Plans for rural Southern Thornlands to be enterprise frontier

Redland City Council will prioritise economic development and employment in the Southern Thornlands Potential Future Growth Area (STPFGA) following public consultation showing the community supported the proposed plans for the area.

Redland City Mayor Karen Williams said Council today supported the community’s feedback on the plan and would now begin making the necessary changes to the city plan to create employment and innovation, while retaining significant areas of rural residential living.

“Council has always believed this area should be used for employment rather than merely being used as another residential area and our proposal supports this commitment,” Cr Williams said.

“Our plan for the area includes mixed industry and business, education, training and recreation, a transport precinct, storage and larger home-based industry enterprise activities.

“As part of our plans, land not used for economic uses should only be used for larger rural living blocks, reducing pressure on transport while protecting the area’s relaxed rural lifestyle.”

“Public consultation shows the community supports this plan with 80 per cent of the online respondents supporting Council’s proposal, providing a strong basis for proceeding with a major amendment to the City Plan.

“Council has consistently focussed on job creation as part of a prioritisation on economic development for this strategically important part of southern Thornlands; which is why we opened up this consultation to the entire city.

At today’s general meeting, Council resolved to commence preparation of a major amendment to the City Plan to reflect the preferred future land use intents for the STPFGA; and report back to the State Planning Minister outlining the public consultation outcomes, the proposed amendment and noting that urban residential land uses are inconsistent with Council’s preferred future land use intents for the area.

Cr Williams said it was great to see community support for the proposals for STPFGA.

“It has been a topic of discussion for nearly two decades with the State Government at one stage including part of the area in the urban footprint, meaning it could have ended up with it being subdivided for smaller lot residential development,” Cr Williams said.

“Fortunately that was later reversed and it was nominated as a Potential Future Growth Area which allowed Council to investigate its preferred future usages.”

For more information about STPFGA, including findings from the public consultation report and an economic feasibility assessment report, visit the project’s page on Council’s Your Say site.