Coordinated infrastructure planning to support greenfield housing delivery

The demand for housing: Challenges and opportunities

The UDIA report points to key issues affecting SEQ’s housing pipeline:

1. Limited land supply is constraining housing delivery, with long lead times between land identification and shovel-ready development.
2. Infrastructure bottlenecks mean that 58% of identified greenfield land remains undevelopable without investment in roads, water and sewerage services.
3. Planning constraints and layered overlays slow approvals and restrict access to land that could otherwise support new housing.

Addressing these issues is critical to improving affordability and responding to housing supply constraints in Queensland. Solutions require early coordination, targeted funding and collaboration across government, industry and utility providers.

Coordinating infrastructure and land supply

Economic Development Queensland (EDQ) works with industry, community and government to align infrastructure delivery with housing priorities. By facilitating investment, enabling land supply and accelerating planning approvals, EDQ helps unlock growth in key greenfield areas.

Delivering on strategy: Key initiatives

EDQ supports infrastructure delivery and housing outcomes through targeted programs, including:

• Catalyst Infrastructure Fund (CIF): Offers low-interest loans to fund enabling infrastructure in Priority Development Areas (PDAs), supporting new residential communities.
• Growth Area Compact (GAC): Aligns cross-agency investment in emerging growth areas, with a focus on housing supply and infrastructure sequencing. Together with CIF, it is enabling around 37,250 new homes in key greenfield locations.
• Building Acceleration Fund (BAF): Provides co-investment for infrastructure that unlocks private development and supports job creation. Funding has been committed to projects enabling infrastructure for almost 7,200 lots, with no defaults on loan repayments to date.

Improving process efficiency

Recent legislative changes have helped streamline approvals and reduce timeframes for development applications and infrastructure charges decisions. EDQ has committed to KPI, targeting:

• Infrastructure offset and charges notices are processed within 30 and 10 business days respectively. *
• Development applications are determined within 40 business days. *

These changes are helping align planning outcomes with market conditions, giving industry greater certainty and improving delivery timelines.

Planning tools that respond to market needs

EDQ also applies flexible planning mechanisms such as Temporary Planning Instruments, Provisional PDAs and amendments to existing PDA Development Schemes to respond quickly to housing priorities and unlock land as conditions change.

Several large-scale projects are progressing within PDAs, with contributions from EDQ and delivery partners:

• Waraba PDA: EDQ secured funding from Unitywater ($90M program), the BAF ($25.55M loan) and SEQ City Deals GAC ($13M grant) is enabling water and wastewater infrastructure for 2,500 homes in the new Lilywood suburb. The broader PDA could support 30,000 homes for 70,000 people in the future city of Waraba.
• Ripley Valley PDA: A $27.5M infrastructure loan has unlocked over 9,100 lots, with an expected $943M in residential civil construction. The area has the potential to eventually accommodate 48,750 homes for a population of 131,000 people.
• Greater Flagstone PDA: EDQ is facilitating $56.2M in catalyst infrastructure, supporting the development of 25,636 new housing lots. The investment is expected to stimulate over $2.6 billion in residential civil construction, contributing to a $7.7 billion investment in housing development, enabling more than 52,000 dwellings for over 141,000 residents.

Working together to deliver housing at scale

Meeting Queensland’s housing needs relies on early coordination between infrastructure agencies, developers, councils and utilities. EDQ plays a facilitation role in this process by aligning planning frameworks, funding programs, development approvals and supporting infrastructure delivery and land activation in collaboration with stakeholders.

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