InfrastructureHarrison CaithnessWed 22 Jul 26
Queensland Commits $146m to Unlock 18,900 Gold Coast Home Sites
Land for 18,900 houses has been unlocked with a $146 million injection to develop essential infrastructure on the Gold Coast.
The funding has been released under the Queenslands’s Residential Activation Fund and will help with trunk infrastructure including sewerage, roads and power across three projects that will service new developments at Worongary, Robina, Pimpama, Coomera, Upper Coomera and Parkwood.
Those projects include upgrades to the Merrimac Sewage Treatment Plant to increase waste treatment capacity to 110,000 equivalent persons.
The Gold Coast’s population is forecasted to pass a million by 2046, growing by 350,000 during the next two decades.
The number of houses fast-tracked under the fund had now passed 100,000 since its inception, the state said.
The Queensland Government doubled down on the Residential Activation Fund’s second round, revealed in this year’s Budget, raising funding to $1 billion and bringing the total outlay to $2 billion.
About 98,000 homes were fast-tracked in the fund’s first round.
The state has promised to build a million homes by 2044 through its Securing Our Housing Foundations Plan, which includes the Residential Activation Fund.
More than half of the funds from the scheme’s second round are being channelled outside South-East Queensland to regional and rural projects, according to the state.
Gold Coast Acting Mayor Mark Hammel said the latest round of funding was “the most significant amount of state funding the Gold Coast has received for critical city-owned infrastructure in decades”.
However, deputy opposition leader Cameron Dick said that while he welcomed private sector investment, he questioned how long Queenslanders would have to wait before they could move into one of the fast-tracked homes.
“At a time when housing is out of reach of many Queenslanders, the Deputy Premier has slashed nearly 10,000 affordable homes in projects across Queensland,” he said.
The state in March scrapped a mandate that required new developments to set aside 15 per cent of homes for affordable housing.
In May, deputy premier Jarrod Bleijie told developers in South-East Queensland to cancel more than 500 low-cost homes and reallocate them at market rate.
