How Gold Coast Council hid a depot proposal in plain sight

The City of Gold Coast was planning to open a 70-staff warehouse in a Miami park and residents only discovered it after four local meetings that never revealed the full plan, writes Carole Richard.

IN FEBRUARY 2026, Miami residents on the Gold Coast noticed small blips on local signs. Frank Murray Park announced a proposal to build a council operations depot in the area. This was followed by a community campaign that has grown steadily ever since. But the story of how we got here is as much about the process as it is about the park.

Gold Coast City It proposes to build a satellite warehouse at Frank Murray Park, a public green space at the end of Sonia Street in Miami that includes a children’s playground, mature eucalyptus shade and protected wildlife. The warehouse will accommodate approximately 70 staff, a fenced vehicle area and 38 car parks on a street approximately seven meters wide.

Australian Children’s KindergartenThe facility, which serves 74 children ages six weeks to five years old, is located immediately adjacent to 4 Rope Court. No traffic impact assessments, flora and fauna studies, acoustic reports or arborist assessments have been published.

None of these are what makes the story unusual. What made this unusual was that the Council held four separate community consultation meetings in the same neighborhood over 12 months; None of these individually revealed the full picture.

Consultations that are never fully connected

In February 2025, the Council consulted publicly on: Miami Creative Industries District. As part of this process, the existing Ozone Parade repository was described in the Council’s own consultation materials as: ‘Surplus of the city’s needs‘. No replacement site was mentioned. The council had already built a $21.2 million reserve depot at Coomera.

Between October and November 2025, the Council will Pizzey Park Master Plan advice. Pizzey Park is located directly adjacent to Frank Murray Park. More than 1,332 residents provided feedback on things they would like to see in the area. There was no mention of a proposed warehouse next door.

In November 2025, the Council Urban Forest Strategic Plan For community feedback, residents are surveyed on how to expand tree cover in the city, preserve biodiversity, and improve green cover across the city. At the time the Council had identified Frank Murray Park as the preferred site for a new warehouse, meaning mature trees on the site had already been earmarked for removal.

In February 2026, the warehouse proposal was finally unveiled with small signs in the park, with minimal public promotion compared to previous consultations. community research The notification letter was titled ‘Recommended upgrade notification’ and stated the Council ‘He carries out construction works’Language that treats the outcome as agreed upon before submissions close.

Viewed together, the series of consultations did not provide residents with the opportunity to respond to the full picture. Each was technically legitimate on its own. Together they made sure the community had no chance of rejecting the entire offer.

Strategy to condemn the proposal

It is the decisions adopted by the Council that give the campaign its legal and political weight. Our Natural City Strategy 2032A framework that explicitly commits to protecting urban green spaces, maintaining critical nature corridors, and consolidating development on already degraded land rather than parkland.

The strategy was the result of extensive community consultation. ‘Naturally unique’ It was chosen as the number one priority by residents across six Council Plan themes, with 96 per cent of stakeholders ranking the natural environment as a priority. ‘very to extremely important’.

The proposal to build a warehouse in Frank Murray Park is in direct conflict with many of the actions in this strategy and the Mayor. Tom Tateown public commitment HE ‘Protecting our green and open spaces is at the center of our lifestyle’ and the Council itself tree management policyindicates that ‘Cutting down trees is a last resort’. (You can read more about Tom Tate’s Gold Coast corruption at IA.ongoing Tate Town investigation.)

Residents also said there was a double standard in the Council’s justification of the other four sites for the same extent. LGID26 warehouse program. Approved on a tugun basis ‘the land is already disturbed’; as Carrara ‘Expanding the existing one rather than building a new facility elsewhere’; Based on Benowa and Coombabah ‘established use’; Miami, a functioning community park, fails to meet any of the criteria the Council has applied to the other four districts.

What does society ask?

The campaign coordinated through Save Frank Murray Park Facebook groupIt is asking the Council to withdraw the current proposal, publish any required impact assessments and conduct a transparent site selection process applying the same criteria used for all other repositories in the scheme. Residents are also calling for a single, integrated consultation that provides the full picture of the neighborhood to prevent what happened this time from happening again.

Frank Murray Park was named in 1977 after Gold Coast construction superintendent Frank Murray, who helped build Coolangatta Airport, the Little Nerang Dam access road and the original Miami Works Depot from 1948. The same warehouse is now being cleared for the Creative Industries District.

The community named a park after the man who built that warehouse. The council is now proposing to turn that park into a new park.

Community applications are open until March 27. gchaveyoursay.com.au/lgid26/surveys/miamilgid26.

All the facts are available at: https://savefrankmurraypark.com/.