Updated on Monday, November 23, 2009 at 10:42AM by stevem

A Forty per cent increase in Sydney’s population over the next 20 years means the State Government has no option but to open up scores of suburbs for new developments, according to a radical proposal for Sydney to build 640,000 new dwellings. The Urban Renewal Action Plan compiled by major property companies argues a complete change to the way planning is done is Sydney is essential if the city is to cope with the explosion in population. In a document just provided to the Government, the NSW Property Council says the city is running out of old industrial sites like those in Alexandria and Pyrmont as areas for new housing and Sydney must move to a new, more difficult phase where there is large-scale development close to existing and new transport routes……. …..the Urban Renewal Commission would also have powers to compulsorily acquire land, some of which could be sold to developers for urban renewal projects and part retained for public use. Release of the Property Council’s proposals comes as the Government is preparing to announce a review of the five-year-old Metropolitan Strategy, the main planning document to guide development of the city.

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Updated on Monday, November 23, 2009 at 12:27PM by stevem

The Bligh Government may not admit it but there were quarters breathing a deep sigh of relief after federal Minister Peter Garrett put the ‘stop’ sign up for the Traveston dam project. The wheels were well in motion for damming the Mary River when Anna Bligh took over as premier — it was a Peter Beattie project. Fast forward to 2009 and the State Government simply can’t afford any more big-ticket infrastructure projects. To have the Traveston dam off the books is like winning lotto for this Government. And limiting water consumption to 200 litres per person per day is as much about delaying the need to sign a cheque for another desalination plant as it is about genuine water conservation.

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It defies “carrying capacity” constraints. One windy day blows our onion paper-thin soil 1400 kilometres. Our rivers are mere creeks compared with those fed by the Alps, the Rockies or the Andes. Two capitals, Adelaide and Brisbane, have come perilously close to running out of water….. …..In the meantime I would like Canberra and big business to level with us about the implications of soaring immigration. Will they, for example, stand shoulder to shoulder with state planning ministers when prime farming land on the city fringe has to be ploughed up for housing and low-density suburbs rezoned for high-rise? Residents of Ku-ring-gai opposed to flats along their rail corridor should remember these rezonings were to help facilitate a Sydney population of 5 million. Now we are headed for 7 million. Their placards belong outside the Department of Immigration, not the Department of Planning.

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Campaigners who have successfully stopped the construction of the proposed Traveston Crossing dam were today calling on the Premier to “stop the scaremongering” over the price of water in the wake of Minister Garrett’s decision regarding the proposed dam. “We are responding to the repeated claims by the Premier that now that the Traveston Crossing dam has been knocked back by Garrett, water prices will have to go up in Brisbane,” said Glenda Pickersgill, president of the Save the Mary River Coordinating Group. “The independent assessment Minister Garrett commissioned found the economic analysis used to justify the failed Traveston Crossing dam to be seriously flawed. This report vindicates criticisms that we, and many other groups have made over the last three and a half years.” “Are they using the same flawed economic analysis to support the statements made last week about the increase in water costs? - asked Ms Pickersgill. “The figures suggested by Minister Robertson last week certainly don’t stack up in our view and we are very concerned that the Premier is making the same mistakes all over again.” “If prices go up, the numbers show it would be no fault of Minister Garrett but the fault of the Queensland Government for their dogmatic approach to water management, their consistent economic bungling and repeated cost blowouts in their water infrastructure projects.” The Coordinator General himself admitted in his report on the Traveston Crossing dam proposal, that even with the highest population growth predicted only 20 billion litres more water would be needed in South East Queensland by 2026.

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THE tears of relief shed over the Mary River’s reprieve have been many, but let’s not get carried too far down stream by this flood of emotion. Now, alternatives have to be considered, but not in the stridently reactionary way of premier Bligh. Why the rush to build more desalination plants, Anna? This smells more of payback than planning. The first one at Tugun, plagued as it is with problems, doesn’t strike me as much of a model to be duplicated or trebled or even quadrupled. Why not raise the walls of existing dams like Wivenhoe, Borumba, Baroon and so on? By the time that’s done, say in five or 10 years, the technology for desalination could well have improved to make it much more viable. Meanwhile, why not a “Tanks a Million” campaign to capture more of the wasteful run-off from roofs?

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Updated on Friday, November 13, 2009 at 08:48AM by stevem

Updated on Friday, November 13, 2009 at 09:04AM by stevem

Updated on Friday, November 13, 2009 at 09:42AM by stevem

THE state government will press ahead with a $450 million spend on stage two of its water grid pipeline despite the loss of the Traveston Crossing Dam. The expenditure comes on top of $350 million already outlaid for stage one of the network. Infrastructure and planning minister Stirling Hinchliffe said the stage from Eudlo to Lake Macdonald linked the Sunshine Coast to the water grid and would improve water security and flexibility under critical supply situations.

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THE Sunshine Coast is in danger of losing its identity and becoming “another suburb of greater Brisbane”. The convenor of next Friday’s Sunshine Coast State of the Region Summit, professor Scott Prasser, warned rapid population growth and development in south-east Queensland was having serious consequences on the region. Prof Prasser said it was turning into another Gold Coast due to the encouragement of the “east-west sprawl”. “Now is the time for some of this to be remedied, but it requires rigorous planning and a commitment to stick at it long enough to make a difference,” he said.

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One of the laziest arguments put forward by proponents of a bigger Australia is the need to feed more taxpayers into the system to fund the looming mass retirement of baby boomers. The theory goes that if we don’t grow by the 60% the prime minister projects, to a national population of 35 million in the next 40 years, either the existing workforce would have to pay more tax or baby boomers would experience a meaner retirement. Property council darling Bernard Salt and certain state government demographers say the cost can be met simply by increasing the tax base through growth and young migrants, who they presume won’t get sick or require a pension for at least 40 years. Also forgotten is the cost of educating their children. The laziness of this argument is both apparent and dangerous.

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THE threat of a stormy and wet summer has pushed the $395 million project to double the capacity of the Hinze Dam on the Gold Coast to crisis point. Project managers must decide whether to gamble on proceeding with critical work building the exposed clay core of the dam wall, or wait until the wet season finishes next year. Before workers can start raising the dam wall by 15m, they have to strip away rocks to expose the clay core base.

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IT’S a battle that for a long time looked like being carried alone by the Sunshine Coast. Capacity, its true meaning and measure, is a concept with which many understandably struggle. Only 35 years ago, when there was plenty of everything here other than population, opportunity and profit, many were blinkered to the long-term costs of failing to properly plan for growth. How different and more liveable would the high-density Alexandra Headland strip have been if the council of the day had found the meagre $1 million needed in the late 1980s to secure for parkland the mainly vacant land that stretched from Tantula Road down to Alexandra Parade. How much smarter to have left that coast road as a link to foreshore parks and parking rather than turning it into the drag strip it is today.

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