Article: Brisbane's cityscape evolves as developments blossom

[ozbob]

From the Courier Mail click here!

Brisbane's cityscape evolves as developments blossom

Brisbane's cityscape evolves as developments blossom
Article from: The Courier-Mail

John McCarthy

November 16, 2008 11:00pm

BRISBANE will undergo a huge change that will affect your house, your street, how much you pay, how long you live there and where you work.
In less than five years parts of greater Brisbane will be unrecognisable as the city goes through one of the most important stages of development in its short history.

Northshore Hamilton, Amberley, Woolloongabba, Buranda and Fitzgibbon will boom and Ripley Valley should be starting its transformation from paddock to a new city.

The Boggo Road and TradeCoast developments will be completed; Bowen Hills and the airport will be emerging as major commercial centres.

TradeCoast, an area around Pinkenba and the airport, is expected to eventually accommodate 80,000 workers. In the southwest, Amberley's population is expected to grow fourfold as its aerospace industry takes off.

The tired suburb of Buranda could be transformed into a modern site of high-rise living and commercial space.

In the growth area of Ipswich, Mayor Paul Pisasale said planners were trying to identify ways for houses to become inter-generational and for suburbs to be transformed so that people never had to leave them.

Roads and tollways will split the city with the North South Bypass Tunnel and Airport Link, and the Northern Busway will make movement around the city very different.

A final route for a light rail system from New Farm to West End will be delivered in two years and could be under development by 2012.

Planning regulations and demands for more affordable housing will radically transform home design as will the pressures of climate change, according to architect Peter Richards.

"Councils are proscribing higher density so that sites of 600 sq m and above are going to be the exception rather than the norm," he said.

Any spare block of land will be pushed into development, with Brisbane expected to produce more than 145,000 extra dwellings to meet population demands by 2026.

Hassell's Lucy O'Driscoll said lifelong rentals will also become common.

Gardens are likely to start a migration to roofs or outside walls in the inner city, and in older suburbs houses are expected to be retrofitted into two or three dwellings, according to QUT's Centre for Subtropical Design.

Even in the small things we take for granted there are likely to be big changes.

Hassell forecast the remaining jacarandas at New Farm Park and others on city streets would finally succumb to age, drought and disease, resulting in the inner city areas losing their green tinge.

But the biggest change may be in the CBD as height restrictions become a memory and thousands more residents flood in to high-class residential developments sparking restaurant precincts and a better standard of entertainment.

North Bank may finally get developed and the CBD will jump the river and move into the Kurilpa area near West End.

Brisbane Marketing is working on a feasibility study for major tourist attractions in the city that could include a dining precinct and a Moreton Bay ferry terminal at or near the mouth of the Brisbane River for a faster and more effective link between the CBD and the Moreton Bay islands.

But the CBD's evolution will throw up other challenges including vertical sprawl where too many high rise towers are developed.

Property experts are also anticipating ageing baby boomers will dramatically change retirement villages from sleepy neighbourhood developments to high-rise resorts in the inner city where thousands are expected to move in coming years.

Let's hope public transport keeps pace this time!

[mufreight]

As an interested observer the article in the CM by Mr Mcarthy makes good reading but it would seem that public transport is not only lagging but actually falling further behind.
The Ripley Valley development being a case in point, the government has fast tracked the development and envisages 120000 residents but what provision has it masde for public transport,
The logical move would be to extend the Springfield rail line but that might be a little late, that line was originally to be completed by 2011 but now that has been stretched out to 2016 without two stations and single track from Richlands to Stretham despite the Transport Departments own passanger loading projections indicating that the Springfield line without any extension beyond Springfield (such as to Ripley) will need to be double track all the way from Darra to Springfield to carry the loadings in 2015, a full year before the present scheduled completion date for a basicly single track line.
Has anyone got a cure for shortsighted blinkered vision, if so please provide it to the Transport Minister and the present Government.

[O_128]

I would guess that if the richolands line has high patronage when opened 2 tracks will be built the rest of the way.as for inner city i hope that they make the puls factory move from southbrisbane.

[mufreight]

Well Mario 128, yes they well may but the setup costs alone by then will more than the actual costs of construction to complete the job now but obviously they have learnt nothing fron the Gold Coast railway, the Ferny Grove Duplication, need we continue, after all why should they care it's your money not theirs they get their over inflated salaries and efficiencies bonus's and they can come back for a second dip into the public purse again in a couple of years when they have to rectify their shortcomings.
Great ain't it. but this IS the SMART state.

[O_128]

really how much would it cost for some extra track. 90% of all of the earthworks will be done it will be cheaper with the electrics because you can use the posts that go over both tracks etc.Also dont forget the Ipswich line triplication and beenleigh triplication which both should have been Quadruplications!

[mufreight]

Point made, it is easier and less costly to do the job properly and do it once rather than do it in bits, the actual cost of the work will increase with inflation but the real killer is the costs of setting up again to complete a project after a lapse of time.