Singles and couples without kids are Brisbane’s booming households

Brisbane needs to find new homes for 14,000 new residents each year, stretching its population from 1.26 million to 1.5 million by 2041, a Brisbane City Council housing strategy shows.

Overall more than 115,000 homes, units or apartments need to be built – the majority of Queensland’s 50,000 new rentals have to be in Brisbane.

Under the Go Between Bridge, Brisbane’s homeless say the addition of 10,000 new residents in South Brisbane means they will be forgotten and ‘muscled out’ of the inner city.Credit: Tony Moore

Meanwhile, a small group – between 20 and 30 – of Brisbane’s 9700 homeless live under the Go Between Bridge on Brisbane’s Kurilpa Peninsula.

At South Brisbane, they wake every morning to joggers and cyclists, casually waving to council workers and police doing welfare checks using the bridge overhead to protect them from the rain.

Lord mayor Adrian Schrinner wants to dust off previous mayor Graham Quirk’s 2014 Kurilpa Master Plan, increasing living density, allowing an extra 10 storeys for apartments and an extra 10,000 people. That is not their Brisbane.

It is part of Brisbane City Council’s general Sustainable Growth Strategy, released on Thursday. It is badged “Our City’s Housing and Homelessness Strategy”.

“It will just become one more place where we aren’t safe to stay any more,” one homeless man says, while others nod. “They’re just going to muscle us out, basically.”

“I’ve given up crime. I don’t do crime anymore. We are homeless, not dangerous. We just struggle to find somewhere to live,” they collectively say.

They say many existing hostels and boarding houses are not safe for them – naming and identifying problems – and say newer, safer places are needed.

The council’s new strategy says its main influence on homelessness is “the management of public space”, but the only new initiative is again advocating for the federal government’s new Pinkenba quarantine centre to be used temporarily for emergency housing. 

It identifies “singles” and “couples with no children” as the fastest-growing household type needing new homes – either units, apartments, townhouses or detached houses.

This group also makes up more than half of all households despite less than one-third of housing choices being one- and two-bedrooms.

Since 2019, council Opposition Leader Jared Cassidy has asked for a more complete housing supply strategy from Schrinner.

What Brisbane’s 29-page Sustainable Growth Strategy says:

1. Brisbane’s last residential greenfield land is at Pallara, Rochedale and Bridgeman Downs.
2. It will concentrate on converting disused commercial and industrial land.
3. It has identified 70 hectares of land at Bonemill Road at Runcorn and Gympie Road at Kedron.
4. 51.5% of Brisbane households are either (singles 25.5%) or couples without children (26%)
5. More homes are needed for these “households”.
6. 63% of residents live in a house,  11% in a semi-detached house and 26% in a flat or apartment.
7. Dwellings needed near Indooropilly, Carindale, Chermside, Garden City, Toombul and Toowong. 

He said the morning announcement by lord mayor Schrinner is “part of a solution” but also part of hurriedly put together plan to satisfy the Queensland Government.

Cassidy says several “piecemeal” attempts at a Brisbane housing policy – Airbnb changes, identifying in July 2022 a suburban renewal program and now proposals for South Brisbane should be combined.

“But this should form part of a broader housing strategy for Brisbane, which looks not only at how you do density better, but also how you do low-density development out in the suburbs, better.”

Deputy premier Steven Miles welcomed the council’s announcement.

“These changes, along with our announcement to expand the Woolloongabba priority development area ahead of the 2032 Games, will revitalise the south corner of the city,” Miles said.

The Property Council has also welcomed Brisbane City Council’s support for purpose-built rental accommodation (Build-to-Rent), announced today through the release of its Sustainable Growth Strategy.

Executive director Jen Williams said Queensland’s housing crisis has led to a shortfall of all housing types, including the need for more than 50,000 rental dwellings across the state.

“Despite the focus of both the public and private sectors, supply has not improved over the past few months. Affordability and availability of housing remain a major issue for all Queenslanders.”

“Council’s Strategy contains welcome acknowledgement of the role the Build-to-Rent sector can play in addressing this crisis, and through new incentives, provides an important signal to industry it is keen to facilitate more of this type of development.”