Development – coping with the downturn.
Sue Brooks May 25th, 2009
I received an interesting email last week from one of our local development consultants. Attached was the latest Michael Matusik snapshot (404) which talks about Hervey Bay. Sadly I can’t find it online so in summary Michael is speaking about the predicted growth in our city and says that according to predictions we need to produce ‘around 1,300 new dwellings per annum across Hervey Bay, of which two thirds are likely to be different from the standard sized detached homes on traditional allotments’.
Michael then goes on to describe that currently housing is unaffordable, rental prices over priced, residential propery is too expensive, cost of new product is too high, sales volumes of land are down 65%. He then relates how pop growth is down and unemployment is up. Michael then describes how a failure to promote development is caused by increased requirements and concern in relation to the environment and an anti development attitude by Government departments including Local Government among other things. Michael concludes his snapshot by telling us that the building industry is an essential supplier of jobs and the construction industry is a great contributor to the economy.
There is much to digest but at the end of the story my interpretation of the report is that we need to be doing more to support and enhance more development locally. While I agree that the construction industry is a large employer I don’t believe that Hervey Bay is any different from anywhere else in terms of suffering the impact from a global economic downturn. I don’t agree however, that Hervey Bay is lacking in development activity as a result of Council inaction. I believe we have adequate housing supply and an over supply of Unit development now impacting on the market.
I’m wondering what everyone else thinks? Personally I responded to our local consultant by saying that I look forward to the day when we as a community, can reach a stable population and thefore enjoy a sustainable construction and development industry. You see I believe that we can’t continue to just keep growing and that we need to be having that debate now.
There was much more to our correspondence and in the interests of space etc I will refrain from posting the entire conversation but needless to say I am hopeful that both Council, on behalf of you the community, and the development industry, can face the future together and work towards building a community where we all do continue to enjoy living within. I will endeavour to find a link to the Matusik report to share. Sue
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- Comments(14)
Sue,
I’ll start by saying any fool must see you cannot have
continual growth.
Having said that, any growth must be balanced, there
is an old saying about puting all your eggs in one basket.
Regarding houses and units; I believe we have just about
run our of land in the coastal strip. Much of the land we
have already built on is at risk of flooding. How council
allowed it to be built on is beyond me. But any future
growth must go back towards the Booral Road.
Balance; if we encourage growth, we must also encourage
employment. Are we doing that?
Sue, the more unemployment we have, the more crime,
vandalism, family violence and social breakdown we will
see.
In my view the UDIA’s view on this issue is biased and for
the most part should be ignored.
Sadman
Sue,
While I can see where you (and even Sadman) are coming from, I really do suggest that you both accept the realistic data that says this region is going to attaract extraordinary growth for some time to come. That is the fact, so lets get on with coping with it?
If the Fraser Coast doesn’t want growth, them lets see our lected representatives coming out and saying so and implementing policies to prevent it. Personally speaking, I just love the thought of how the Fraser Coast might turn ‘growth’ to it’s advantage. I have no axe to grind with the UDIA or their detractors, so lets just accept the fact that the region IS poised to take off and let’s plan accordingly to maximise the benefits and to minimise the negative aspects?
Baggins,
Do you really believe we can have continual growth?
How do you suggest we employ hundreds if not thousands of new residents?
Has our quality of life improved or declined over the last ten years?
I also do not accept the “fact” that this region will “take off”, rather I see tourists
passing us by if we keep going the way we are.
Sadman
Sadman,
I believe every big city in Australia has shown incredible ‘continual growth’ since inception, so there is no reason why Hervey Bay can’t follow a similar growth pattern unless, as you correctly point out, ‘we keep going the way we are’ and do too little to attract and retain tourists and new residents with facilities and infrastructure comparable to other attractive destinations.
I can remember the early days of the Gold Coast when it took a whole day to drive there from Brisbane along a dirt track, but look at it now in terms of ‘continual growth and employment opportunities’! I think this region can also grow and prosper with the right leadership and ‘can do’ attitude, even if we do adopt a different vision to that of the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. We can fast-track this by learning from their mistakes AND from their successes. I am not seeing this happening so far, but I remain optimistic!
Winged Wun
Baggins,
I sincerely hope you are right. But we (the collective we),
never seem to learn from our mistakes.
We are three hours to the big city and about the same to a large port. So to attract industry here will be very hard, we
are a tourist, agricultural region, with poor road and rail facilities. As a result I see an increased population as being a disaster. I hope I am wrong.
Sadman
Shock horror says I when the Gold Coast is mentioned. There is no way I want Hervey Bay to ever become anything like the Gold Coast. Vertical sprawl is my pet name for the Gold Coast suburbs of high rise buildings.
I chose to settle in Hervey Bay because I do not want to live in a ‘big city’. By big I mean over 100 thousand people. At different times I have lived in Melbourne (too big) in a little town about half way between Wangaratta and Albury, on the outskirts of Ballarat, in Bundaberg, in Darwin and now settled in my beloved Hervey Bay. In my own experience a population of about 80-100k for an urban city is just about right. In other words a city with a footprint of about that many people is a Bendigo or Ballarat, a Toowoomba or a Mackay. A bit bigger but still under 150k people is Townsville, Cairns and Darwin.
Why do I think that a city of this size is ideal? Because a city with around a hundred thousand people gives a density of people large enough to support tertiary education facilities, a decent health/hospital service and good quality sporting and arts and cultural venues and facilities and participants, together with a good range of retail services. A smaller population size does not facilitate these things.
Once we see cities grow larger than a hundred thousand residents we end up with some negatives in the form of increased congestion and pollution. But most of all a larger population means we lose the closeness and sense of community that comes from meeting people you know when out and about. I enjoy walking around town and bumping into people I know. In cities with a larger population this ceases to happen. I don’t get to know the shop assistants and the waiters and tellers that serve me.
I believe we need to settle on an ideal ‘population size that enables us to support the infrastructure and services that we like to avail ourselves of without compromising our ‘laid back’ friendly and happy and close to nature lifestyle.
If we grow too big and to dense, I believe we will have problems with water provision and waste disposal.
I personally enjoy the benefits of this region and while I hope we can grow bigger I don’t want us to keep growing bigger and bigger and I think we need to decide on a target population now. I think we need to do this at a National (and International) level also.
I would like to see future development inland away from the coast and that development is facilitated and encouraged to be placed between Maryborough and Hervey Bay. Go West as the saying goes. We already have road and power provision in this area and in my mind it is the logical direction to go. Council has invited applications via the tender process publicly this week, as part of the process to develop our Land Use Strategy. I expect our community to take a keen interest in this process and when the time comes to have your say.
Steady on there Sue. Just as there is more to the Fraser Coast region than simply the Hervey Bay Esplanade, there is more to the Gold Coast Region than the popular tourist strip with its many highrises along the crowded beachfront from Southport to Coolangatta.
Gold Coast City Council (population 500,000 growing at 3% pa) includes many beautiful rural areas, popular scenic hinterland townships and beautiful waterways since its amalgamation occured years ago. GCCC is even responsible for several nearby island areas, just like our council is! Apart from the disadvantages of overly dense highrises in certain popular tourist spots, and the associated crowds and traffic, I think the Gold Coast success stories should be heeded by emerging regions such as ours in planning future infrastructure and objectives. Their GCCC’s latest plans for a mini Venice using their canal system sounds exciting and reminds me of Mandurah (WA), where a similar project is nearly completed and looks like being an amazing success and drawcard imo.
The good thing about the GC planning approach is that they offer infrastructure, services and areas to suit ALL lifestyle requirements …. they don’t attempt to make a single lifestyle choice ‘fit’ all areas or everyone who lives or visits their region. I once chose to live in Tambourine Village with all its rustic charm, tropical forests and natural beauty, but occasionally it was wonderful to use the excellent road network to visit crowded beachfront areas, attend large musical concerts or take advantage of the other wonderful entertainment and dining available on the busy coastal strip.
It appears that GCCC meticulously plan and maintain the coastal strip especially well as a showpiece for all to use and enjoy with its walking/cycling tracks, gardens, shade trees, scenery, and handy shopping malls and outdoor dining venues built along wonderfully wide, quiet and traffic safe footpaths. As much as I would prefer Hervey Bay to follow a more Port Douglas orientated approach to its tourism coastal strip, I really do miss the dining and entertainment infrastructure that both these tourist hotspots already offer. Its a bit like the chicken and the egg …. do the facilities bring the people, or do the arrivals generate the infrastructure development needed?
Like you, I personally would prefer to avoid overly dense highrise in Hb. However, a sensible highrise approach in obvious tourism areas is, I believe OK to most folk, as they would simply choose to live a convenient distance away from any resulting hub-bub, unless it doesn’t bother them or they even enjoyed it.
On the subject of population caps, Noosa decided on a 100,000 cap (prior to amalgamation) because its tourist area and road system was so restricted and becoming over-crowded. But, during the time I lived there (and even now), I can see little effect and the Noosa region still continues to grow ….. mainly ‘out’ rather than ‘up’, but even this can be a disadvantage if it results in ‘urban sprawl’, rather than a bit of ‘urban tall’? Personally, I would prefer to see us not implement ‘population caps’ at this early stage as it could easily backfire in terms of future infrastructure funding and development from government and the private sector. We have plenty of room, if as you say, we begin to properly utilise and promote our less populated rural areas. If we do encourage industry and business to set up along the HB-Mbo Road (as it should imo), hopefully they will include that fact in planning for future highway access roads and through traffic volumes rather than simply having direct property access as some short-sighted areas have to contend with now.
Anyway Sue, next time anyone mentions the Gold Coast to you…. do try and visualise more than just the traffic and highrises at Surfers and along the tourist strip …. just as we keep trying to convince others that there is more to Hervey Bay than simply ‘whale-watching’ and Fraser!
Baggins,
While the point you make about the Gold Coast is valid, they are in a different situation to us.
Close to Brisbane, close to the docks, close to an international airport and close to existing large
and small industry. We don’t have any.
The current financial situation precludes us from getting any large investment for the forseeable
future. Building more houses and flats will cause more trouble than they are worth.
Sadman
I cannot separate the Gold Coast from the traffic the high rise and the beach! Maybe I should compare Surfers Pardise and inner Hervey Bay rather than the entire LGA’s!Hervey Bay has a wonderful beautiful Esplanade and beaches. We don’t have this jewel in our crown yet wrecked by towers of glass, concrete and steel. We can still drive, walk or cycle down the Esplanade at nearly any time of day, without traffic snarls, looking at blue waters, blue skies and green trees. How long will this last?
I don’t live ‘in town’ but will do what I can to preserve the natural beauty of our ocean bordered boulevard.
If our city becomes developed in the same manner as the Gold and Sunshine Coasts why will people want to visit us? What will be unique? I believe many visitors come here to experience our relaxed ‘undeveloped’ low rise low density lifestyle.
Yes I would enjoy more choice in dining and some improvements to our seaside amenity but these things will come in time. If we hand over our prime beachfront property to developers I fear that our Esplanade, like the Gold Coast, will become a place of tourists not residents. The development pressure is still only found in Hervey Bay and this is focussed as close as possible to the beach. The pressure to develop inland is not nearly as high.
In relation to a poulation cap. Every city and town in Australia has one. It is called a Planning Scheme. Currently the Hervey Bay Planning Scheme can accomodate between 100 to 110 thousand people on the land designated for growth. We have a water supply for less than that number of people however. Noosa’s poulation cap was simply the number of people that Noosa’s Planning Scheme could accomodate (it was 60 thousand I thought). Noosa just marketed the population cap concept and it has not hurt them in my opinion.
On some things we simply have to agree to disagree I think. I do wish Hervey Bay had a decent entertainment venue and better dining choice but we will achieve these things eventually. Our future growth has to be placed where it is sensible to have it and our traffic/roads network properly forward planned so we avoid the worst impacts of too many cars on roads that are not built to accomodate them.
Sue,
Based on council’s figures current population is about 89,000.
If this is correct, I’d suggest capping our population at 100,000.
But of more importance, capping should be openly discussed by
the council and the residents views should be sort.
Sadamn
Sadman I am focussing on the Hervey Bay population in my discussion not the Fraser Coast region population. Development pressure is greatest in Hervey Bay although with the increasing price of property in Hervey Bay, people will be more and more attracted to invest and reside in areas outside the immediate Hervey Bay area. Also as Hervey Bay becomes busier some people are leaving to go to more peaceful places like Howard for instance.
The Hervey Bay population is currently approx 55 thousand people I believe. Maryborough has a very low growth rate currently but this may begin to change also due to affordability issues.
While we are all one region I think it is important to remember that the region is made up of separate communities each with a unique identity and unique challenges.
Sue,
Like it or lump it, we have one council and one budget. Costs and
debts are therefore shared by all ratepayers. What impacts on
one area impacts on all to a greater or lesser degree.
For it to work, we can only have one long term plan for the
Fraser Coast Regional Council.
Sadman
Absolutely correct Sadman. FCRC has recently advertised and invited tenders for the development of our Land Use Strategy. The information collected via this strategy will provide ‘the bones’ for our new FCRC Planning Scheme. However, as is the case now, different areas within the region will be treated as part of an overall plan but with the possibility of having unique requirements.
Just the same as our current zonings whereby our coastal ‘villages’ are treated differently to Hervey Bay ’suburbs’ such as Pt Vernon through to Urangan.
So we need the one plan that is flexible enough to address the issues in geographically and possibly demographically disparate places. Population limits are already in force now as each area within our region now has the ability to develop ‘urban’ zoned land which is limited. The big question is do we forever keep rezoning and developing for housing, our rural zoned lands?
I await a world or ‘planet plan’ but hey I’m an optimist believe it or not!
Sue,
You ask, “do we forever keep rezoning and developing for housing, our rural zoned lands”?
In my view the answer is NO. With the increase in population and the loss of pestercides
and fertilzers courtesy of oil deriditives, we need all the arable land we have.
What we need, is to move all industrial premises away from our coast line to Howard or
Torbanlea. Induce niche organic industries to the Woocoo and Tiaro areas, seduce
hospices and retirement homes to our region. Suck up to to governments for more
educational facilities, while maintaining our laid back and slow lifestyle.
Growth for growth’s sake just does not work long term.
Here endeth the second lesson.
Sadman