Logan’s Park Ridge rises as state’s next big industrial hub after Berrinba

A rural suburb with residential acreage blocks about 30km south of Brisbane is set to become the state’s next big industrial park, after a local council went on the hunt for appropriate land to develop.

Industrial areas in Park Ridge Logan.

A SOUTHSIDE council is upping the ante in the jobs stakes and is on a mission to build the southeast’s next big industrial area.

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Logan City Council has started scouting for an appropriate site for a leading industrial estate, after a report this week found the city lacked vacant developed land.

An Employment Lands Strategy said council was looking at its land holdings and reviewing its planning scheme in a bid to make its land pay, attract investors and create enough jobs for its swiftly growing population.

Key industrial investment suburbs of Berrinba, Crestmead, Loganholme, Kingston, Slacks Creek and Underwood were named.

Moss St, Slacks Creek, is one of Logan’s existing industrial hubs.

But Park Ridge was the standout after more than 95 per cent of land zoned for Medium Impact Industry at Crestmead and Loganholme was already developed.

Kingston, Loganlea and Meadowbrook also lacked appropriate sites.

Park Ridge and Priority Development Areas Yarrabilba and Greater Flagstone account for 45 per cent of Logan’s economic growth, or almost 30,000 jobs, of the projected employment of 66,000 jobs for the city by 2041.

Park Ridge is rising as the next industrial hub in Logan and the southeast after the industrial estate at Berrinba reaches capacity.

This week, Logan tentatively voted to adopt a four-pronged strategy to make the most of its vacant land, increase the amount of low-impact industry sites, safeguard industrial areas and introduce industry precincts.

It also announced it would review its 2015 planning scheme, which dictates where, when and how development can take place.

Major centres in Logan are Logan Central, Browns Plains, Meadowbrook, Flagstone and Yarrabilba with principal centres at Springwood and Beenleigh. Major enterprise and industrial areas are at Berrinba, Crestmead, Park Ridge and North Maclean.

Mayor Darren Power said he wanted to ensure the city had enough industrial land and would be ready to fill a void created after council’s Berrinba Wetlands industrial estate hit capacity.

He said there was appropriate land at North Maclean but it lacked necessary infrastructure and was relatively undeveloped and unprepared for the next wave of industrial estate building.

He called for more land at Park Ridge to be opened up while North Maclean sites were being developed.

“We may have enough land overall but we haven’t got the land in the right places, close to the motorway and ‘Berrinba-type’ land that seems to be where (businesses) want to go at the moment,” Cr Power said.

“I’m just worried that when Berrinba’s full we are not going to have the mixed-use sites ready or available in the right location for investors.

“ … We’re open for business and we want to diversity our rates structure with more industrial sites … so we need to progress this.”

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Cr Power said he wanted a strategy to stop investors swooping in to make a quick buck by selling rezoned land without carrying out any development.

Economic development manager David Radich agreed and said the city had enough land but not the necessary roads or water infrastructure for industrial development and jobs.

Mr Radich also said Logan’s “mixed-use zone” needed to be refined as it currently allowed 48 different types of uses within the one zoning.

Under the council’s current definition, a warehouse, operating 24 hours a day, can be located next to a childcare centre, or an adult shop or a school.

Logan started looking at all of its land holdings in 2017 to determine whether it had enough for industry to create jobs to match the city’s growing population.

That survey found there was enough land for jobs into the future but pointed out blaring anomalies with zonings.

Logan is looking at its industrial land holdings.

It also found Park Ridge was the only suburb with a feasible supply of Medium Impact Industry land even though it lacked services such as water, sewerage and a road network.

The survey also found parcels of appropriate industrial land in Park Ridge were “fragmented” and too close to incompatible zonings.

However, Mr Radich said the council was planning to “activate” land around the proposed Park Ridge Connector and work with the state government to build services to the area.

“We can run services to Park Ridge, like we did at Berrinba and make that area competitive and attractive to investors,” Mr Radich said.

“We will also refine the uses for the Park Ridge estate like we did in Berrinba so you can’t locate a 24-hour warehouse next to a school.”

Last year, Logan’s 22,571 businesses offered about 115,387 jobs and the Planning Scheme provides about 1370 hectares of Mixed Use, Low Impact Industry and Medium Impact Industry zoned land.