Building Better Neighbourhoods - What the New Planning Scheme Really Means

In this episode of the Fraser Coast Property Brief, we unpack one of the most important changes shaping the region right now. The new planning scheme.

Glen sits down with Ward Veitch to break down what “Building Better Neighbourhoods” means and why it matters for the future of the Fraser Coast.

This conversation explains the shift toward what is being called gentle density. Smaller lots, duplexes, triplexes, and secondary dwellings are all part of the plan. The goal is simple. Match housing supply with how people are living today.

With population growth sitting around 2.5 percent per year and the average age now over 50, the traditional large family home no longer fits every buyer. Household sizes are shrinking, and demand is changing. This episode explains how the new planning approach responds to that reality.

We also look at the current land shortage in Hervey Bay. Buyers are securing land well before titles are ready, while approvals, infrastructure, and construction capacity continue to slow supply. The discussion covers how these constraints are shaping the market right now.

Ward shares insight into future growth areas like Nikenbah and Dundowran, including what is coming next and how it will impact land availability over time.

Most importantly, this episode explains what all of this means for the community. How neighbourhoods will evolve, where density will increase, and how the region plans to balance growth with the lifestyle people move here for.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to the Fraser Coast Property Brief, the podcast where property, development, and business leaders share what's really happening across the Fraser Coast. Each episode brings you insights into local projects, market trends, and the people helping shape the future of our region. Welcome to our latest episode from the Fraser Coast Property Brief. Today we're talking about building better neighbourhoods and what the new town planning scheme is all about and what it really means for the average person. So our guest today is going to be Ward Veach, longtime town planner in Harvey Bay and Urban Planet. So this episode is going to focus on the planning scheme review. We're going to talk about what they're referring to as gentle density and building better neighborhoods, what they actually mean on the ground, and how the changes will impact our housing supply affordability and that going forward. So there's a lot of challenges in there, it's a lot of in-depth topics, so we're going to go through it bit by bit. But first of all, I'd like to uh introduce Ward Veach joining me today. Um being here for a very long time, I think even longer than me. Welcome, Ward. Thank you. Um give us a little bit of background because you've got both sides of this. You were in council for a long time and you've been in private practice. So just give us a little bit about you so people understand your perspective.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Uh yeah, I'm a long-term resident. I've been here what 54 years. Um, did all my schooling here. Obviously, I went away to university. Uh I did work in the private sector prior to going to council uh around about 1991. Uh, worked my way through council, uh, was executive manager of development um when I left in 2003 and set up Urban Planet, so been running my own business for the past 23 years. Uh been involved in yeah, probably 70% of the developments in one way or another on the Fraser Coast over that period of time, and have seen it grow. Um and you know, I but I guess the perspective is what I say to people, notwithstanding the growth, Harvey Bay is still Harvey Bay, it's still Harvey Bay that I grew up in. Um Meribor is also very similar. I mean, if we talk broadly about the Fraser Coast, uh, we've just got more people, more services, more activity, uh, and we just continue to grow and we always have grown.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Yeah, it's uh certainly has changed though. Like, you know, I'm 1981 resident, so I've been here for 45 years, um, not as long as you so it makes you older. Um, but you know, I re I remember you from the days in council, so we've been doing business and you as a council officer and externally for probably 30 years now. Um yes, but yeah, the fundamentals are still to change, but um are still the same in Harvey Bay, but I think we're about to change. Um, you know, because we've we've been a regional city, we've lived on 600, 800,000 square meter lots, we've had an urban, you know, semi-rural lifestyle. Um we've got to a population here now which is fairly intense of probably about 68,000 people in Harvey Bay and 120 on the Fraser Coast. We can't keep the urban sprawl going. So that leads us into probably our first topic is the amendment package one that FraserCoast Council have just put out for public consultation where they propose building better neighborhoods. Can you explain what this package is all about?

SPEAKER_00 3:51

There's a there's a two-phase thing associated with the with the package. Firstly, as council's statutory obligation to review the planning scheme, because obviously the planning scheme now is 12 years old. Uh, but secondly, has been the dramatic change that's really occurred in the last five years in the way that development happens and what the demands on development are on the Fraser Coast. Um, so council are responding to that uh in terms of changing demand. I mean, we essentially had uh a two-dimensional development. We we had development of your standard traditional low-density lots, albeit some of them up to 2,000 and even 4,000 in the 90s, um, and we had lifestyle village developments, which were the predominant types of development. We had smatterings of little bits of industry happening and little bits of commercial happening here and there, but that was what was driving it. But post-COVID we all experienced the change, particularly in regional areas where the demands are different. There's more pressures on affordability, uh, there's more pressures on land supply, uh, there's more pressures on having housing choice and diversity. So council's uh planning scheme package is responding to that in introducing different opportunities for development, which is going to be able to move us forward to the demands that are being created.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

So we're getting away from traditional large lot housing. Council have come up with a term which is an industry term as well called gentle density. So, what does it mean to the layman? You know, um, you know, people think of density as soon as straight away they think of high rise and panic, but gentle density, what's what's that phase they're trying to bring in?

SPEAKER_00 5:39

It'll be an interesting implementation because a lot of people, I think, uh, in the general public, in particular in existing low density areas, are probably going to be resistant to the notion of any increases in densities, particularly duplexes, maybe not so much that, but more triplexes. Um everybody's supportive of the notion, yes, we like to have uh some increases, uh, but there will also be a lot of not my backyard type thing, like I don't want it in my street, I don't want it next door. But the notion is to actually provide that housing opportunity to have more opportunity on smaller lots for duplexes and triplexes, the introduction of the low medium density zone, which is in accessible locations, areas that are close to employment and services, where those densities can increase even further, but also making the planning process simpler for those types of opportunities. So it's about trying to get and what we refer to as brownfield development. So using the existing services that are located in existing areas to their nth degree, you know, getting more equitable use of the existing infrastructure, which for a community actually reduces the cost to the community. You know, we're better utilizing the facilities there, whether it be roads, sewer, water, electricity, services like bus services, school services, all those types of things. So just trying to enhance the density opportunities in those existing areas.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

All right, so let me break this into two parts. There's the new lots coming on, um, and there's the existing, which you call Brownfield Site. So let's use an example, you know, yeah, one, two streets from the beach, Freshwater Street, Torque Road, um, those sort of areas. Um council putting a new zoning type thing in there, which is a cross between a low density and medium density. So a lot of quarter-acre blocks in those old areas. So what's the likelihood of things are going to change? Is it, you know, townhouses, duplex, um, you know, two-lot subdivisions, you know, are these the things that are going to start happening over the next three years or so?

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah, I I see a lot of uh sort of people taking the opportunity to maybe put another unit on their property, maybe as an opportunity for investment or income. Um, I think we're going to see the densification of those areas, you know, the Cypress streets, the freshwater streets, all those sort of areas. Um and I think like mum and dad investors are gonna take that opportunity. Obviously, there's a lot of investors and developers that are hunting around for those those types of things. Uh, but generally speaking, I think we're gonna see a gradual increase in the number of dual occupancies, particularly. Um limited opportunities for triplexes. Uh, the problem with Brownfield and doing triplexes is that you really need either a house that you're gonna demolish that has no particular value or an existing vacant site, which are hard to find in some of those areas.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Yep. So the old traditional thing was people would put a granny flat at the back of their house, and I think you're limited at about 70 square metres. They've increased that now. So what's the what's the next move? Is it a second house with a completely second title, or is it just two houses on one block?

SPEAKER_00 9:13

And I think it's going to be a mixture of both. Um, the other trend that seems to be happening quite a lot, and it's something that I've been involved with for 28 years, is um actually extended family living. Um, and whether that be mum and dad or mum or dad uh living in the backyard in a in a secondary dwelling, which is something that I've had for the past 28 years, or it might be the kids moving back home. You know, mum and dad might have had it for a while, and then the kids moving back home just to give them a leg up and an opportunity to get into the market or maybe save some money. Um, and and we're seeing a lot of that, uh, a lot of people making inquiries about that, and the council uh are looking at well, looking at making it simpler. A lot of people have said in the past, 70 square metres, you know, it's not very big, and I need something bigger. Well, 100 square metres is probably a reasonable reflection of what a practical uh outcome would be for a granny flat, and that might be, as I said, for mum and dad, or for the kids moving back home, or it might be for an income stream. And I noticed there was a news article on Channel 9 News the other night about that particular thing and happening in places like Brisbane where people are using as an income stream. They've got a backyard that they're really not using anymore, so they put in a granny flat and rent it out to a third party.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

All right. So the other the other side of this gentle density is new subdivisions. Um, traditionally, you know, we've watched it both, watched it over the over the decades go from a thousand square metres average to 800 to 600. Uh, new town planning scheme now puts a minimum at 450 square metres and starts changing setbacks, zero alignments, all that. So, what's that going to do to new subdivisions?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

It are they gonna change the way they look and I would hope, and we're seeing some of those coming through in design, uh, that we will end up with housing diversity in new subdivisions rather than the sameness that we've sort of been producing over the years. Um, there's still going to be a demand for your 1,000 or 800 square meter blocks where someone just wants a bigger block to have a big shed and et cetera, et cetera. But in terms of affordability and housing product choice, the new subdivisions that we're seeing are starting to mix it right up with things like terrace lots or just small lots with reduced setbacks. I think the function of the traditional residential setback has been lost. Uh, and we saw a lot of the older subdivisions that everyone have a six-meter setback and the front lawn that they really didn't do a lot with, uh, sort of wanting to fade away, or people are saying, Well, I want to make more use of my block. So I've got a smaller block, we'll push the house forward and we'll have more open space at the back and a more functional space for us.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

You've also got a different generation, you know, like our generation, you know, you're mowing the lawns and at the on the weekends and doing those things. The younger generation don't want that as part of their lifestyle, they want gyms, going out the beaches, and all the rest of it. So, you know, the the house is more of a just an anchor point, and most of their living's external of the house rather than in it.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

So they want a space to be able to have a dog so that the dog can run around in the yard, and if they've got small kids to have a little space, but they don't want a lot of maintenance. You know, the demands on people's time are so high these days, particularly for the younger generation, they don't want to be a slave to a garden. And we're seeing that trend directly flowing up the coast. You know, it was the Gold Coast, and then it was Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, um, and certainly going to be here. I guess the challenge here is that we haven't offered it in the past, and I've talked to a lot of developers previously over years about doing something different and trying something different, and the the thing has always been, well, show me where that's you know been successful in the market, and I can't because it doesn't exist. I said, as far as I'm concerned, there is a demand for something smaller. If you take the example of, let's say, a young nurse or a police officer who comes to live on the Fraser Coast, their options are very limited in terms of what they either buy or rent, and they end up rattling around in a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home, which is 80% of what's been built. Um, and it's really an inequitable use of the resources that we have. So to be able to offer that differentiation in the market, I think is going to be important, particularly for the younger generation.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Yeah. And and that gets and also the older generation, you know, it gets going on to the demographics of our housing. We've traditionally done four-bedroom houses, media room, and you know, even estate covenants being 200, 220 square meters, you know, under the illusion we need to build bigger and better houses and looks nicer. But if you start looking at the demographics, we are growing by about two and a half thousand people a year. Our average age is 51, so it's an older generation. We only have 2.1 people per household. Um, so our housing product is not aligning up with our demographics here, you know, younger or older. So, you know, like you're saying, the housing product has to move. What else does it need to do to align with especially an aging population?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Well, the challenge with our aging population, as we've discussed before, is trying to maintain a workforce here to support the aging population. So we have to have a different housing product to actually attract those people to be here, apart from what we've talked about about having education facilities and employment. Um, I think employment is sort of a self-generating thing in terms of having the older people here because we need all the health services and the other support services that go along with it. So the opportunity to offer a different housing product where those older people can well, they could build a granny flat in the backyard and live in it themselves and rent out their main house, or they could move on to a smaller product and make the larger product available to a smaller family. Um, so there's lots of opportunities there, and I think it's being reflected in the current market, and I think you've probably seen people looking for different things.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Yeah, yeah. And and there's a big gap in especially apartment market at the moment. There is a big gap, and that's to do with build cost. Yeah, it's build cost and just um changing people's habits as well, because they still think they should go get a traditional house on a on a uh you know titled block of land rather than being part of body corporates and that. So it's a bit of a mentality resistance here as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

I think that's that's an education program, and maybe in terms of and I'm not dishing on agents, but I think a lot of agents in the way that they actually market or sell that community title product, uh, because in a lot of cases it's not necessarily a bad thing. No, it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Yeah, you know, like there's no maintenance, you know, the the insurance is covered by the body corporate, the external replacement of the roofs, the painting of the external building, so you're actually not maintaining externally, so you've got a freer lifestyle and you're just paying a weekly fee for it. That's why some of these retirement models are so popular lately. Um housing affordability. So do you think this uh amendment package is doing something to help the affordability issue with the changes they're making in it?

SPEAKER_00 16:40

It's a difficult thing to predict, isn't it? Because we can't control building costs to a to a degree and they seem to keep on mounting. Um, the raw land cost, the acquisition cost, the build cost for the developer is still increasing. Um I find it a struggle to try and define what housing affordability is. Somewhere in the early 2000s, there was a big cliff that we fell off. Um, when you and I were sort of growing up and we're in our 20s, you could afford to buy a house. You know, if there was it was a percentage of your income if you looked at it that way, and that gulf has increased so far. I'm not sure how we as uh people in the property industry or representing developers actually control that. Um, so housing affordability is a difficult thing. People tend to look at it if you talk about cheaper products, they tend to look at you know, cheap equals nasty type things. Um, so it will be interesting to see how it gets developed by or delivered by property developers and builders as a product and then what we're going to call housing affordability. I look at uh, you know, my first house here cost me $38,000 to build and $7,000 for the block of land, and that house is on the market today for $650,000. Now I could afford to do it, it was a struggle, but I had less demands on my on my money and time. Uh, but I look at young people now and think six hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a 40-year-old house. So I guess the challenge for the developer is to try and deliver something that people see as real value uh but not at a level where they're just going to be buried in debt. I yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Yeah, that's where this gentle density size, different type of product model could come in, please.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Particularly the brownfield stuff, because generally speaking, that can probably be delivered at a better value.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Because all your services are there too, you know, your roads are in, your you know, our sewage is running under capacity per hectare, you know, people. Um there's all your main services, and it's close to amenity. That's the big thing that's missing with our urban growth going out to the back. The amenity's not out there. People want to be able to walk 500 metres to the shops or their local, you know, place they want to have a drink or dinner or something like that, or walk to the beach.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

So yeah, I'm often horrified when I drive down the highway and I look at the extent that Calowandra has expanded and that you know Calowandra housing estates are right next to the freeway. Yeah. And people say to me, Oh, I live on the Sunshine Coast. Yeah, you live on the Sunshine Coast, but you're 10 kilometres from the water and and and away from services, and you probably don't go to those things. It's like people who live in Brisbane that might live, you know, in one of the outer suburbs, and they never go to the city.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

No.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Um, so you we're creating these little sort of microcosms around the place and not really creating a cohesive community. Yeah, it's very hard.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

So let's talk about land supply. Um, we're constantly got a shortage of land supply at the moment because our demand's pretty strong. I think we need about 1,200 housing products a year to just to cater for the influx of people coming in. Um, you know, we're we're selling a lot of stuff. Um, you know, you're obviously doing most of the town planning work for this. We're finding that people are waiting, you know, from looking at the land up to 18 months or more in the last few years. Why we got such a land supply shortage, you know, when we got so much raw land sitting on there? What's is it the process, is it was it the demand or is it the time it takes to build it?

SPEAKER_00 20:41

I don't think anyone really anticipated the exponential growth that occurred post-COVID and the whole regional change issue and the fact that people were getting out of cities at a greater rate than they used to. Uh, people who worked out, I don't have to live in the city to work to do my job, I can I can be somewhere else. So I think we were caught on the back foot a little bit there. The delivery time always surprises me, even though I've been involved in this for a long time. And we've sat down with the councillors and run them through a process, and even a simple subdivision can take 18 months, two years from acquisition to delivery of new titles. So there's a massive time lag, and if we have any breaks in the continuity of that process, like we have a period where things just aren't appearing on the ground, A, we can have a gap in the market, B, we can lose contractors, uh, build whether it come from the civil contractors right through to the builders because there's no continuity of supply. Um, and then we run into a problem that, well, where do we go next? Because we don't have, and that puts pressure, upward pressure on the existing market, which goes against housing affordability. Time is probably the biggest killer of cost. The whole process.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

And I think most people don't understand it. And when I talk to people about it, they're actually surprised. But you know, you can step the process through for them quite simply. And that 18 months also assumes that you don't have any issues associated with weather or supply of materials or some constraint or some issue that you have to deal with maybe with a third-party agency in the state which can delay things. I mean, we regularly have projects, the bigger projects, that can go for three years. So that time lapse is causing a gap and is causing a problem for us. And I think you've highlighted a couple of times now to council the current opportunity we have or the current situation that we have, we could have a real land supply crisis in the next couple of years.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

I was just doing some programs for a few of the years states this morning, and you know, some of the ones we're lodging, and you know, we're both involved in a couple of these. Um it's like from getting to lodge in the council, it's about 600 days before the land's actually ready. Then you've got the building contract on it, so you've got another six months on top of that. Um, so you're 780, 800 days from you know, when a when something's ready to go in a council to somebody moving into the house, it's insane. So, you know, we're gonna have land or stuff we're starting now that people won't be moving into 2028. Um, and you know, it doesn't fix the crisis. I I I still our peak crisis, I think, now is the second half of this year and uh into the first half of 2027 before some of the land catches up. And I don't think there's enough urgency out there in the market, um, especially with levels of government to actually fast track development applications so physical work and start quicker. Yeah, it's it's a six-month plus process just in council.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

I always find it funny, and and it gets talked about at state level and probably federal level more than local government level, where they talk about housing affordability and supply. But everything that gets put in place by various levels of governments is actually contrary to that outcome. I I I sympathize with the council officers here. We've got a situation where you've got five or six council officers trying to do assessments. At the moment, they've got over 300 applications to deal with. That's a lot. And it's a lot, and I sympathise with them in terms of their resources and the stress that must give them, where they come in every day and go, My God, I've got you know this great pile I've got to deal with. But by the same token, that is also an opportunity to reflect on how you do things. Um and I don't think a lot of governments actually do that. We sort of go along with the same old, same old. The state government become problematic as well because they just keep introducing more and more things that you need to consider. There was some word uh from the current state government, one stage, that they were going to simplify all that and get rid of a lot of the referrals, which would be a wonderful thing.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Because I've always advocated when I started in planning, our legislation was about four pages thick. Now we've got just the regulation on its own without the act, is a thousand pages. And I don't think it's any better. I don't think the system's any better, and the outcomes or the processes I don't think have changed in it in the broad scale, but we've just added more and more to it in terms of process.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

Yeah, I know. Like, you know, we said a referral agency thinks, you know, we've been trapped on a year and one referral agency from a from a vegetation one before we can even start the process. Um, there doesn't seem to be risk assessment going on and saying, you know, if we yeah, not worry about all this referral here or you know, what's the worst can happen, then and it then make a risk call because we need land on. They just seem to go through the same process if the property is very simply with no impact or something's complex. Um they they don't seem to shortcut stuff and saying this is an easy one, we'll get this out, we get more land supply very quick.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Yeah, we we are seeing that to a degree with council. Um some of the simpler applications, council are saying, well, you know, we don't need to do a lot with that, let's just knock it out. And we are seeing that. Um obviously there's still delays and time lags with the larger projects, uh, but that's to do with the amount of input they have to it.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Yep. So freeing up, you know, I think we're going to be in trouble with land supply for at least to June next year, maybe a bit beyond. But beyond that, uh, we talked about this First Amendment package in the in the council um town planning scheme, but we've got two new urban growth areas, which is the Nicombar area and the Dundarren area. Explain what happens there when council expands their planning scheme with those two.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

So council are the the uh the two investigation areas that they call them, um, and ultimately there will be structure plans and potentially local plans over those areas, uh, which are a little bit more detailed than a strategic plan. At the moment, they've gone through a process of mapping constraints. Um, have some concerns about the level of constraint over some of those land, uh, but that's generally what we're seeing moving forward in development anyway, that there's more and more constraints. Um, I think those constraints mapping items are very restrictive in Nickenbar in particular, and I don't think we're going to see the potential development yields or the opportunities in Nickenbar probably as strongly as we might see in the Dundaran area. Um Dundarin, I think, is a little bit less constrained and probably has a little bit better connectivity. Um, it'll be interesting to see how those things evolve because council are going through that process of structure planning them. I think in a lot of cases the private sector is going to have to drive some of that. Um I don't see a situation where, you know, if if the words that councils sometimes use in terms of uh sequencing and things like that, they're not practical outcomes. They're not real life outcomes on the ground. Um, and like to that extent, I think private sector is going to drive a lot of that stuff and how that land gets developed. And I think we're gonna have to work a lot more closely with council. Uh, thankfully, council are listening to the industry and listening to the experience the industry has. So it'll be interesting to see how those evolve.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Yeah, I I always find it you know hard to head around when counts get locked into sequencing, especially. But when you when you look in the real world, um there's a few things drive things. A, the consumer drives what the developers develop. So, you know, it's not that developers come up with an idea and we'll just do it. It's it's always buyer demand and the market turns with the buyers. So if the buyers don't want smaller houses, the developer's not going to build it. So there is obviously a trend to that because of affordability. Um and sequencing, um, most growth areas are in old farmlands. So sometimes you've got to wait 20, 30, 40 years for the farming family to either sell or die or something before it comes in. So you can't just say, All right, we're gonna build on your land first, then the farmer behind you, the one down there. It just doesn't happen in real, you know, we've still got two and a half thousand blocks locked up in the current planning scheme because farmers are still sitting on there as their home paddocks, and you know, it's their right to stay there as long as they like. But council sort of saying, well, you can't build this one until that one's there because the sewerage is coming through here. So it makes it very difficult for urban growth.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

And there are lots of idealistic arguments about force sequencing in terms of cost to the community, particularly of infrastructure. But if you look at some of the real-world examples, like when Parklands was done, which is on Durlong South Road, um, I was the assessing officer at council in the early 90s. And I remember having the discussions with the director of strategic, and I said, I don't think we can support this. And he said to me, Why? I said, Well, it's sort of kind of stuck in the middle of nowhere, which back then it was. And I said, It's it's isolated and we're gonna have this infrastructure and blah blah blah blah blah. And he sat down with me and he simply drew a circle on the map. And he said, You know that that's actually closer to services than a lot of people who live in Urangan or Point Vernon. Yeah, and and I think we've got to look at it like that from a you know a community perspective and accessibility to services and all those types of things. And I don't think many of these properties are so far out of whack or out of out of alignment with the existing urban area that it's going to create a significant problem. Uh, and I think we've got to just get past that and look at practical solutions also for the servicing and the provision of infrastructure and make sure that that is able to be maintained. At the current growth rates, even if you're if you're locked in uh Dundaron and Nickenbar, those are going to be developed within 20 years.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Yeah. So we're probably going, you know, we're Harvey Bay alone's about 68,000. We're probably going to get up over 100,000 within 20 years. Um, you know, so you know, it's 40,000 people, and we're only 2.1 people per house. So, you know, we probably need a 20,000 housing supply. And what do those two areas constitute in in houses? You know, is it is it 20,000 in those two areas?

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Or I don't think anyone can really answer that until we get to the bottom of uh the constraints analysis that council have done. I mean, we've done sort of preliminary yield estimates based on a really bad world assumption of constraints, particularly for Nickenbar. Um, I don't think the yield's going to be anything like what council might expect.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Um I think it's going to be really, really constrained. And again, it'll be interesting to see how the diversity in housing product moving forward goes in the market.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Yeah. So just talking about those constraints in Nicombar. So the current boundary back of the planning scheme now is Chapel Road. Yes. Um it's proposed to move down to Braille Road, so it goes basically from the Pioba Harvey Bay Road, Braille Road, all the way down to Doolong South area. Um, your constraints you're talking about is a lot of natural creeks and flood paths going through there. So council's current thinking is leave them as wide open drains, you know, some up to 400, 500 metres wide, uh, rather than doing a more conventional type development, which is constraining the drains, piping them and and you know, controlling the flow. Is that is that the biggest concern in the constraints you have out there?

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Uh I I think it is, and and council's constraints mapping is up to land that's subject to Q5 inundation. Um, and I think we have to think more logically than that and more practically than that, and there are design outcomes that can deal with that because those drainage corridors being 500 meters wide create problems, particularly for infrastructure. Like if you want road connectivity, how do you deal with road connectivity across a drainage corridor that's 500 meters wide?

SPEAKER_02 33:31

Yeah, the affordability just goes right out the whack because you've got it just becomes too expensive to develop. You've got to bridge it or culverts or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

And there's a lot of inequities in it too, because you know, farmer A has a land that that's relatively unconstrained, and farmer B has a land that's three-quarters of his lands constrained.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

He's less likely to want to sell Farmer B because he said, Well, I'm not going to get much money for it, so I'll just continue doing what I'm doing. So that'll become a problem in sequencing, infrastructure, costs, you know, all of those things.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

And the thing is, um, you can't dictate who's going to sell. So if somebody buys one of these blocks, it doesn't connect to the other or the roads or the drains, um, it just becomes a problem. You know, this is this is the difference in the Fraser Coast I've seen. We haven't had a really truly master plan estate where somebody's bought, you know, f square kilometres and doing a 40,000 subdivision, 40,000 people subdivision. We're buying piecemeal 200,000, 400 lot subdivisions, and we're trying to match them all together, it doesn't work. You know, maybe a solution is we pick a big chunk of land between Harvey Bay and Merriborough and and get a major master subdivision after this next round of the next 40,000 people. We got it, we've got to plan way further ahead than that.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

At the moment, it's a little bit reactionary. Yeah. And even the inclusion of Dundaron and Nick and Borough is a little bit reactionary because it will fill relatively quickly. Yeah. And then where are we going next? What are we doing next? But I'll I'll be really interested to see how much demand gets taken up in the brownfield stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

So just on the uh Dundarren one, so Powell Burhamheads Road um is the line of the current scheme, so everything on the beach side is where the current scheme is. They're proposing to move that to Lower Mountain Road. It's the other side of Lower Mountain Road. The other side of Lower Mountain Road, so there'll be land subdivision on both sides. And how far out to the west will it go as well?

SPEAKER_00 35:36

It goes out pretty much as far as the the buffer to the the current borough quarry. Um so it goes a fair way taking.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

Pass Hansen Road, past the old road.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Yeah, it takes in um a fair bit of that land. I I think generally speaking it's less constrained than Nickenbar.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

Yeah, like what I'm seeing on the market is there's quite a few estates out there ready to take off. There's got to be major upgrades with you know QAn properties to an 1800 uh lot estate in the current scheme, but they're also bringing things like sewerage in and they're doing a major roundabout out there, and it's probably gonna be road widening on the Pale Borough Meds Road. So it seems to be geared up, ready to take off over the next two or three years out there.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Undoubtedly. I think it will be the next gab off the rank. I think it'll go before Nick and Barr. Yeah. I guess as an industry we've got to get council to understand that. Yeah, that there's so much stuff that's ready there because of the infrastructure that's either constructed or planned or or about to be constructed. Um, and it's almost you could almost describe a lot of Dundaro and a shovel ready.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

All right.

SPEAKER_02 36:39

So where do you you know where do you see the changes in you know Harvey Bay, Fraser Coast over the next decade? You know, how how's our way of life gonna change? What do you see in the housing product as a wrap-up in in general terms will be the will be the change in direction?

SPEAKER_00 36:57

I think we're just gonna see a lot a lot more smaller stuff. I think we're gonna see a higher demand for units, sort of a unit demand maybe that we had in the 90s and the late 80s. Um, I think those sort of things are gonna become more popular because people moving here are going to want the amenity of the beach and things like that. So there's gonna be pressure on all that brownfield stuff. Yeah, um, I think we will see a lot more units. We're certainly getting a lot more inquiry for units. Um, I think the housing product, I think we're gonna see estates, albeit as you described, they're they're really quite small comparative to other places. But we're gonna see housing estates that are gonna offer a whole lot more diversity in their product, and I think that's gonna be accepted to a great degree by a lot of the market, people looking for different things. Um and hopefully, we're not gonna see, you know, expansive stuff uh that just becomes harder and harder to service. Um and that's where that housing diversity comes in, all those smaller lots. There's still going to be a demand for people who want the big shed and they want, you know, the big block of land, and we can cater for that. Um, I think housing sprawl or urban sprawl is one of the greatest challenges that we face in the 2000s. Um you look at models like, and it's not really a model like Perth, Perth has an urban sprawl, the largest in the world. It's 140 kilometers, it's actually bigger than Tokyo City in terms of its urban sprawl. Now that has created massive problems for, and it's made uh communities car-centric, it's created massive problems for the expansion of public infrastructure such as public transport and water and sewer service and all those sort of things. So we want to learn lessons from that, yeah. Um, and we don't want to create a Fraser Coast that's like that. Uh, and I think you know that that'll be our big challenge about trying to maintain, keep up with the demand, but also not go too far. All right.

SPEAKER_02 39:01

So we might finish off with a little controversial one at the end. Um we've been here a long time, so pre-GFC 2008, uh, the Oaks, Tingera, Allegra, Eden on the Bay, all these six-story plus um apartments were getting built. We had a big, you know, mid-2000 boom on six-story apartments along the Esplanade. I haven't seen a six-story apartment getting built on this esplanade since 2008. Um where do you see that trend coming back into the market? You know, I know there's a few applications out there. I think construction costs have been pulling it back, but do you see that trend coming back in? Is there a change in the scheme that actually will help a bit more density on the Esplanade?

SPEAKER_00 39:51

We don't have any choice but to use a vertical component to actually generate some density and to use the infrastructure. It's interesting that a lot of people seem to think whenever they see a big development on the esplanade, they say, oh, our sewer doesn't work or our water doesn't work. It does. It has the capacity. Uh we need to better utilize that capacity. We better need to better utilize the resource. There was a study done in the South East by a number of councils about the viability of multi-story developments, and they found that anything between four and eight wasn't viable. And and from my memory, I can't remember any one of those six-story developments where the developer didn't go broke. No, they just about all did. Yeah, so they weren't uh necessarily uh an effective thing to build from a cost perspective. Um, I have no issue with buildings going up with height. Um, you know, people get a little bit bent out of shape about it. There's a lot of fight the height signs which you see around in various places in town. But the reality is there's no great issue with height. Um, you know, we need to create those densities, we need to create those opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

And if we want a younger generation here, they want to live on the Esperado close to it, they want to have restaurants, bars, um, walking space around them, everything like that. And and a little bit more density actually creates it.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Yeah, I know there's been a lot of uh commentary around the built form and the natural form of Harvey Bay. And I remember it's 25 years ago when I was doing a six-story application, and we had a relatively new strategic planner, and they were talking about exactly that thing about what the bay looks like from the water, etc. etc. I said, Well, have you ever been out there? And they said, No. I said, Well, come on, I took them out in my boat, and they went, Oh, okay. You can actually see the the Stockland sign from the water. Yeah, probably bunnings now, too. And bunnings and things like that. So we don't have this beautifully naturally vegetated form as a backdrop.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

Yeah, I remember we used to be more worried about what the dolphins saw out in the water than what we actually saw on the land. So yeah, it was uh there was some crazy arguments going around.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

As a long-term resident and someone who grew up on the Esplanade, I have no issue whatsoever with building height because those new buildings are actually pretty well designed. You know, they cater for landscape, they cater for suitable uh built form design outcomes, they cater for lighting, they cater for all of those things. Yeah. Um they're probably more regulated than most other things. A lot more regulated than houses.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

Yep. All right. Well, on that note, we might wrap it up and I want to thank Ward from Urban Planet. So if you do have actual housing or products, you know, in the established area, it may be a good time to actually talk to Ward, talk about a new scheme, and see what you can do with your block. You might be able to put a second house, a couple of units or something onto it. So um thank you again, Ward, for coming along. And uh please uh like our podcast and follow us, and uh, we've got more interesting topics coming on. Thanks. Thank you.