Gympie region will need 7100 extra houses by 2046

The Gympie region’s next Town Plan could look very different, with the rising number of smaller and ageing households needing more duplexes, units and townhouses, and the council cautioned against increasing its supply of rural residential land. Vote in the poll on this issue:

A lack of choices, and the wasting of high density zoned land have been revealed as key problems Gympie needs to face as its population continues to climb in the coming years and the need for homes rises with it.

More than 7000 new homes will be needed across the Gympie region to keep pace with a rising population which is expected to near 70,000 people in the next two decades.

The scope of the region’s expected growth has been laid bare in a new report released by the Gympie Regional Council, which also reveals historic problems in how the region has developed housing, and the need to fix them.

The report forms part of the council’s work towards creating its new planning scheme, expected to be in place in 2024.

It says the region is expected to have a population of 69,968 by 2046, thanks to an annual growth rate which the council expects to remain at least 1 per cent over that time.

Planning for this development required fixing some of the problems which had festered under the current scheme, though.

Gympie Regional Council’s new Residential Land and HousingPolicy Position Paper, published as part of its work towards creating a new town planning scheme, says the region will need more than 7100 new houses built by 2046 to cater for population growth.

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One of these was the lack of housing diversity, with the region’s preference for detached homes coming at the cost of choice, with the “majority” of homes in the region being detached and standing on large lots.

This was reflected in the historic use of land zoned for high density housing development instead being used for low density projects.

The report says this is a “key present-day challenge” with the types of housing available staying “largely unchanged and unresponsive to a growing proportion of ageing and smaller households”.

Moving forward the council needed to “protect” land earmarked for medium density housing from being used for low density projects.

The report says the “majority” of homes in the region are detached on larger lots, which has deprived buyers of choice in the market. The continued growth of ageing and smaller households would require higher density developments like duplexes and townhouses.

Increased housing density through the construction of units and townhouses was necessary to address housing needs in the region, the report says.

While this was also the path laid out in the state and council-derived Local Housing Action Plan created in response to the housing crisis, it butted against another problem: financially, multi-unit developments were largely unfeasible in the region.

It was a problem not expected to change in the next 10 years either.

Road, waste, water, and sewerage services were another problem.

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The council needed to expand these to cater to population influx, but only 12 per cent of the more than 5300ha of land designated for housing was within the area identified by the council as a priority for its infrastructure growth.

The ongoing popularity of rural residential housing came with an abundance of issues too.

These include driving growth in areas where services were hard to provide, exposing residents to higher bushfire and flood-isolation risks, and impacting the environment through increased land clearing, car travel, and on-site sewage disposal.

The new Wide Bay Burnett regional plan, which is a state government-level development, also “cautions against” increasing rural residential supply in the region.