Lord Mayor’s Annual Address
Over 330 guests attended the Property Council’s annual Lord Mayor’s Address to hear from recently re-elected Graham Quirk on his priorities for his next four years in City Hall.
The Lord Mayor outlined the Brisbane Metro project as the centrepiece of his agenda for the next four years. With ten times the hourly capacity of the Gold Coast light rail, the Brisbane Metro project is being promoted by the Lord Mayor as the solution to growing capacity problems on the city’s transport network.
Brisbane City Council will be preparing a business case for the metro project, and will be seeking Federal and State funding. However, the Lord Mayor made it clear that Brisbane City Council will be the major project funder.
The first five years of Graham Quirk’s Lord Mayoralty saw incentives established for the development of hotels and student accommodation, with the incentives for student accommodation delivering an additional 10,000 new bed opportunities within Brisbane. The Lord Mayor outlined his intention to explore similar strategies in the coming months to encourage aged care and retirement living projects.
Newly appointed Chairman of the City Planning Committee, Cr Julian Simmonds, joined the Lord Mayor on stage for a panel discussion on how the administration’s priorities will impact on Brisbane’s largest industry – property.
Innovative infrastructure funding and delivery models were welcomed by the Lord Mayor and Cr Simmonds, however, both warned of the danger of poorly designed value capture mechanisms. The Lord Mayor outlined that infrastructure brings its own wealth creation, and consequent revenue for Government, and this should be considered in developing funding models.
The UK style City Deals approach to funding was highlighted by the Lord Mayor as an opportunity for projects to transcend changes in government. The Lord Mayor welcomed the potential opportunity to trial the concept in South East Queensland.
By next year’s annual address the Lord Mayor hopes to be well advanced in the Kingsford Smith Drive project, have a business case prepared for the Brisbane Metro project and have begun resumptions for the Wynnum Road upgrade project.
The Property Council would like to thank the Lord Mayor, Graham Quirk, and Cr Simmonds for sharing their insights. This event would not have been possible without the generous support of Major Sponsor, Brookfield Multiplex, and supporting sponsor – Ray White.
Photos from the event can be viewed here.
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