One of the challenges of building in Brisbane’s inner-city suburbs is that there’s not a lot of room to spread out. New buildings almost always cover their complete site area so until the ground floor is completed (and earthworks and basements can take months) builders are forced to take over footpaths and sometimes even whole lanes of their adjoining streets.
There’s currently a number of local construction sites with orange-vested people out the front. Slowing us down, directing us around and turning us back. Merivale Street is one of South Brisbane’s busiest roads, as the east-bound off-ramp from the Go Between Bridge. So the workers on “Station 16″ apartments (pictured) have a lot of traffic to contend with and 2 lanes get pushed back to 1. It’s annoying for everyone but impossible to avoid.
There’s something encouraging and positive in construction starting on a new building, especially when the land has been sitting vacant for many years. So the workers at Annerley Road’s “Dutton Place” have created plenty of comment amongst locals as this tiny suburb’s first major residential development gets underway.
Stockwell Group are behind the 100 apartments and their track record is strong. Their recently completed “Riverpoint” Apartments at West End have earned them good respect from buyers and the property industry alike and despite the cooler property market “Dutton Place” has been selling well, even before the ground-breaking. There’s now just a handful of 1 and 2 bedroom apartments still for sale from $380,000.
Like any good real estate the location is key, and “Dutton Place” is central to a number of the big employment nodes in Brisbane’s inner-city. The Mater and PA hospitals, the CBD itself and, via the new busway link, Qld Uni. The Boggo Road redevelopment is just across the street and has itself been a sleepy, huge, empty development site for a long, long time. Finally CSIRO have moved into their new offices and there’s some activity about the place.
Property development can often be controversial in established areas, but this one is injecting energy and a bunch of new residents into a neighbourhood.
It looks like one of the first major projects to be “postponed” due to the floods will be the proposed cross river rail project, the subway that was to put new rail stations into the lower CBD, Woolloongabba and other key inner city locations.
When the government first flagged this in 2008 we pricked our ears up – property owners near those locations could see a major improvement in their values as the commute times around the CBD improve. Now the possible 2016 completion has been harpooned and the nasty choking point for a lot of rail traffic, the South Brisbane rail bridge, will just get more and more congested.
This isn’t great news, and hopefully the postponement is a short one. One report today said it might only be a 2 year delay. Let’s hope.
If you’re about to list your property for sale it’s a great idea to check the Brisbane City Council info on your area, and ensure your agent understands what townplanning issues might affect you. Agents don’t usually have the skill set to give full planning advice but a quick check of BCC records is a must.
Long gone are the days of queuing up at a Council office to get a look at cryptic documents. The interactive website is a terrific resource and simple to navigate. There is still a lot of info that’s complex and long-winded and if your property has redevelopment potential especially then we’d recommend you have a townplanner prepare a pre-marketing report. But for a basic understanding of your area’s zoning and constraints the Property Enquiry tool is a 3 or 4 click process.
Many property owners aren’t aware what can and can’t be built in their neighbourhood and the interactive mapping tool allows you to use layers of zonings etc to see how the surrounding areas are going to evolve over the next few years – or at least how Council believes they should. We think this is the sort of info a buyer is likely to want to know, and if it helps add value to your sale then your agent should be on top of it.
By the way the site’s a great place to check on that local development application for new apartments, shops etc. Floorplans, illustrations, details on street and footpath impacts and plenty more will all be included and you can quietly study the info before deciding how you feel about its impact.
In our experience most property owners too often leave townplanning to the planners. Often the concerns about new development in our suburbs are ill-informed but the info is there and easy to access for everyone. A better understanding of the issues, especially by real estate agents, would be a good place to start.
There’s often chat in the market about “all those big apartment buildings” proposed for the area and how they might impact Highgate Hill. It’s hard to embrace change and especially when it effects our homes and through them our immediate lifestyle.
Ironically though Highgate Hill’s biggest apartment buildings have been a part of our local landscape for many years.
Torbreck, Beaumont and Dornoch Towers all line Dornoch Terrace, prominent on its high ridgeline and soaking in fabulous views. Rising 10 to 13 storeys from the street level these would be tall even if they were down low near the river. And they’re on one of Brisbane’s highest land areas.
Completed in 1960 Torbreck is still Highgate Hill’s most densely populated building with estimates ranging up to 300 residents. Beaumont has 48 apartments, just tipping Dornoch Towers with 45, both buildings having been built in the mid 1970’s.
There are a lot of apartments in the suburb – about half its 2000 dwellings in fact. And for the most part they are little buildings of 6-12 apartments. The challenge for Council, the development community and existing local residents, is to manage the increase in the number of apartments while protecting all that’s important to our lifestyles.
I today attended the monthly Gabba Business Association meeting which featured guest speakers Mr Gary Lee (Planning Manager of the Urban Development Authority) and Mr Luke Franzmann (Project Director of Cross River Rail). It was a chance for members to hear first hand about the changes that are going to occur in the Gabba in the coming years.
Most of the information that was covered in the meeting has already been widely reported in the media or on the websites of each organisation but if you haven’t had a chance to see it already you can access it through these links.
Probably of all the information we received on the evening the largest note of conjecture from the members was in regards to proposed road changes to allow a greater area of the Go Print site to be developed. The concern was that the planners hadn’t thoroughly thought through the ramifications of traffic movement in the area and that the proposed changes would make travelling through the Gabba during peak times more congested in the future. It will be interesting to see if the UDA takes any notice of these objections and come up with a better solution.
If you’ve ever driven along Logan Road in Woolloongabba you would probably have seen the signs and advertising promoting the Phoenix Development. With a land area of 21,436m2 (over 5 acres) and plans for retail, commercial and residential spaces this was going to be a huge construction site that was supposed to kick off in 2009 and be a major part of the future development in the area.
It was even included in the Council plans for the urban renewal of Woolloongabba and would presumably have gone ahead were it not for the tougher financial times. This is one of Brisbane’s largest development opportunities – certainly the largest inner Brisbane has seen for some years.
The receivers have now moved in and the land is to be separated into 6 individual parcels ranging from the extremely small 387m2 up to 11,837m2. It’s a wonder that the receivers don’t think that the land is worth more as a single entity. The likely explanation being that it will be far easier to sell quickly to various buyers than over a longer period of time to one.
Artist's impression of the failed Phoenix development
With so much happening with Brisbane infrastructure it can be hard to keep up. So here’s a ‘Cook’s tour’ of the latest:
The opening this month of Clem 7 is a significant milestone for a lot of reasons. It’s the first piece of the Lord Mayor’s “TransApex” plan, and this 4.8km tunnel is the first Brisbane river crossing for cars since 1986. Almost a quarter of a century!
The media write about the impact on cross-city travel, speeding travel times. But there’s also major benefits to the live-ability for inner city residents and property owners. Clem 7 will take 60,000 cars a day away from surface roads and move them underground. Residents of Kangaroo Point, Woolloongabba and South Brisbane will have less noise and less congestion.
The next piece of the Newman TransApex Pie is the Hale Street Link, a bridge between South Brisbane and Milton that’s due to open in just 2 months time. This one will help free up the traffic bottlenecks that occur in so many near-CBD junctions. Two new cross river crossings will be complete – amazing how things can actually get done!
Airport Link is the third major project, now being run by the state government, and with tunnel boring underway as we write. This 6.7km roadway will start at Bowen Hills, linking the Clem 7 and Inner City Bypass to out near the airport. Residents in suburbs like Clayfield, Windsor and Lutwyche will have direct and immediate benefit when it opens in 2012.
Suburbs like Auchenflower and Milton can often feel like thoroughfares for major traffic routes Milton Road and Coronation Drive. But with the Northern Link soon to burrow from the Western Freeway at Toowong and popping back up at Kelvin Grove to link with the Inner City Bypass, there’ll be some relief for these inner west residents. Northern Link is due to start construction this year and wrap up in 2014.
The fifth and final TransApex project is the East West Link. This tunnel would link the M1 at Buranda with the Western Freeway at Toowong, bypassing the West End peninsula to offer a significant cross-city link. Even the inner-south’s anti-development movement must be able to see the benefits of this one. Officially it appears East West is on hold for some years to come…
Savvy property owners and investors watch infrastructure changes with interest. There’s plenty on this list to keep us all busy for the next few years.
Take a good look at this picture – we can’t be sure of the next time you’ll see Wivenhoe Dam at 96.5% of capacity.
Built in 1985 Wivenhoe can hold almost 1.2 million megalitres, a whole lot bigger than our next water tank at Someset which maxes out at 380,000 megalitres.
So when Wivenhoe fills up it’s a great thing for Brisbane residents.
At the start of this month it was only 63% full (yes, 18 days ago!) and that was up from 37% a year ago. It’s been a great year and a sensational start to March!
It was a landmark night for Brisbane with the long-awaited Clem 7 tunnel opening to traffic around 11.30pm last night. One of our team was on the spot to be one of the first through and he captured this video.
And no, this isn’t normal driving speed, the trip takes over 4 minutes but we’ve sped things up a little – it is just a tunnel!
Lord Mayor Campbell Newman is wearing a big smile today and he deserves praise. His election promise in 2004 was to get serious about inner Brisbane traffic and his “Transapex” masterplan is about diverting cars around our CBD. The 4.8km Clem 7 tunnel is the first step and in skipping 24 sets of traffic lights its impact on our inner city will be significant.
Watch next for the opening in June of Hale Street Link, now called the Go Between Bridge. It’s about time Brisbane had these sort of solutions.
One of the challenges of building in Brisbane’s inner-city suburbs is that there’s not a lot of room to spread out. New buildings almost always cover their complete site area so until the ground floor is completed (and earthworks and basements can take months) builders are forced to take over footpaths and sometimes even whole lanes of their adjoining streets.
Take a good look at this picture – we can’t be sure of the next time you’ll see Wivenhoe Dam at 96.5% of capacity.
