The Gold Coast may just be the urban equivalent of human growth serum.

Over the next two decades, development there will be fuelled by an expected population boom of 350,000 people — more than half of the city's current population.

Key points: The Gold Coast's population is expected to grow to around 1 million people by 2041

The Gold Coast's population is expected to grow to around 1 million people by 2041 There are concerns the scope and speed of population growth and development could change the character of its suburbs

There are concerns the scope and speed of population growth and development could change the character of its suburbs The local council has released a development plan for public consultation

But with growth comes growing pains.

"Once upon a time you'd be able to walk along the Gold Coast and speak to people because it was a holiday atmosphere," Burleigh resident Christine Jensen said.

"It's changed now, because we've got too much investment in high-rise development."

As the population builds along one of Australia's most iconic tourist destinations, some locals are worried it could wipe out the very character that makes the Gold Coast unique.

'Unattractive and overpopulated'

Ms Jensen was one of 200 people who attended a community meeting this week in Palm Beach, where locals voiced their concerns over the council's proposed city plan.

"It seems to me architects and town planners just decide to put a high-rise up without even looking at the area," she said.

Around 600,000 people live on the Gold Coast. ( Supplied: Google Earth )

Kim Parker, who has lived on the Gold Coast for 20 years, said the area had become "overpopulated and unattractive".

"The character that has changed the most has been the little old buildings that have been removed, spare blocks filled up completely.

"We're not against development … but a lot of the buildings we're seeing are just horrible brick blocks of concrete with ugly black and grey verandas.

"We can still fit people in, but we don't have to do it in a way that crowds out character."

How do you plan a city's character?

Former Gold Coast architect Philip Follent said the city had "lost its mojo in relation to its character".

Philip Follent says the city has "lost its mojo" when it comes to creative development. ( ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale )

"It used to be a city that was on holidays, and our buildings looked like that with their less inhibited colour schemes — now we've got only grey and white buildings."

He said the council's proposed city plan — the way it intends to accommodate population growth — had taken a "one-size-fits-all" approach at the detriment to diversity of suburban character.

Mr Follent said high-density developments in areas like Surfers Paradise had changed the city's reputation over recent decades.

"That's our identity as a city nationally and internationally: tall buildings by the sea," he said.

"We are not looking very creatively at how we amalgamate sites to do high-density low-rise because there's this simplistic view of get a small site, do a high-rise, and have a little bit of green around it.

"We haven't stepped out of our comfort zone as a development industry."

The city's population is expected to reach 1 million by 2041. ( Supplied: Tourism and Events Queensland )

Where are we going to put all these people?

The Gold Coast's current growth spurt is not its first, with the population doubling between 1960 and 1970 on the back of tourism.

"The Gold Coast is very famous for being sort of unplanned or a badly planned city," Griffith University senior lecturer of urban planning Aysin Dedekorkut said.

"All the plans we make for the Gold Coast happened to be reactive to the growth after it occurred, and reactive plans can never be as good as proactive plans," Dr Dedekorkut said.

This means that rather than having a clear central business district, the city now has long strips of commercial activity mixed into residential areas.

Dr Dedekorkut said a 'not-in-my-backyard' type of opposition to medium-density housing developments was common, but the solution was not just expanding housing estates on the city's northern fringe.

"Those areas are low-lying areas, and those areas will be subject to storm surge and flooding and sea level rise … those areas are not well served with public transport," she said.

"So how to make this higher-density development acceptable to the public is one challenge that [council] will have to deal with."

The Gold Coast's world-renowned surf culture is a point of pride for the city. ( Supplied: Ryan Marais )

Different suburbs, different characters

Local area plans designed to match compatible developments to the character of individual areas have been removed from the council's proposed new approach.

"What local area plans did were probably just add another layer of confusion where people didn't necessarily have a single point of truth to go to," City of Gold Coast planning chair Cameron Caldwell said.

"There was nothing that was in local area plans that couldn't be incorporated into the city plan as it is now.

"While we removed local area plans, we haven't removed local area planning."

Cr Caldwell said the city plan was in line with the State Government's overarching regional plan for population growth, and gave the "greatest protection in relation to the character of each individual area".

"When you start running short of car parking capacity, when you start pushing your site cover and you're pushing your setbacks, that's when you clearly have a built form that's not meant to fit on that block," he said.

"Surfers Paradise, for example, has a very distinctive high-rise character; Mudgeeraba has a completely different character … a high-rise clearly wouldn't be part of the large-lot acreage kind of vibe that goes on in Mudgeeraba."

Long-term vision needed

Dr Dedekorkut said the Gold Coast "has a lot more diverse economic functions" than just tourism and said the city was beginning to mature.

"It's bigger than Canberra, it's bigger than Hobart — these are capital cities," she said.

The population is tipped to boom along one of Australia's most iconic tourist destinations. ( ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale )

The problem, she said, was Queensland's inconsistent approach to planning.

"It's very political, so it depends on which government is in power," Dr Dedekorkut said.

"We see cycles where there's some planning done, then another government comes in … [and] undoes everything the other government has done on political reasons, ideological reasons.