Dark kitchen crackdown as Logan to amend planning laws

A southside council, which has experienced the state’s largest population boom, plans to crack down on “dark kitchens” in city centres.

Kitchens inside shipping containers have started operating in industrial estates across the southeast.

A southside council, which has experienced the state’s largest population boom, plans to crack down on “dark kitchens” or food businesses operating out of windowless shipping containers in major city centres.

Logan City Council said the dark kitchens, which are not illegal, had sprung up across the southeast during Covid as demand for online ordering platforms such as Uber Eats soared in line with a population boom.

Logan City Council is struggling with its population boom and will change its planning laws to cope. One of the changes will be to dark kitchens which started popping up during Covid.

Known as “dark kitchens” because of the lack of windows, the practice of cooking food in containers purely for delivery services and not as restaurants has taken hold in industrial estates including Slacks Creek and Crestmead.

Documents presented to the council on Tuesday recommending a planning overhaul, said in order to discourage dark kitchens the council would require businesses to sell cooked food directly to the public from “an active frontage” or window.

A definition of a dark kitchen would also be included in an overhaul of the city’s planning scheme along with a range of assessment criteria preventing them from operating in major centre zones.

A report to council said more dark kitchens were expected in industrial warehouse areas and would coincide with food catering businesses expanding as demand rose for delivery services.

Along with the dark kitchen crackdown in major city centres, the council will also consider introducing strict rules on subdividing and land court litigation and making it easier to set up bars and clubs which operate after dark.

Container kitchens with windows and serving food directly to customers will be part of the amendments to the planning laws.

Logan will overhaul its planning scheme before 2025, in an effort to cope with the unprecedented growth particularly around four emerging suburbs.

Bahrs Scrub, Park Ridge, Park Ridge South and Logan Reserve, were named as places where there would be greater residential growth with parcels of land in Park Ridge singled out to be rezoned for more industrial development.

Mayor Darren Power said Logan had carried the burden of much of the growth in the state’s southeast.

He said without a strong set of planning guidelines, the city would face greater financial pressures to cater for rapid suburban and industrial growth.

“We have been doing the heavy lifting with the two satellite cities of Flagstone and Yarrabilba and we need to get the regional plan right … because we are stretched out like Brown’s cows,” he said.

“It is important that we get a better deal because we cannot cope with such development on a broad scale and other local authorities have to start doing their fair share.”

Planning changes would also include protection from natural hazards and measures for avoiding or mitigating contested development projects in court.