Cairns housing: UDIA calling Cairns council to reveal land approval mapping
Pressure is mounting on Cairns council to provide mapping of its residential land approvals with the development industry claiming its numbers were inflated by 100 per cent.
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Pressure is mounting on Cairns Regional Council to provide mapping of its residential land approvals and lot availability with the development industry claiming the local government’s numbers were inflated by 100 per cent.
Earlier this week, the council stated there were 6000 lots with approved development applications within the local government area that weren’t yet developed but would be ready for connection to infrastructure.
When asked where those lots were placed, a CRC spokesman stated it was in no one particular area, and it was a matter for developers to explain why works hadn’t begun on the approved lots.
The Mayor stated over a five-year rolling average, 670 residential lots were being created per annum.
Hitting back, Urban Development Institute of Australia Cairns branch president Nathan Lee Long said the council’s numbers seemed to differ from the Queensland government Statistician’s Office which showed there were only 3300 lots available within land parcels with current preliminary and development approvals.
The QGSO data showed in the year ending March 2024 – 537 residential lots were approved within the Cairns local government area, 517 lots received operational works approval, and finally, 435 lots were titled.
Mr Lee Long said the industry was now calling on the council to provide mapping and detailed assessment of individual land parcels to demonstrate to the community how their figures are derived compared with the QGSO.
“Council has released figures without any basis of how these have been determined and are vastly different from other sources,” Mr Lee Long said, arguing that land availability assessment should be peer reviewed.
While CRC had maintained there was ample land supply and argued it had a responsibility to release lots in a sustainable way – by balancing the build of expensive trunk infrastructure and burdening ratepayers with increased costs – Mr Lee Long claimed restricting supply would be “far more detrimental than the impacts of the low possibility of oversupplying land”.
Further, QGSO data estimated the population of 175,398 within the Cairns LGA as of June 30, 2023, was growing at 1.1 per cent, or about 1753 persons a year.
The Australian average of people living per home is 2.5, meaning about 700 homes would be required each year to keep up with Cairns’ population growth.
CRC was asked if it would release mapping of available lots, and while it did not respond to that request, a spokesman said the local government stood by its preliminary lot numbers, reached in consultation with an independent accredited reviewer.
“We’d like the UDIA to get on board with us to get the (priority development area for Mount Peter) declared and get on with the job of delivering well-planned communities and housing for our growing population,” the spokesman said.
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Originally published as Cairns housing: UDIA calling Cairns council to reveal land approval mapping
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