Does Queensland Government planning suck?

Yesterday on ABC radio there was an interview with a town planner. He was talking about the Draft South East Queensland plan.

Sounds like they want an Urban & empty green space plan. All high and medium density urban or empty green (forest and farmland) space for urbanites to look at on their Sunday arvo drive in the country.

He seemed to think it was a good idea. As someone who would raised on the land and is not a farmer, but wants some room this move sucks.

New development is all small blocks or high raise (urban consolidation etc). Access to larger block (say an ½ hectare to 100 hectares) seems a thing of the past, specifically locking out sea and tree changers. The country looks to be becoming a patch of larger commercial (family & company) farms and small blocks that can't support a family full time. These smaller blocks are effectively frozen, too big to be subdivided unlocking value for the seller, too big for new smallholder to acquire for niche operations.

It leaves the small towns in a limbo of slow death. As the broadacre operations consolidate, towns and districts loose their population base. This lead to the lose of services (teachers, nurses etc to begin with, then schools, hospitals, banks, post offices etc), the start of a downward spiral if left unchecked. The only way to stop this decline is to allow population increase and that is locked out by these new planning trends. People who want to live in country towns don't move there to live like sardines. They want bigger blocks, either serviced town blocks or unserviced smallholding.


Gnoll110