Backyard blitz in new blueprint for Brisbane
Apartments and townhouses are out and backyards are in under Brisbane City Council’s new blueprint for the city.
Lord mayor Graham Quirk, who unveiled the blueprint on Friday, said the revised plan for the city was on the back of the $2.1 million ratepayer-funded Plan Your Brisbane campaign.
Opposition councillor Jared Cassidy questioned why the LNP had to spend $3 million of ratepayers’ money simply to listen to residents.
“If he got out of his chauffeur-driven car and spoke to ordinary people, he’d understand the basics,” Cr Cassidy said.
“Graham Quirk should listen to residents instead of developers. He could have learnt all of this without having to blow $3 million of ratepayers’ money.
Cr Quirk said the resident responses gathered during the Plan Your Brisbane campaign had been developed into 40 action items which focused on creating neighbourhoods and protecting backyards and would be implemented over the next 18 months.
“In this blueprint, council has committed to putting a stop to townhouses and apartments being built in areas for single homes, and restrict repeated designs for townhouses to ensure the city retains its unique character,” he said.
The council will also introduce a Chief Design Office to implement a design strategy and a new alert system that would notify residents of proposed developments in their area.
Cr Quirk said the Plan Your Brisbane campaign demonstrated that while residents felt the council was doing many things right in planning for the future, there were things that needed to be done differently.
Cr Cassidy said Cr Quirk had previously cut the number of car parks developers needed to provide and approved some of the city’s “worst development” but was now pretending someone else did while claiming he saved the backyard.
The revised blueprint bears similarities to Labor’s 2016 council election commitment of a seven-point overhaul of the city plan.
During the campaign Labor committed to “fix” the city plan which included informing residents of any new development, stopping streets being parked out from developments, appointing an independent city architect and strengthening the protection of pre-1946 homes.
Cr Cassidy said Labor should be flattered the new-look LNP planning guidelines were a carbon-copy of the ALP’s 2016 election commitments.
“They are out of touch and out of ideas,” Cr Cassidy said.