New draft plan for Brisbane and southeast Queensland population growth calls for increased density rather than sprawl

It’s been a southeast Queensland staple for more than a century.

But the days of the house on the quarter-acre block could be dwindling, as the region’s leaders flag a focus on “density” to cope with massive population growth.

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The state government has released a draft plan aimed at catering for 2.2 million additional residents by 2046 in the region that includes Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Ipswich, Logan, Toowoomba, Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast.

The plan aims to create 900,000 new homes.

While “we can’t stop people moving here”, what people don’t want is urban sprawl, according to Deputy Premier Steven Miles.

“We know that people in the southeast don’t want to live in a city like Sydney,” he said on Wednesday.

“They don’t want to see Brisbane becoming like Sydney, where people can’t live close to work and spend hours commuting every single day.”

Instead of building homes in “greenfield’ sites at the expense of the environment, increased density in established suburbs is on the table.

The state government on Wednesday approved the Brisbane City Council’s proposed Kurilpa Sustainable Growth Precinct to build thousands of high-density homes in the riverside suburb of South Brisbane.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner described the project as an “anti-sprawl approach”, welcoming the state government’s unwillingness to “jump on NIMBY (not in my backyard) bandwagons”.

Miles has insisted the focus on density “doesn’t mean growth everywhere”.

That position is outlined in the draft plan, dubbed Shaping SEQ 2023 Update, which stipulates the focus would be on “consolidation areas” — locations close to workplaces and services.

“This does not mean density everywhere, but it does mean protecting our environment and maximising investment in services and infrastructure by going up and in where we can and should,” the report says.

‘Important crossroads’

The plan, which is open for consultation, also argues southeast Queensland is at an “important crossroads”.

“To cater for the expected population growth, do we continue to build out (expansion) or do we focus on building-in (consolidation)?,” the report says.

“Expansion has an impact on environmental values (for example, removing vegetation or needing a car to move around), ultimately undermining lifestyle and the sustainability of the region.

“On the flip side, consolidation, and subsequent density, can be contested because of potential issues associated with increased traffic or undermining the ‘character’ of suburbs.

“It is now time to consider — by saying ‘no’ to density, what are we saying ‘yes’ to?”