More Than a Planning Scheme: What Should Moreton Bay’s Next Planning Framework Deliver?

Moreton Bay’s next planning scheme will be one of the most significant growth management projects in South East Queensland.

Under ShapingSEQ 2023, the city is expected to reach approximately 800,000 residents by 2046, with around 125,800 additional homes required to accommodate that growth.

The question is not whether Moreton Bay will grow. It is whether its next planning scheme will provide the certainty, flexibility and strategic direction needed to deliver that growth well.

Importantly, this will be the first planning scheme prepared for the City of Moreton Bay as the mature, unified city it has become since the 2008 amalgamation of Pine Rivers, Caboolture and Redcliffe.

That makes this about much more than preparing another statutory document. It is an opportunity to establish a framework for how Moreton Bay grows, where housing is delivered, how infrastructure keeps pace, where jobs are created, how environmental values are protected and, ultimately, what kind of city Moreton Bay becomes.

From an industry perspective, the measure of success is relatively straightforward: can the scheme provide certainty for investment and development while delivering the outcomes the community expects?

We see five priorities.

1. Housing: Capacity on Paper Isn't Enough.

The housing conversation is often reduced to a simple debate about supply, supply, supply.

The reality is more nuanced.

Accommodating approximately 125,800 additional homes by 2046 will require significant growth. But providing for that growth in a planning scheme does not necessarily mean those homes will be built.

The real test is whether there is enough feasible, serviced and well-located capacity to enable housing to actually be delivered.

We think that means creating more accepted and code assessable pathways for residential development, expanding successful low-medium (Next Generation) density housing models and identifying the next tranche of Emerging Community Zone areas.

There is also an opportunity to review Suburban Neighbourhood and large-lot residential areas where additional housing choice can be supported, and consider ways to incentivize affordable and adaptable housing or superior urban design outcomes through yield bonuses.

And the scheme needs to recognise that the housing market itself is changing. Contemporary provisions for co-living, build-to-rent and other emerging housing models should form part of the conversation, alongside opportunities to reduce car parking requirements  in appropriate locations.

Success should be measured not by theoretical capacity, but by the delivery of diverse, well-located and genuinely deliverable housing outcomes.

2. Infrastructure: Growth Needs A Pathway To Delivery.

As Moreton Bay continues to mature, infrastructure planning will become increasingly important.

Opening land for growth is only part of the equation. Growth areas are unlikely to succeed if infrastructure obligations are disproportionate, poorly timed or disconnected from development feasibility.

For us, one of the most important steps would be preparing the new planning scheme and new Local Government Infrastructure Plan together.

Future urban zoning should also reflect realistic infrastructure delivery assumptions, supported by appropriate staging for major growth areas and Desired Standards of Service that remain proportionate to contemporary growth and delivery costs.

Where traditional servicing models constrain otherwise appropriate development, there should also be room to explore alternative infrastructure funding and delivery arrangements and greater precinct-based planning.

The principle is simple: growth should occur where there is a credible pathway to infrastructure delivery.

3. Employment: Protecting Land Isn't The Same As Creating Jobs.

Moreton Bay has long focused on improving jobs self-containment and reducing reliance on residents commuting outside the region for work.

The next planning scheme provides an opportunity to reinforce that objective.

Strategically important industrial and logistics land needs to be protected from incompatible uses. But employment policy also needs to recognise that different areas have different roles.

Some employment land must be protected. Some should intensify. New employment land should be identified. And some may be capable of transitioning to a broader mix of urban uses as the city evolves.

The Centres Network Hierarchy and Neighbourhood Hub Overlay should also be reviewed in the context of Moreton Bay’s future growth, while low-risk commercial and industrial development should have streamlined approval pathways where impacts are well understood and appropriately managed.

There is also scope to consider targeted investment precincts around major transport infrastructure and employment nodes, incentives for employment-generating uses and greater opportunities for tourism, eco-tourism and visitor accommodation.

Employment land must not simply be protected on paper; it must be capable of attracting investment and supporting job creation.

4. Environment And Natural Hazards: Distinguish Between Avoidance And Management.

Environmental protection remains a non-negotiable component of modern planning.

But good planning also requires us to distinguish between areas where development should be avoided and areas where environmental or natural hazard risks can be appropriately managed through planning and design.

For flooding, that means maintaining strong avoidance-based policy in high and extreme-risk areas while allowing greater flexibility in low and medium-risk areas where risk can be appropriately addressed.

For biodiversity, we believe the emphasis should increasingly be on protecting strategic ecological corridors and meaningful habitat connections rather than fragmented controls that protect isolated vegetation without necessarily delivering broader ecological outcomes.

There is an opportunity to consolidate environmental overlays, provide clearer spatial identification of significant vegetation and make environmental offset requirements easier to understand earlier in the development process.

More detailed measures, including the treatment of habitat trees, rehabilitation of degraded environmental land and the role of environmental offsets, can then sit within a clearer strategic framework.

Environmental protection and growth should not be treated as competing objectives. They should be integrated through evidence-based, risk-informed planning.

5. Scheme Usability: Simpler Is Better.

As daily users of multiple planning schemes, one thing is clear: a simple scheme is a better scheme.

In fact, simplicity may be one of the most important reform opportunities of all.

A planning scheme can have the right strategic intent and still create unnecessary uncertainty if its pathways, codes and mapping are difficult to navigate.

Moreton Bay has an opportunity to build its next scheme for the way people actually use planning systems today.

That means a fully integrated digital e-Scheme and mapping system, concise and outcome-focused codes, consistent drafting across the scheme and less duplication between zones, overlays, local plans and use-specific codes.

We would go further and challenge whether individual codes really need more than 10 overall outcomes and 10 assessment benchmarks.

The Development Assessment team should also be closely involved in drafting and implementation. They will ultimately work with the scheme every day and understand where complexity can create unintended consequences.

Simple supporting tools could make a significant difference too, including a city-wide matrix showing accepted, code and impact assessment pathways and a publicly accessible flood planning portal where property-specific Flood Planning Levels can be readily identified.

The best planning schemes are not necessarily the longest or most detailed.

They are the ones people can understand and use.

More Than A Planning Scheme.

Moreton Bay has an opportunity to create a planning framework that responds not only to where the city is today, but to the scale and complexity of the city it is becoming.

That requires choices.

Where should growth occur? What housing should be enabled? Where should infrastructure investment be prioritised? Which employment areas need to be protected or intensified? Where should environmental constraints prevent development, and where can risk be appropriately managed?

The next planning scheme should be clear enough for residents to understand, certain enough for industry to invest, flexible enough to support innovation and disciplined enough to protect the places and values that matter.

If it can align housing, infrastructure, employment, environment and local identity within a simple and more usable framework, it will do more than regulate development.

It will help shape a more liveable, investment-ready and resilient city that can confidently accommodate future growth.