Logan to house 15% of state’s population growth

THE state’s southeast is growing rapidly and it is no surprise where the majority of those families are choosing to live.

Meadowbrook family Carla and Andrew Armstrong with kids Jeremy 5, Blair 12, Allyson 10 and Reuben 7. Picture: John Gass

SOUTHEAST Queensland is on the verge of a population explosion and Logan is driving it.

As families push to buy their own piece of turf and look outside Brisbane, Logan is a top destination.

And that trend is going to continue with previously unpublished data from the State Statistician’s Office revealing the enormous extent of the expected explosion between now and 2041.

In the next 23 years, the government has planned for an extra 794,000 dwellings to cope with the forecast population to rise from 3.46 million today to 5.35 million. And many of those people, nearly 15 per cent, are expected to move to Logan, where the population is expected to leap to 586,000 from today’s 313,800.

Only Ipswich, The Gold Coast and Brisbane have a faster predicted population growth. To cope with that increase, the state’s Shaping SEQpolicy dictated Logan City Council must provide at least 89,000 new dwellings by 2041.

The policy sets a target of keeping 60 per cent of new houses within the existing urban footprint.

But 70,000 of the new homes will be in emerging areas in Logan’s south.

Those areas include Yarrabilba, Greater Flagstone, Park Ridge, Meadowbrook, Bahrs Scrub and Greenbank.

Nearly 20,000 houses will be built on the existing growth corridor along transport routes in places such as Logan Central, Beenleigh and Meadowbrook.

Plans to cope with the population growth at places including Greater Flagstone.

Logan’s largest growth suburb over the next 30 years will be Greater Flagstone, a state government priority development area destined to have about 50,000 dwellings and a 120,000 people.

A Salisbury to Flagstone passenger rail, which the Shaping SEQ report said would follow the Salisbury to Beaudesert corridor, would support any population increase in Flagstone.

However, the report also pointed out the government would have to build a road corridor connecting the Greater Flagstone and Yarrabilba areas to the regional road network.

Yarrabilba is Logan’s fastest growing suburb at the moment.

Farzeen Samadani, his wife Vanessa and kids Amirah 8, Layla 6, and Zarah 1, live at Yarrabilba, one of SEQ's fastest growing regions. Pics Adam Head

To date, Logan’s biggest growth suburb is Yarrabilba, where there have been about 3000 residential lots built in the past five years.

As it stands, Flagstone and Yarrabilba are expected to contribute slightly less than half of all the city’s growth in the next 30-odd years. On completion in 2041, Yarrabilba will be home to about 45,000 people and have about 17,000 homes.

Park Ridge, an emerging suburb in Logan’s west, bordered by the Mt Lindesay Highway, will have 12,000 new dwellings and about 30,000 people by 2041.

Yarrabilba is a growing suburb of Logan. Photographer: Liam Kidston.

THE Rise Park Ridge in August 2017.

Bahrs Scrub was another Logan area identified by both state and council as a place to accommodate future residential growth. A 2012 plan for Bahrs Scrub estimated there would be about 4400 new dwellings to house around 10,100 people with more than 60 per cent of the area to be managed or protected to maintain environmental values.

Meadowbrook and Greenbank were other areas of Logan where growth was expected around job centres.

Meadowbrook, which is home to the city’s Griffith University and Logan Hospital, is being developed as a health and education precinct and Greenbank as a training facility.

Acting mayor Cherie Dalley said the city knew what was coming and was preparing.

“We know the population is coming and we know where they are going … so we will need all levels of government to be planning ahead. There will be no excuse.”

Cr Dalley’s sentiments have been echoed by Division 7 councillor Phil Pidgeon whose electorate takes in the burgeoning Park Ridge. “We have to cater for all these people but when the state government allows out-of-sync development projects to go ahead when the infrastructure has not yet been built, it is difficult.”

Already “suburb infrastructure warfare” has broken out in Logan with residents of Yarrabilba effectively pitted against residents in Park Ridge about where a new needed sewage treatment plant would be sited.

Developer Lend Lease has put in some infrastructure before the bulk of the population has moved there.

With the populations of both emerging suburbs increasing rapidly, council must find an appropriate site and build before the existing Loganholme treatment plant hits capacity in 2020.