Lendlease to pick up multimillion-dollar sewerage plant cost blowout for Shoreline housing estate

Home builders at a southside housing estate will have to wait for another year to connect to town sewerage after a downturn in the economy triggered a multimillion-dollar cost blowout.

A controversial sewage treatment plant, needed to service an already-built housing estate, is unlikely to be completed before the end of next year.

The Southern Redland Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant has to be operating before developer Lendlease is permitted to build more than 200 houses on its 3000-lot Shoreline estate.

But an estimated cost blowout, revealed this week to be in the millions of dollars, could further hamper the plant’s progress.

Portaloo toilets at Shoreline, where there is no sewerage system. The state will allocate $200 million in this month’s budget to crack open developers’ land banks to fix the housing crisis with Redland, Logan and Caboolture shouldering the population burden. WATCH THE VIDEO

Lendlease said taxpayers would not be picking up the tab for the sewage treatment plant, earmarked to be built on flood plains along the Logan River. 

A spokesman said state funding for the plant was in the form of a $15 million loan and said the added costs were because of the current economic climate and the project having to meet tight time frames.

“In June 2021, the state government offered the Southern Redland Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant Project a Building Acceleration Fund loan to bring forward the ultimate facility and unlock the infrastructure for the Southern Redlands area,” Lendlease said.

“This loan will be 100 per cent paid back and therefore the state government will not be funding the plant.”

A Department of State Development spokesman said the sewerage project would also unlock an extra 2000 lots outside Shoreline.

Most Shoreline landowners have contractual obligations forcing them to hand land back to the developer if they have not built their home within a year after purchase. 

Social media posts about the land contracts at Shoreline.

Many anxious Shoreline land holders took to social media to air their concerns about having to build now rather than later.

But Lendlease moved to assure owners of undeveloped lots they would not be forced to hand back the land.

“While timing clauses are standard in all our contracts, we understand the current construction pressures the industry is facing and will work with all purchasers around their requirements,” Lendlease said.