Kurilpa Riverfront Renewal: Push to have board of directors guide project

THE success of South Bank – the redevelopment of which was guided by a board – could be a model for the Kurilpa renewal project but Brisbane City Council says it doesn’t want another ‘stand alone’ precinct.

Kurilpa is now considered prime real estate for developers eager to capitalise on prized brownfield sites. Picture: Supplied

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ACROSS the river from Brisbane’s bustling CBD a battle is taking shape over the future development of an area that has been dominated by industry for decades.

A place that got its name from the indigenous word for water rat, Kurilpa is now considered prime real estate for developers eager to capitalise on prized brownfield sites. But there is a significant push back from vocal groups who want to rein in building heights and expand public green spaces.

Opposition has been so intense the State Government ordered Brisbane City Council back to the drawing board in March last year to overhaul a masterplan for the area. Building heights, which went as tall as 40 storeys high in the urban core, were a key concern.

Phil Heywood

Kurilpa Futures Group leader Phil Heywood was among those leading the revolt.

The QUT planning adjunct professor wants height limits to be restricted to medium-rise buildings up to eight storeys for the inner-city suburb.

“We do not want to see a highrise ghetto of 11,000 residences, with another 8000 office spaces, which is what’s proposed,” Heywood says. “But instead we want a low-to-medium rise development that has a cultural emphasis.”

Heywood points to the success of South Bank as a model that could be applied to guide the Kurilpa development. In that case a board of directors was appointed under former Labor premier Wayne Goss’s South Bank Corporation Act 1989. With input from a range of stakeholders, the board guided the redevelopment from a former industrial area into a vibrant commercial hub that still retained striking parkland areas for public use.

“It’s not a radical proposal,” Heywood says. “It’s one that’s normally adopted in redevelopment areas.”

Many of Heywood’s concerns are in lock-step with local Greens councillor Jonathan Sri – except for one key difference: Sri believes planning powers should primarily lay with local residents rather than an overarching board.

One of Sri’s key concerns for Kurilpa, apart from the lack of affordable or public housing, is the amount of green space proposed along the river’s edge. He believes it should be extended to create a one or two block buffer zone.

“The buffer zone that council proposed was far too narrow,” Sri says. “It would have basically meant we were handing over prime riverfront land to private developers when we should be giving it to the whole community. The riverside shouldn’t just be for rich people.”

Brisbane City Council agrees this is an important redevelopment. But planning boss Julian Simmonds says he’s still waiting for guidance from the State Government after the council was told to revisit the masterplan last year.

“How often do you get a large precinct on the river in the inner city?” Simmonds says. “It’s one of the last remaining sites of its kind, so it has to be planned very well for the benefit of the city and for residents.”

Simmonds agrees the development should flow on from the South Bank area but believes the council is best to take the lead on guiding the plan rather than a board.

“What we want is an urban renewal project that integrates with the rest of the city,” he says. “We don’t want it to stand alone – and that’s always been the trouble with South Bank, with its own development rules, is that, to a certain extent, it does stand alone.”

Deputy Premier Jackie Trad says she is prepared to work with the council on the project but warns more community consultation needs to take place.

“The community must be consulted thoroughly and any way forward should be based on a far more inclusive and transparent approach to the planning process than has taken place previously,” she says.

However, she believes there is still time to get it right while industry remains in the area.

The continued presence of industry is a key issue. While businesses such as the Parmalat milk factory have indicated a willingness to move, relocation is more complicated for others.

Brisbane Development Association president Ben Lyons says “industrial use is simply not the best use of that land anymore”. Picture: Adam Armstrong

The O-I Glass Factory, now owned by a Fortune 500 company, has been operating from its Montague Rd site since 1918 where it produces up 2.2 million glass products for food and beverage brands, including Milton’s famed XXXX brewery.

Because of the nature of the work, much of the machinery is built into the site, meaning relocation would be expensive.

O-I general manager Jonathan Marshall says there are no plans to move.

“The Brisbane operations directly employs over 200 employees and generates a significant number of indirect, third-party employment,” Marshall says.

“The State Government and Brisbane City Council recognise the employment implications and the economic benefit of O-I’s operations.”

Brisbane Development Association president Ben Lyons recognises the significant cost of businesses relocating but says “industrial use is simply not the best use of that land anymore”.

“We’ve seen many other stretches of industrial areas renewed in the inner-city suburbs like Teneriffe and Newstead,” Lyons says.

“This really is the last piece of the puzzle, so it is important we get it right.

“The city has grown up and around the precinct while it’s been somewhat forgotten. But as a city with aspirations to become a new world city, it is a bit embarrassing to have uses of that nature in that location.”

Above all, Lyons points out the area is a “perfect exemplar for what the State Government’s South East Queensland Regional Plan is trying to achieve” through greater inner-city density.

“We want density in the right locations and this is a fantastic opportunity to create a new living precinct in Brisbane,” Lyons says.

“I think it would be difficult to find a town planner who would say it’s not a convenient location to make efficient use of infrastructure and land where people could walk to work in the CBD or not have to rely on their motor vehicle.”

Email Tom Snowdon