In this article, I outline some of the key principles and actions that have been raised by our Lord Mayor Graham Quirk in his press release on Friday 8 th June 2018 in relation to Brisbane’s Future Blueprint, or how our development codes will change to accommodate the needs and the requests of residents here in Brisbane.
Many of the principles and actions defined by Brisbane’s Future Blueprint will have an impact on small-scale development in Brisbane. At this time, a lot of the details are not known. So, what I’m going to do is outline for you what we do know and then highlight the areas that we’re waiting to receive further information on.
The first is actually a positive in that one of the principles is that Council is hoping to achieve more green space. For small developments, they’re hoping to encourage more rooftop garden and terrace areas. The benefit of this is that Council are not going to count those areas as a storey when defining the maximum height for a proposed development. So that’s the positive impact that these changes will have for small scale development in Brisbane.
On a more negative note, there’s a few restrictions that Council will be enforcing which will inhibit the allowable development on certain sites. I’ll run through some of those now.
The first is that Council are going to stop townhouse and unit development on inappropriately zoned land. They’ve referenced “appropriately” zoned land as being medium-density land. We are not yet sure what impact will be had on low- to medium-density residential land zoning. So at this stage we’re watching very closely for the next updates to determine what effect this will happen on low- to medium-density (LMR) land.
The second is that emerging community zones may be reassessed and Council may be looking to rezone those as residential A to prevent mass townhouse developments from being accommodated on that emerging community land. Council will also look to preserve and maintain minimum setbacks from neighbours and boundaries, and this is going to be enforced in their development codes.
Additionally, we’re going to be seeing an increase in the requirement for deep planting on the site. Currently that’s 10%. That’s going to increase to at least 15%. Obviously this is going to impact on the development footprint, which ultimately will have effect on the yield.
Another significant area raised within Brisbane’s Future Blueprint that will impact on the development footprint is the requirement to increase the number of car spaces for a development. At this stage, the detail is unknown but we know that we’re increasing the car parking requirements we’re also reducing the potential yield for a site. So we’ll also be watching this area carefully to determine what effect this will have on the development yield for some of those low- and medium-density zoned sites.
That’s the update at this stage. As soon as more information about Brisbane’s Future Blueprint becomes available I’ll happily provide another update. I am consulting with town planners to get the most recent information to keep investors and developers informed of what’s actually happening so that we make sure that we can continue monitor the market for opportunities for our buyers in developing areas of Brisbane.
Melinda Jennison – 0413 907 573