Historic day for Caboolture West

The first development in Waraba – the name for Caboolture West – was today unanimously approved by Moreton Bay Regional Council.

Waraba will eventually be a city the size of Mackay with 70,000 residents and following the green light for its historic first development application.

Mayor Peter Flannery said Stockland will now be able to build 2050 homes over a 175.4 hectare area at 60-172 Litherland Rd (Upper Caboolture).

“Beyond the historical significance of this I’m most excited the design of this exciting new community will preserve more than one-third of the developable area as greenspace,” Mayor Flannery said. “We conditioned the developer to get started on infrastructure works first.

Getting it right

“Getting our infrastructure planning right from the start will not only make this future community a success, but it will provide people living in existing communities around the Upper Caboolture area with improvements to benefit their daily lives.

“The development we approved today will feature six distinct residential villages and a neighbourhood hub based on a series of walkable neighbourhoods, so there will be a green network linking all this together to encourage a healthy and active lifestyle for residents.

“It will deliver major upgrades to Caboolture River Rd and see 52.7 hectare of open and green space be transferred back to public ownership, which includes 32.3 hectares of conservations area, 17.5 hectares of district linear parkland and seven new recreation parks.”

The mayor said there will be a broad distribution of lot sizes, lot mix, block shape and detached, semi-detached and attached residences to achieve housing diversity.

“The design of this new community is centred around safety and convenience, with a focus on sub-tropical design principles and aesthetics,” Mayor Flannery added.

“At the heart of it all will be the central Neighbourhood Hub, with small-scale retail and commercial operations.

Green network

“The green network will consolidate and rehabilitate fragmented land parcels to create a connected network of quality environmental areas for recreation, conservation, biodiversity, and habitat values.”

This neighbourhood will offer low-to-medium density with between 11-30 lots per hectare over the 175.4 hectare development area, consistent with Council’s Planning Scheme.

It is the first development within the broader Waraba area which covers 3156 hectares with around 30,000 dwellings. Waraba could take up to 40 years to fully develop.

Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles says he is thrilled to see Council acting so swiftly, following the release of the Caboolture West Interim Structure Plan earlier this year.

“Queensland’s population is booming and this has had an impact on housing supply, which is why our government has fast tracked the planning for this community," he says.

“Our plan sets out spaces for homes, schools, neighbourhood facilities, parks and other recreational areas, roads and transport corridors as well as areas protecting environmentally valuable land and this is a huge step in the right direction.

“The Palaszczuk Government committed significant funding to deliver water and sewer infrastructure that will support development of new homes in Caboolture West, including $10.5 million from the Building Acceleration Fund and $15 million from the Growth Acceleration Fund, so it’s great to see movement at the site.”

What's coming

The development includes an Infrastructure Agreement that will see:

• The provision of seven local recreation parks, district open space and conservation areas totalling 52.7 hectares of public land.
• Rehabilitation of 17.7 hectares of land to be part of a green network precinct.
• Provision of all internal stormwater infrastructure necessitated by the development.
• Financial contributions towards a future district sports park and future regional sports park.

The Infrastructure Agreement also provides for major improvements to Caboolture River Road including:

• Provision of land to eventually allow the duplication of Caboolture River Rd.
• Upgrading the section between Walkers Rd and Grant Rd to four lanes.
• Construction of a three-way signalised intersection at Cresthaven Dr.
• Intersection upgrades to improve safety and efficiency at Virginia Rd, Forest Park Place and MacGinley Rd.
• Creation of a hybrid 2-lane roundabout at Albert Circuit.
• Decommissioning of the intersection at Litherland Rd.