yesterday’s draft policy would set guidelines for development that would then be implemented by local councils.

Queensland is a coastal development “hotspot”, and in the past few years several local councils have been forced to make their own estimates of future rises in sea levels due to global warming, and have applied them to development applications. However, Queensland is believed to be the first state to put a figure on how much the sea will rise.

The Bligh government policy is based on the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and predicts sea levels will rise 30cm by 2050 and 80cm by 2100. Government and industry figures yesterday predicted that if these guidelines were adopted by local councils, it would have an effect on coastal development in all major coastal towns.

But the areas most affected would be Mooloolaba and Noosa on the Sunshine Coast, where most of the beach disappeared after strong storms in May, and parts of the Gold Coast and Yeppoon, Mackay and Cairns further north.

A spokesman for the state government said the policy would not apply to existing houses and units on the beachfront but only to future development, as well as redevelopment on existing sites.

Planning Institute of Australia vice-president Greg Tupicoff said the policy would give some certainty to developers and flexibility to local councils.

“That’s really what industry wants — that combination of certainty and flexibility,” he said.