HopgoodGanim’s specialist Planning and Development team recently delivered an in-depth examination of the South East Queensland Regional Plan 2009-2031 and the South East Queensland Infrastructure Plan. The full papers from this seminar are able to be downloaded below. For more information, please contact our Planning and Development team.

David Nicholls, Partner

This paper is part of a set of papers prepared by HopgoodGanim’s Planning and Development Group on the South East Queensland Regional Plan 2009-2031. The focus of this paper is section 10 of the Regional Plan, which contains the region’s policies relating to infrastructure.

Click here to download this paper. 

Robyn Lamb, Solicitor

The State government’s recent release of the South East Queensland Regional Plan 2009-2031 has also involved the release of new regulatory provisions.

The new regulatory provisions appear, in summary, to be more streamlined and simpler to deal with than some earlier regulatory provisions. Given the detail of the new regulatory provisions, it is the purpose of this paper to highlight some of the provisions rather than deal with all the new regulatory provisions.

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Sarah Persijn, Senior Associate

Each draft of the Regional Plan has brought with it changes to the State Government’s approach toward the planning processes for regionally significant urban development areas, which are critical to the delivery of dwelling and employment targets. The new Regional Plan heralds the fourth successive name change for urban development areas, and yet another shift in the regime for undertaking their comprehensive and co-ordinated planning.

This continual shifting of the goalposts has contributed to ongoing delays in finalising planning and achieving outcomes for a number of key sites, as stakeholders grapple with ever-changing and often repetitious planning requirements.

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Jack Dixon, Trainee Solicitor

The South East Queensland Regional Plan divides all land in South East Queensland into three categories including Regional Landscape and Rural Production Areas, Rural Living Areas, and Urban Footprint Areas.

Identified growth areas effectively introduce a further layer of land use categorisation to the Regional Plan. Identified growth areas lie outside the Urban Footprint but are identified by the Regional Plan as being necessary for urban development when demand requires it. However, significant infrastructure planning and strategic land use are necessary before these areas are ready for development. Essentially, identified growth areas provide a mechanism to make more land available if it is needed.

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This paper examines the new Regional Plan policies, which are contained within Part D of the new Regional Plan, relating to sustainability and climate change, and natural environment.

While the previous Regional Plan considered the issues of sustainability and the natural environment, the new Regional Plan reflects the increasing community focus on environmental preservation and climate change and new Regional Plan forms an evolved species of planning document clearly focused on considering the impacts of climate change.

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James Ireland, Partner

Two of the priorities in the South East Queensland Regional Plan 2009-2031 are to direct growth to existing urban areas, particularly activity centres, and to address the planning and delivery of land for employment growth in the region. This paper will examine some of the principles contained in the SEQ Regional Plan relevant to those objectives. In particular, this paper will examine three of the principles contained in the SEQ Regional Plan concerning activity centres, namely Principle 8.6 – Activity centres and transit corridors, Principle 8.7 – Centres that support business and Principle 8.8 – Mixed-use activity centres, and the principles associated with employment land delivery, namely Principle 9.1 – Balanced and diverse employment, Principle 9.2 – Innovation and Technology and Principle 9.3 – Enterprise Opportunities.

Olivia Williamson, Solicitor

Like its predecessor, the 2009 Regional Plan is a plan to manage growth in the region and reinforces the promotion of a more compact and sustainable lifestyle. Primarily it seeks to establish a framework to achieve the additional 754,000 new dwellings identified as being required to accommodate and cater for the expected population growth in South East Queensland in the next 20 years.

This target will be partly achieved through focusing higher density residential development within and around regional activity centres, and public transport nodes and corridors. This concept of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) forms a key strategy within the 2009 Regional Plan for achieving sustainable urban development outcomes.

Click here to download this paper.