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Brisbane supports better planning for good growth

  • December 06, 2018

Brisbane supports better planning for good growth

A clear majority of Brisbanites believe that a failure to plan properly is causing problems faced by our growing city and that population growth can be good, as long as it is planned properly. 

71% of people who live in Brisbane believe population growth can be good, as long as its managed properly. 79% of Brisbane residents also believe that the problems faced by growing cities often come down to governments failing to plan properly.

These are among the key findings from a national survey commissioned by the Property Council of Australia on attitudes towards population growth in our major cities. They are being released ahead of next week’s COAG meeting in Adelaide where the Commonwealth, state and territory governments will discuss a new framework for better managing the impact of population growth. 

Property Council Queensland Executive Director, Chris Mountford, said the survey results showed that while there were some growing pains in our major cities, the community strongly favoured better planning to manage our growth in the future. 

“Australians generally like the cities where they live, but clearly reckon we could be doing a lot better on planning and infrastructure to manage their growth,” Mr Mountford said.

“We haven’t done a very good job in the past of planning for growth and our cities are feeling the pressure now which is giving rise to concern about the rate of growth.

“This survey shows Queenslanders are not against growth, but they want it better planned and managed.

90% of Brisbane respondents rated their city as a good place to live, with a quarter describing it was as ‘excellent’.

“Concern about growth is real, and we should dig a little deeper to think about its root cause and take steps to address it,” Mr Mountford said.

“In a SEQ context, the link between land use planning and infrastructure delivery is not only weak, it’s incredibly fractured and poorly communicated to the community.”

“With the population of SEQ expected to boom by a further 1.8 million over the next 25 years, we must take steps now to build public confidence in the management of future growth.”

Feeling the growing pains

Concerns about growth are greatest in our east coast capitals. 

72% of respondents from Melbourne and 70% in Sydney thought their city was growing too fast. 60% of Brisbane respondents thought their city’s population was growing too fast.

By contrast, only 36% of respondents from Adelaide thought their city was growing too fast, compared to 44% in Canberra, 46% in Hobart and 46% in Perth. 

Only 27% of those surveyed across Australia thought their city had handed population changes in recent years well. 

79% of Brisbane respondents agreed with the proposition that problems faced by growing cities often come down to governments that have failed to plan properly. 65% agreed that politicians are guilty of blaming migration for their own lack of planning that has caused congestion in our cities.

Nationally, almost all respondents (96%) thought the federal, state and territory governments had a very important or fairly important role in making their city a better place to live, followed by local government (94%), development and construction companies (92%), local businesses (92%) and community groups (88%).

The research report can be accessed here.

The online survey of 2,936 respondents was conducted between 13-23 November and included respondents in all state and territory capitals except for Darwin.