Where Gympie Southside subdivisions, housing estates are planned | Map

The future of the city’s major growth corridor is now, with dozens of projects planning to open up hundreds of new homes and other major developments across the Southside and beyond.

Southside development is surging with developers planning a range of new projects and hoping to open up almost 1000 new residential blocks.

For years the Southside has been touted as Gympie’s future growth corridor, and now it seems the future has arrived.

From hundreds of proposed new housing lots to shops, health clinics, and even a childcare centre and retirement home, there has been an influx of development plans which promise to reshape the Southside.

The suburb’s growth is no longer a dream, either.

Census figures show between 2011 and 2016 the suburb’s population grew four per cent from 5509 to 5735.

This was compared to the five years following, with the Southside’s population increasing another 10 per cent to 6312.

In that same time the median age of residents rose from 43 to 46.

The need to cater for this rising growth was laid bare in an economic and retail report commissioned by Gympie Regional Council in 2022.

It said a new, full range supermarket chain was needed to be running at the Southside in 2031 to keep pace with the influx of new residents.

The proposed “most logical” location listed in the report would be between Australia Dr and Lindsay St, which do not yet join.

It would add to what is already expected to be a series of major developments at the Southside, with plans to build a new 190-bed retirement home, and a new 110-spot childcare centre in the works too.

Homes are also on the radar.

If approved in full, the Bellagrove Estate proposed to be built between Groundwater and Lawsons roads would open up more than 300 new residential blocks.

Gympie Regional Council’s online planning tracker shows from July 2021 to July 2023, there have been more than two dozen applications lodged which would allow for the creation of 962 lots across the Southside and Jones Hill.

Another eight dual occupancies are proposed to be dotted across the suburb, offering a boost to a housing density rate below the state’s average.

A key meeting in October 2022 led the state government to announce “gentle density”, including duplexes, triplexes and townhouses, to help resolve an ongoing housing crisis across the region.

The largest proposal has been the 436-lot Kingsview estate proposed on either side of Glastonbury Rd, at the Southside’s western edge.

The proposed new childcare centre at Sorensen Rd would offer 110 spaces, if approved.

Lot sizes here would range from 1001sq m at their largest, to 400sq m at their smallest and includes 39 townhouses and 29 duplexes.

This application was lodged in May and has only started working its way through the council’s planning process for approval.

Another large-scale estate is proposed to the Southside’s south.

The proposed Bellagrove Estate would occupy 42ha of land between Groundwater and Lawsons road, and when finished be large enough for more than 800 residents to call home.

Only the first stage of the estate has been lodged with the council, with this section including a proposed medical centre and pharmacy, veterinarian, offices, a gym, a childcare centre and shops including a cafe or restaurant.

About two kilometres northeast is the proposed location for 72 new lots which Rojan Property Development wants to open up between Sorensen Rd, Watson Rd, Australia Dr and Koumala Rd.

This would put the development about 500m east of the suggested home of the new, second supermarket.