South East Queensland: Change and continuity in planning

Paul Burton

Introduction
Of all the metropolitan regions of Australia, South East Queensland (SEQ) is the most
paradoxical. On the one hand it is presented as something of an exception, not simply
because its very name avoids reference to the capital city at its core but because it reflects
also the fact that Brisbane as the state capital is less dominant than in other states and
territories, accommodating less than half of the state’s population (Burton, 2010; Gleeson and
Steele, 2010). On the other hand, as one of the fastest growing regions in Australia for much
of the last half century, it is seen to epitomise the challenges facing metropolitan regions in
general and to serve as a test bed for urban planning and growth management policies
(Savery, 2010). As Gleeson and Steele also note, this corner of Queensland has come to be
seen as an ‘increasingly important crucible of change that captures and reflects many of the
growth management dilemmas and opportunities facing the Australian settlement system …
at the metropolitan level’ (Gleeson and Steele, 2010, p14).
With people drawn from elsewhere in Australia and indeed the rest of the world by its
congenial climate, the proximity of beaches and other high quality environmental attractions
and by a variety of campaigns promoting these and other benefits, the scale and pace of this
population growth has presented substantial challenges to planners and politicians. In trying
to ensure that employment opportunities are available to the newcomers, that public services
and infrastructure keep pace with population growth and that the environmental attractions of
the region are not substantially damaged in the process of growth, plans for the region must
deal with conflicting pressures and expectations. The regional plans and strategies produced
over the last decades have been recognised in many quarters for their strategic and integrated
approaches to growth management (Margerum, 2002; Abbott, 2009; Gleeson et al., 2012) but
as growth continues and new social, economic and environmental pressures emerge so do the
challenges associated with developing and implementing effective regional plans. While
focusing on metropolitan and regional planning in SEQ over the last sixteen years, this
chapter considers also how planning at this scale might develop in the coming years.
This chapter is presented in four main sections. It begins by describing briefly the growth of
SEQ since 2000 before charting chronologically the various attempts since the beginning of
this century to meet the challenges of growth management through processes of metropolitan
and regional planning. It goes on to identify the critical features of these plans and to offer a
critical assessment of their success and failures. The concluding section focusses on the
political and institutional pressures and problems associated with developing collaborative
arrangements between state and local governments and considers the consequences of a
shifting balance of power and responsibility between these levels over the last sixteen years.

Growth and change since 2000

Since 2000 the region has continued to follow a similar pattern to its growth over the
preceding decades. In the first decade of the new century, it grew by approximately 700,000
people to reach 3.18 million at an average annual growth rate of 2.5 per cent, consistent with

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the average annual growth rate since 1980. The coastal cities of Brisbane, the Gold Coast
and the Sunshine Coast remained the focal points of population growth within the region,
while the more western settlements of Ipswich, Toowoomba and Beaudesert experienced
more modest increases in total population. Patterns of growth within these major urban areas
and cities were also varied and typically clustered around particular nodes. Brisbane, for
example, saw growth concentrated within its inner, middle and outer suburban edge areas,
while the outermost areas (around 50km from the centre) remained stable or even declined in
the decade to 2011 (Coffee et al., 2016). Within the City of Gold Coast growth has typically
been greatest within its coastal strip on the eastern edge of the city, but significant
concentrations of new housing continue to be developed west of the Pacific Motorway in the
north of the city. A similar pattern is seen in the Sunshine Coast, where growth has been
concentrated in coastal regions of Maroochydore and Caloundra with little significant
population growth in the inland and western regions.

Insert Map One about here

Much of the population growth of SEQ is the product of inter-state and international
migration, driven by the pursuit of an attractive lifestyle. Writing about the sustained growth
of the Gold Coast, Bernard Salt (2015, p.6) has spoken of the city being ‘willed into existence
because of the fundamental demand for leisure and lifestyle’. While this partly reflects the
hyperbole of popular demography, it captures a widely held view that the growth of the
whole region has continued to be built upon factors not directly associated with economic
growth, but with more nebulous lifestyle attractions (Guhathakurta & Stimson, 2007). In
other words, the initial decision to move to SEQ often reflects a desire for an attractive
lifestyle, while more specific locational decisions take additional account of the accessibility
of the dominant labour market of Brisbane.
The components of this growing population reflect a combination of net overseas migration,
net interstate migration and a slightly positive rate of natural increase. Net overseas
migration into Queensland has always been a function of the national profile, with the state
typically receiving a share of migrants commensurate with its share of the total population of
Australia. However, net overseas migration to Australia has varied considerably over the
years, ranging from low points of around 20,000 per annum in the mid-1970s and mid-1990s,
to around 300,000 by the late 2000s. These variations are primarily policy-driven and reflect
changing attitudes to the need for key workers, family reunification and the obligations of
humanitarian settlement. Net interstate migration has also fluctuated considerably, although
in the last two decades of the 20th century there was an average annual net gain of 30,000
people moving to Queensland from interstate. Fertility and mortality rates across the state
have also changed, but are much less volatile, leading to a rate of natural increase that
continues to rise slowly but surely and which currently accounts for over half of the total
population growth of the state (Queensland Government Statistician’s Office, 2016). Bell et
al., (2010) have explored possible population futures for SEQ, including the consequences of
setting population targets or caps in the name of sustainable development. They conclude
that, in order to limit overall growth to 2010 levels, almost 10,000 people per annum would
be required to leave the region, simply to offset the rate of natural increase.

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Recent population data reveal some interesting new developments that would not have been
part of the assumptions that underpinned previous metropolitan plans and appear to have had
only a marginal impact on the latest draft strategy. While neither the continued growth of the
state’s population nor the relatively slow rate of growth is surprising, the increasing
significance of natural increase as the driver of growth is noteworthy. While net interstate
migration remains positive, the impact of overseas migration is of greater significance as
these migrants typically have a younger age profile and as such are serving to slow the
overall ageing of the population. In other words, much of the population growth of SEQ and
some of its major cities such as the Gold Coast has in the past been due to the interstate
migration of older people, accelerating the ageing of the total population, whereas the
growing significance of younger, international migrants has slowed this process.
Of course, the ageing of the population as a whole continues and in the future there may be
social challenges in caring for an increasingly ethnically diverse population of older people as
well as demand for new types of housing, different patterns of public services, especially in
health and social care, and continuing pressures to preserve the environmental amenities that
have been hallmarks of the attractiveness of the region.
State-wide trends are reflected also in the relationship between SEQ and the rest of the state.
Annual growth in SEQ has outpaced the rest of the state over the past 20 years and 8 out of
the 10 most populous local government areas are located in SEQ, with only 2 of the 10,
Townsville and Cairns, located outside the region. Following the end of the recent resources
boom, migration to these centres of mining and processing in regional towns has declined
while migration into the more diverse economies of SEQ cities continues.

Chronology of plans
The 20th century foundations of regional planning in SEQ
Regional planning in Queensland and SEQ took firm hold in the early years of the 21st
century, but the foundations were laid in the latter years of the 20th century. Queensland
became exceptional in grasping the political nettle of enforcing local government
amalgamation on its capital city in 1925, enabling the Greater Brisbane Council to play, in
theory at least, a more prominent and proactive role in planning and managing the rapid
growth of the city and served also to deflect for a time political pressures for the Queensland
government to become more involved in planning for the wider region. By the 1970s,
concern for regional scale planning in the south-east corner of the state saw the creation of
the Moreton Regional Coordination Council (MRCC) with a remit to prepare a regional
growth strategy for the area covered by Brisbane City and 16 surrounding municipalities.
Although the MRCC was abolished in the mid-1970s in the face of a shared anti-planning
disposition by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, it continued
to meet as the Moreton Regional Organisation of Councils (MROC), reflecting the
recognition by all seventeen local authorities that some degree of planning and coordination
among themselves was mutually beneficial.
By the 1990s this recognition had spread to the State Government, in particular through the
support of Tom Burns, Local Government Minister in the newly elected Goss Labor
Government. John Abbott (2012) describes this period as one of initial voluntary growth
management, in which relations between the local governments of the region and the state

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government were reasonably cordial, but underlain by an underlying sense of suspicion,
certainly on the part of the local councils.
While these arrangements were seen in a very positive light and indeed as something of a
model outside of Queensland, within the state government itself tensions were emerging
around the development and implementation of a number of related but more focussed plans.
In particular a Regional Open Space System plan, designed to limit the loss of open space
and manage the remaining stock more effectively, was subject to review in 1996 by the new
Coalition government led by Premier Rob Borbidge and became a source of public concern,
including to the Labor government of Peter Beattie, elected in 1998, around regional planning
processes. Less visible to the public at large, but nonetheless significant in laying the
foundation for a regional planning system, sectoral plans and strategies were prepared,
covering transport, air quality, water, economic development and nature conservation. While
each was valuable, there was minimal collaborative planning across these substantive areas,
which typically reflected departmental silos within the state government. Despite
considerable efforts by government officials to collaborate and coordinate their efforts, a
plethora of only occasionally interconnected sectoral strategies emerged (James and Burton,
2016).
From voluntary to statutory regional planning
Following the re-election of the Beattie government in 2001 the process of strengthening the
statutory basis of regional planning in SEQ gained momentum. A major evaluation of the
economic performance of the region (DLGP, 2002) found some positive trends (strong
residential and employment growth in Brisbane’s CBD) and some negative (lack of
employment growth in other designated growth areas), but the report’s greatest significance
lay in preparing the ground for what was to become the 2005 South East Queensland
Regional Plan (SEQRP). While identifying areas and issues for new policy work, the report
also flagged eight issues that were already deemed important, but which appeared to be
struggling in their implementation. Most of these areas fell under the broad heading of
environmental policy, including biodiversity conservation, coastal management, water and air
quality, and water supply.
Part of this implementation problem lay in the relationship between regional plans and the
local planning schemes prepared in accordance with Queensland’s Integrated Planning Act
introduced in 1997, through which regional objectives were ot be realised. The local
governments of SEQ were struggling to prepare planning schemes that could effectively
manage the consequences of rapid population growth in the absence of a statutory regional
plan, while Planning Minister Nita Cunningham appeared to see the problem differently in
suggesting that any sensible regional plan would be simply the sum of all local plans (Abbott,
2012, p.38).
At this point a disparate coalition of forces began to emerge to give public expression to the
need for a new regional plan with more statutory power. The Queensland divisions of the
Planning Institute of Australia and the Urban Development Institute of Australia and,
importantly, the local media began to campaign for change, alongside the Brisbane Institute
under the leadership of urban historian Peter Spearritt. The challenge was taken up by South
East Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils which, following a summit of SEQ
mayors held at the end of 2003, agreed to press for a new statutory approach to regional

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planning. This was in turn accepted by the Beattie government, re-elected in February 2004,
and led by Minister Mackenroth from his position as chair of the SEQ Regional Coordination
Committee. This planning process was overseen by yet another state-level committee, the
Urban Management and Infrastructure Coordination Committee (UMICC), which
recommended the creation of an Office of Urban Management (OUM) to lead regional
planning in SEQ.
Among the more significant responsibilities of the OUM, which was established in March
2004, were the inclusion of open space and landscape planning into the statutory framework
and the preparation of regional infrastructure plans as part of the annual budget process. The
Executive Director of the OUM, Michael Kerry, seconded from his role as head of Urban
Management at Brisbane City Council, set about preparing a draft SEQRP for public
consultation by October 2004. This proved to be a relatively popular process, by the
standards of regional planning consultation, with over 8,000 formal submissions following 13
public meetings and an extensive advertising campaign in the local media.
The SEQRP, 2005-2026
The SEQRP was published in June 2005 (OUM, 2005b) and received widespread support
from the public, the development industry and from other levels of government.
This first statutory SEQRP was designed primarily to manage anticipated population growth
and its consequences over a 20 year period, trying to reconcile the benefits of growth with a
desire to protect the quality of life. It was prepared under the auspices of an amended
Integrated Planning Act, 1997 which obliged a degree of public consultation over draft
proposals and, during plan preparation, with the Regional Consultative Committee, first
established in 1994 as a joint venture between the state and local governments. The SEQRP
for the first time had the weight of being a State planning instrument and took precedence
over all local planning policies and regulations. Planning schemes prepared by local
authorities within the region were expected to be consistent with the SEQRP and those
already in existence had to be amended within a reasonable period if they were not..

Insert Map Two about here

The main elements of what was essentially an indicative spatial plan included the
identification of suitable land for future development to accommodate a growing population,
the provision of infrastructure to service this population, a preference for more compact urban
forms through urban infill and a limited number of new major development areas,
diversification of the regional economy and the protection of natural environments and
biodiversity. Of course, some of these elements were in conflict, not least in the desire to
identify suitable greenfield land for new housing while at the same time trying to protect
native vegetation and maintain biodiversity. One of the most visible and significant
components of the new plan was the definition of an ‘urban footprint’ with statutory effect
that sought to limit the location of major new development.
The desire for a more compact urban form has been a feature of all the strategic plans for
SEQ, but its definition has typically lacked precision (Searle, 2010). Spencer et al.’s (2015)
comparative analysis of population density in Australia’s three largest cities reveals that in

5
Brisbane, while 89 per cent of the population live within parts of the city that might be called
‘urban’ with a gross density of four or more people per hectare, this is limited to only 6 per
cent of the total land area of the city (compared to, say, London where 99% of the population
live in urban areas, which cover 80 per cent of the city). In other words, there appears to be
considerable scope to increase densities to achieve a more compact urban form and indeed
the first SEQRP proposed that 50 per cent of new residential dwellings should be built within
the existing urban footprint.
The SEQRP also anticipated the preparation of a number of other plans, including growth
management strategies and structure plans relating to local government areas. Local Growth
Management Strategies (LGMS) were to be produced by each of the (then) 18 local
governments in the region to identify major development areas that would require subsequent
structure planning. This process recognised that it would take some time for local planning
schemes to be amended and brought into line with the SEQRP. The LGMS were expected to
perform a dual and potentially conflicting role in reflecting the strategic intent of the SEQRP
at the local level while, at the same time, identifying and assessing possible new major
growth areas not yet reflected in the plan.
Just as previous voluntary regional planning frameworks had struggled in some areas with
implementation, so the governance arrangements associated with the new statutory SEQRP
were criticised for failing to clarify problematic relationships between State and local
government planning policies (Ireland, 2006). In particular, there remained some ongoing
lack of clarity about the incorporation of local structure plans into amended versions of the
SEQRP. This proved an especially difficult political challenge as it exposed different stances
between some local councils and the State in the location of emerging and potential new
growth areas. These tensions often played out in the regional leadership forums established
in the years leading up to the publication of the first SEQRP. While important preparatory
work had been carried out by SEQROC, in late 2005 this body was reformed into the Council
of Mayors SEQ (COMSEQ) under the leadership of Campbell Newman, Liberal Mayor of
the City of Brisbane who came to office in 2004. While the focus of COMSEQ was more on
the implementation of what was in the first version of the SEQRP rather than on getting new
elements included, its capacity to manage conflicting local views on growth location
remained limited.
Because of the imperative to avoid delays in publishing the first draft of the SEQRP, a
number of ‘pipeline’ growth areas were already under consideration but not able to be
included. Hence, the plan was subject to almost immediate review through an investigation
of the development potential of what was known as the Mt Lindsay/North Beaudesert Study
Area. This was formalised as Amendment 1 and came in to effect in September 2006,
identifying major activity centres at Flagstone, Yarrabilba, Jimboomba and Park Ridge. This
illustrates that while there was concern with implementation of the plan, its content remained
subject to constant pressure for revision from the outset, which in turn complicated the
already complex processes of implementation. Another significant complicating factor in the
implementation of the plan was the relationship of its spatial components with the planning of
infrastructure investment.
The SEQ Infrastructure Plan and Program, 2005-2026

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One of the distinctive and valued aspects of the first statutory regional plan for SEQ was the
Infrastructure Plan and Program (SEQIPP) that accompanied it. In their foreword, Premier
Beattie and Deputy Premier Mackenroth pointed out that ‘for the first time in history, the
Queensland government is making a ten year commitment to fund the necessary
infrastructure that supports growth in SEQ’. This ten year investment commitment was
indeed novel as most forward commitments extended no further than four years and previous
attempts at regional planning in Queensland had been bedevilled by a persistent failure to
integrate infrastructure and regional planning processes (Minnery and Low Choy, 2010). As
both the SEQRP and the SEQIPP were prepared by the Office of Urban Management, there
was initial optimism that a degree of integration would be achieved in practice and indeed the
SEQIPP was designed to show where a variety of critical state infrastructure investment was
planned to support the spatial planning ambitions expressed in the SEQRP While some
criticised this ‘infrastructure turn’ for its apparent subordination of spatial planning to
project-based investment planning (Dodson, 2009; Gleeson and Steele, 2009), in SEQ the
more pertinent criticism has been that the various iterations of the SEQIPP have not, in the
face of financial dependency on Federal partners and the impact of the global financial crises,
delivered all the promised infrastructure (Regan and Bajracharya, 2010).

The SEQRP, 2009-2031

By 2008 many of the growth management issues that lay at the heart of the 2005 plan were
not only continuing, but becoming ever more pressing. High population growth, housing
unaffordability, transport congestion and the need for employment generation persisted, but
were joined by a new recognition that the impacts of climate change would exacerbate all
these problems. A new Draft SEQRP 2009-31 was published for public consultation in
December 2008 and a final version prepared in the light of submissions and in consultation
with the RCC, coming into effect in July 2009. This new plan (DIP, 2009a) set out a number
of new and emphatic strategic directions. Perhaps the most significant new emphasis was
given to the impacts of climate change and oil vulnerability. The plan spoke of the need to
mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to unavoidable
impacts by protecting areas at risk, in particular from sea level rise. It also recognised the
State’s increasing vulnerability to rising oil prices and the consequential desire to reduce car
dependency through a more compact urban form, although Queensland’s Department of
Transport and Main Roads’ analysis of travel in SEQ between 1992 and 2009 showed that
despite this policy objective, private car use remained fairly constant at around 80 per cent for
all trips (DTMR, 2012). Greater emphasis was also given to protecting the regional
landscape and biodiversity as well as supporting rural production. The overall strategic
vision for the region was one of inter-connected communities that were more self-contained
in terms of services and employment than in the past and which, therefore, would generate
less demand for travel in private vehicles between residential and employment centres.

Insert Map Three about here

The new plan was not prepared not by the OUM, which had been abolished in April 2008,
but by the new Department of Infrastructure and Planning (DIP), and a related SEQIPP for

7
the period 2009-2026 was published alongside this new SEQRP. While departmental
reorganisations are nothing new in state or federal governments, the abolition of the OUM
was seen to have led to a loss of focus on integrated regional planning within the Queensland
State Government and to a weakening of productive relations with other sectors, including
the development industry and community representatives (Abbott, 2012, p.54).
The period since the adoption of the 2009 SEQRP has been one of considerable political
change, with the Bligh Labor government replaced by the Newman Liberal-National Party
Government in March 2012, which was replaced in turn by the Palaszczuk Labor
Government in February 2015. Nevertheless, regional planning continued both in practice
and as a process of monitoring, evaluation and review. In March 2010 a Growth
Management Summit was held to consider, yet again, the challenges of planning for a rapidly
growing population in SEQ and to propose any new priorities for future iterations of the
SEQRP. One consequence of the Summit was the establishment of the SEQ Growth
Management Program (SEQGMP), designed to ‘inform and help prioritise state and local
government planning actions and infrastructure investment’ (Department of Local
Government and Planning, 2010, p.2). Intended to deliver annual progress reports, the
SEQGMP was concerned principally with availability of land for housing and industrial
development and aimed to ensure a minimum of 10 years planned supply within local
planning schemes and any relevant state government plans.
The election of the Newman Government saw a pronounced shift in emphasis from earlier
periods and earlier versions of the SEQRP, even though Newman as Lord Mayor of Brisbane
had endorsed both the 2005 and 2009 versions. As Premier he brought a renewed focus on
the stimulation of economic growth and a commitment to reduce what he often described as
growth-stunting green and red tape regulatory burdens (see, for example, Newman, 2012).
This manifested itself most vividly in a series of battles with the Federal Government over its
use of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999 to review and
block a number of major project proposals in Queensland. But at the same time, the Newman
Government embarked on the preparation of an ambitious plan for the whole of the state.
Following what was described as ‘the largest state-wide community engagement activity of
its kind ever undertaken in Queensland, with more than 80 000 people contributing to the
process’ (Queensland Government, 2014), the Queensland Plan was published in 2014,
setting out a comprehensive array of policies and programs for all aspects of future growth.
It included policies on environmental protection, infrastructure investment and regional
development but, perhaps in recognition of criticism that state governments tended to be
Brisbane-centric, it emphasised the importance of supporting population and economic
growth outside SEQ, especially in the cities of north Queensland. The election of a new
government only one year later meant the Queensland Plan had little time to serve as the
foundation for more detailed planning or indeed for the re-shaping of the 2009 SEQRP. The
Palaszczuk Labor Government elected in 2015 made a commitment to review many policy
commitments and a review of the SEQRP was announced before the end of its first year in
office.

2016 Draft SEQRP: Shaping SEQ

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The motivations and ambitions of the latest SEQRP, released in draft form in late 2016
(DILGP, 2016b), are very familiar: the population of SEQ is expected to continue to grow by
approximately 2 million over the next 25 years if current trends continue and the
consequences of this growth must be managed sensibly and sustainably. The plan aims to
capitalise on the region’s climatic location in making SEQ ‘a world leading model of sub-
tropical living’ and in her introduction to the draft plan, Deputy Premier Jackie Trad (who at
the time was both Minister for Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning and also
Minister for Trade and Investment) set great store in the breadth and depth of community
consultation that went into its preparation and on its focus on those issues that the community
at large said were important. These included affordable housing, protection of the natural
environment and the unique lifestyle offered by living in the region. In emphasising the
importance of basing the plan on an extensive program of consultation, especially with the
local councils and their mayors, the Deputy Premier is maintaining a tradition of engagement
while making a claim to be doing it better than ever before.

Insert Brisbane Tropical Living photo about here

While a 50 year vision for the region is offered in response to a set of so-called mega-trends
(Hajkowicz et al., 2012) the plan itself focuses only on the next 25 years and, if past practice
is repeated, will be reviewed in 5-6 years’ time. As with previous plans, the delivery of many
of the plan’s objectives will be achieved (or not) through the development and
implementation of local planning schemes and the action of other state government
departments and agencies, such as Economic Development Queensland and the office of the
Queensland Government Architect.

Insert Map Four about here

In consultation events held around the region, officials from the Department of Infrastructure,
Local Government and Planning (DILGP) – established in 2015 by the Palaszczuk Labor
government- have set out the key elements of the plan and what distinguishes it from its
predecessors. The principal element is the expansion of the urban footprint by 21,800
hectares, which includes 13,600 hectares of land over and above the 2009 plan and 8,200
hectares of ‘new future urban land’. One major new development area is proposed at
Beerwah East and 11 future growth areas are identified throughout the region. The plan
provides indicative net residential densities for some of its regional activity centres, including
150-500 dwellings per hectare in capital city and principal regional activity centres such as
Beenleigh, Southport and Toowoomba and 80-200 dwellings per hectare in major activity
centres such as Coolangatta, Noosa and Yarrabilba. Density guidelines at smaller spatial
scales and in other areas are to be determined by local governments through their local
planning processes.

Insert Yarrabilba Street Scene photo about here

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The plan also presents a greater set of major aspirations including:
• Building a globally competitive regional economy by identifying and facilitating areas of
high value and export-oriented business;
• Focusing more development in existing urban areas to accommodate SEQ’s projected
population and employment growth;
• Placing greater emphasis on public and active transport to move people around the
region;
• Maximising the use of existing facilities before building new infrastructure, and
identifying new ‘region-shaping’ infrastructure only where needed to increase
accessibility and productivity to support the settlement pattern and economic policies;
• Increasing emphasis on protecting and sustainably using SEQ’s regional landscapes and
natural assets; and
• Identifying and mapping regional biodiversity corridors and values to support the
protection of these values.

While there is much continuity between the current draft and previous plans, there are also
some significant differences, including:
• Using employment planning benchmarks to ensure land and infrastructure are planned for
and delivered locally to meet growth projections;
• Explicitly valuing good design, through the work of the Queensland Government
Architect Queensland and the Urban Design and Places Panel, as a way to create more
housing choice, and memorable and liveable urban places and spaces, to benefit
communities socially, economically and environmentally;
• Working in parallel with the State Infrastructure Plan to ensure a coordinated approach to
ongoing infrastructure and service delivery;
• Developing a more sophisticated (although as yet unspecified) approach to determining
urban land supply, as well as improving ways to monitor supply and development
activity, and the plan’s performance over time;
• Delivering the plan through specific actions, including in City Deal partnerships with the
Australian Government and SEQ local governments.
The draft plan claims to be more clear and concise than its predecessors and to provide a
greater emphasis on delivery and implementation. This remains to be seen, but the public
reception has so far been positive and even within the development industry there appears to
be cautious optimism. The consultation period on the draft plan closes in March 2017 ahead
of a further round of community conversations as well as preliminary analysis of
submissions.

Distinctive features, achievements and criticisms of SEQ metropolitan plans and

strategies

10
Over the last two decades, the plans, both voluntary and statutory, for SEQ have shown a
high degree of consistency in their main aims and objectives and indeed these are not
dissimilar to those expressed in the regional planning strategies of the other major cities
(Hamnett and Freestone, 2016). The principal aim is to manage the consequences of
anticipated population growth, rapid or otherwise, by identifying areas where that growth
might be best accommodated. The second is to prepare the ground for economic
development and job growth to employ this growing population. The third is to ensure that if
these two forms of growth do not occur in broadly the same areas, then they are at least well
connected through improved infrastructure for public and private transport. Finally, this
transport infrastructure has also to connect other public service infrastructure such as schools,
universities and hospitals. The achievement of these aims requires some degree of balance
between different and competing pressures and imperatives, such as the promotion of
population and economic growth and the protection and conservation of biodiversity, wildlife
habitats and ecosystems in general. This is reflected in choices and tensions between
accommodating growth through infill or through new development on so-called ‘greenfield’
sites along with an assumption that infill will typically be at higher densities than greenfield
development, but might be easier to service with new or expanded infrastructure systems.
One final common thread to the various SEQ regional plans and strategies lies in an enduring
concern with their implementation; this is not to say that implementation has always been
successful, rather that an explicit concern with implementation has persisted over the years
and across various strategies. Each of the major planning aims described above is elaborated
below.
Growth areas and urban footprints
Each of the regional plans has attempted to manage growth by restricting it to certain
designated areas, typically the existing built up areas around the major cities but also in a
number of smaller growth centres in more rural areas. The definition of these growth
boundaries draws on information contained in the State Government’s Digital Cadastral
Database and provides a more precise delineation than previously. This delineation has
considerable political and economic significance as it helps determine the development
potential and hence the value of land. While the certainty provided by such boundaries is
broadly welcomed, the limitations this imposes on development outside the footprint is
subject to constant criticism from the development sector and its political representatives (eg
Vit, 2016). Although these boundaries are supposed to reflect a supply of land sufficient to
meet the need for new housing over the coming decades, this calculation is itself subject to
constant challenge in the face of changing expectations of house and lot sizes, the acceptance
of higher density development and the enduring problem of assembling land in fragmented
ownership. The latest plan proposes a new balance in the assessment of areas of growth
potential and future land supply, with a shift in favour of more infill development within the
urban footprint.

Insert Brisbane medium density infill photo about here

This represents a long term trend, with the 2005 plan proposing an infill target of 40 per cent,
the 2009 plan a 50 per cent target and the current plan a 60 per cent target. While these are

11
relatively modest in comparison with other state targets, many in the Queensland
development industry remain sceptical about their achievement, pointing to the lack of large
parcels of land, the often high costs of site assembly and higher construction costs, all of
which it predicts will lead to higher prices for new developments and an ongoing problem of
housing affordability.
Economic development as the foundation for growth
Regional plans produced under the auspices of state governments led by different political
parties have typically placed more or less emphasis on the fundamental need to stimulate
economic growth as well as accommodating population growth. The new draft new plan
proposes new employment planning benchmarks, but these appear to simply take sectoral
estimates of job growth produced by the Treasury and allocate them formulaically to local
governments in the region. Thus the City of Gold Coast is expected to identify sufficient
land to accommodate precisely 433,432 new jobs in the period to 2041, although it is not
clear what assumptions these estimates make about the relationship between economic
growth and job growth in the light of anticipated but unspecified technological changes. To
be sure, the current plan also identifies areas where new growth might be based on the
proximity of R&D functions in a number of ‘knowledge precincts’ and is committed to
promoting better connections between residential and employment areas. Nevertheless, the
plan remains unavoidably focussed on the spatial distribution of economic growth rather than
being a detailed prospectus for generating that growth.
Connectivity through transport infrastructure
Improved connectivity is, rightly, seen as one of the most significant ways in which growth
can be managed in a sustainable way and the lifestyle attractions of the region preserved or
even enhanced. One notable feature of the new plan is that it is not accompanied by a
dedicated infrastructure plan. This was held to be one of the strengths of the previous two
plans, but is considered unnecessary as the state now relies on one consolidated and
integrated State Infrastructure Plan (DILGP, 2016a) which includes an analysis of the
specific needs and opportunities within the SEQ region. While motorway upgrades and new
rail services are planned, there is also a belief that urban consolidation and focused growth
will over time reduce the considerable costs of congestion already experienced.

Insert Gold Coast Transport investment photo about here

Keeping pace with public services

In addition to large scale transport infrastructure in the form of roads and railways, tunnels
and bridges, a growing population also needs community-based services such as schools and
hospitals. The location of these facilities presents significant challenges for regional planners
as low density, dispersed populations generate considerable traffic flows as residents
typically travel to schools, hospitals and other health services by car. Within existing urban
areas where challenging infill targets have been set in the latest SEQRP, finding the space for
new schools, hospitals and other health care facilities is going to become increasingly
difficult.

12
Growth and conservation
The various plans for SEQ have always included a commitment to protecting and preserving
native vegetation and ecosystems beyond and within the urban footprint and to conserving
designated open space. While threats to the survival of flora and fauna in the region are
becoming increasingly apparent, there is also growing recognition of the beneficial effects of
greenspaces and vegetation within cities (Matthews et al., 2015). However, development
pressures continue and the latest plan, like its predecessors, will no doubt struggle to strike a
balance between growth and conservation that satisfies all parties.
Implementation
Although recognised by many as a series of laudable regional plans and strategies (Gleeson
and Steele, 2010; Minnery and Low Choy, 2010) the various SEQ regional plans have also
been subject to criticism, not least because of their failure to deliver their strategic visions in
practice. The representative bodies of the development industry have, unsurprisingly, been
among the staunchest critics. For example, the Property Council of Australia (PCA) has set
out a series of criticisms and weaknesses of past SEQ regional plans which they say should
be addressed in the latest version (Property Council of Australia, 2016). First, they claim that
many planning schemes prepared by local governments do not properly reflect the intent of
the regional plans. This criticism is almost entirely based on their perception that local
planning schemes have not released sufficient greenfield land for new residential
development, or have been insufficiently accommodating in their assessment of development
proposals within the urban footprint. There is, however, little empirical evidence to support
this claim (Gurran, Gilbert and Phibbs, 2013) which continues to be part of the litany of the
PCA. Second, and more tellingly, they claim that there has been a failure to integrate other
environmental plans and policies produced by both State and local governments in the region
with the SEQ regional plans. This is part of a more widespread perception of what is often
referred to as a lack of ‘joined up government’. A recent review of the integration of spatial
and sectoral strategies in Queensland (James and Burton, 2016) found some evidence to
support this criticism, with many plans prepared by Queensland government departments and
agencies having little or no explicit connection with each other, although the integration of
spatial planning and infrastructure investment was more evident than in other fields. The
third criticism is a lack of attention paid to the detail of how and where new jobs will be
created in the region. It is certainly the case that state governments of different political
persuasions have increasingly put economic growth and job creation at the heart of their
broader political programs
And while there are more specific policy measures, including R&D support schemes and
employment incentives, one of the leading policy measures is the designation of State
Development Areas in which planning regimes are supportive of growth and infrastructure
investment is focussed. The nine current SDAs are dominated by mining and related
activities, a sector that employs only 2.7 per cent of the workforce and is moving into a
period of employment decline.
Overall, while the institutional arrangements of intergovernmental collaboration are well
established and can reasonably be expected to continue to work satisfactorily into the future,
there remains a legitimate ongoing concern with the translation of the regional strategy into

13
local plans with the capacity to deliver local outcomes. This is, of course, a wider problem of
planning that will be returned to in the concluding section.

Conclusion
The most significant feature of metropolitan planning for South East Queensland is that it has
existed and endured for almost fifty years and helped manage the growth of this consistently
fast growing region. Few other metropolitan regions in Australia have enjoyed such a
consistent regional planning framework, perhaps because of its support from a strategic
partnership of the state government and a relatively small group of local governments, albeit
a partnership has shifted from a voluntary to a statutory basis, and it is now almost impossible
to imagine that regional planning in SEQ will not continue in one form or another.
The various iterations of the SEQRP have not of course been immune from criticism, often
conflicting and contradictory. For example, the latest version has been criticised on the one
hand for failing to take sufficient account of the changing circumstances caused by climate
change and past environmental degradation and not adequately protecting greenspaces and
other ecosystems, and on the other hand for its continuing reluctance to release sufficient
greenfield land that would increase the affordability of new residential developments. There
is also an ongoing debate about the capacity of multi-faceted regional plans such as this to
serve as a useful vehicle for integrating an array of sectoral plans and strategies. They do
offer the opportunity of integration through a place-based focus, but also run the risk of
becoming overburdened with policies that have no clear spatial dimension.
Perhaps the greatest threat to regional planning in SEQ lies in the political arena. The next
state election must be held before January 2018, but might be held in the first half of 2017
and it is possible that Pauline Hanson’s right-wing libertarian One Nation Party will win
sufficient seats to hold the balance of power in the next parliament. While there has been a
high degree of cross-party consensus on the case for regional planning in SEQ and for much
of the policy substance of successive plans, it is much more difficult to anticipate or predict
the stance of One Nation on matters such as the need to accommodate a growing population
through urban consolidation, environmental protection and ‘smart growth’.
Finally, regional plans like plans for any other spatial scale continue to confront the challenge
of being able to regulate and manage but not to create growth. There will be parts of some
regions, although few in SEQ, where the planning challenge is how to cope with inexorable
economic and population decline, but mainly the task is to regulate growth in such a way as
to not stifle it.
Regional and indeed local growth management strategies such as the SEQRP must create an
environment in which growth is encouraged but then regulated in ways that are widely
accepted as reasonable and sensible. It is not always easy to strike an appropriate balance
between encouragement and regulation with the long term consequences of not doing so
including substantial loss of amenity and quality of life on the one hand and the emergence of
a low wage, low growth economy on the other with its attendant fiscal challenges for
governments at all levels. The goals of triple (or even quadruple) bottom line sustainable
development continue to underpin many regional and metropolitan planning strategies,
including in SEQ, but their comprehensive achievement remains as elusive as ever.

14
15
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