Logan City Council has set aside $9 million for a five-year project to completely overhaul the booming South East Queensland region’s planning scheme.
The ambitious project was endorsed at last week’s council meeting in a bid to set the city up for a decade of rapid population growth and high demand for infrastructure and services.
The city currently has a population of about 335,000 and expects to house more than 500,000 people by 2041.
This year, Logan expects to welcome 10,000 new residents from across Queensland and interstate.
Like Moreton Bay, which is situated on the north side of Brisbane between the capital city and the Sunshine Coast, Logan has become a commuter hub for people working north or south of their homes.
“We’re in the middle of everything. We’ve got Brisbane, Redlands, Gold Coast, Scenic Rim, Ipswich all wrapped around us,” Logan Deputy Mayor and city planning chair Jon Raven said.
Cr Raven said Logan was “the only city in south-east Queensland” meeting its population density targets set by the state government, meaning the council could now take stock of what lies ahead.
The Logan Plan 2025 will tackle urban growth in established and emerging suburbs, and manage issues such as environmental values, flood risk, and encouraging quality buildings to ensure the city’s growth is managed carefully.
Sandwiched between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, Logan has seen rapid development and is home to several key road and rail corridors carrying freight through the region.
Cr Raven said Logan’s new council particularly wanted to see more industry operating from the area rather than simply transiting through it.
Logan’s current planning scheme, endorsed in 2015, was an amalgamation of three separate planning schemes left over from council amalgamations in 2008.
The result, Cr Raven said, was legislation that needed 30 amendments to avoid or solve and unintended conflicts, such as a crematorium being constructed within an industrial zone – which was approved right next to a retirement village within a residential zone.
Cr Raven said the council would spend more than a year in community consultation on the proposed planning scheme to ensure residents had full input into how they wanted Logan to look in the coming years.
He said the pandemic had triggered a renewed interest from residents about planning issues and the council had seen a spike in queries and development applications during last year.
“They’re very interested probably because they’ve got more time to look into things,” Cr Raven said.
With a relatively new council, elected in 2020 after the majority of the former council was sacked in 2019, Cr Raven said councillors were already familiar with many local planning issues and keen to hear from residents.
Initial community consultation will begin next year.