Article: Population cap plan for southeast Queensland

[ozbob]

From the Courier Mail click here!

Population cap plan for southeast Queensland

Population cap plan for southeast Queensland
Article from: The Courier-Mail

By Craig Johnstone

October 29, 2009 12:00am

LOCAL government leaders in Queensland's crowded southeast corner are trying to revive the debate on limiting population growth, saying the region needs to know whether it can cope with the number of people moving here.

Sustainable growth rates and policies aimed at encouraging people to settle outside the southeast will be examined in a high-level public inquiry into population policy next year.

The inquiry, commissioned by the Local Government Association of Queensland, will measure the capacity of southeast Queensland to meet the Bligh Government's target of having an extra 2 million people settle in the region over the next 20 years.

News of the inquiry follows Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's announcement that federal money for infrastructure would be tied to better urban planning.

With Australia's population expected to climb to 35 million in the next 40 years, Mr Rudd said Canberra should take responsibility for improving planning for Australia's cities.

"The time to prepare for that big Australia is now," he told Parliament yesterday.

However, Sunshine Coast Mayor Bob Abbot, a long-time advocate of population caps, said limiting such growth to the larger cities within 50km of the coast was "a recipe for disaster".

"It is not just about stopping population growth but how rural communities can benefit from having increased population and a broader spread of population," he said. "We've got policies on defence, health, everything else but there is no policy on population growth."

Both state and local governments yesterday cautiously welcomed Mr Rudd's plans to link national benchmarks on urban planning to future federal infrastructure funding.

But Lord Mayor and Southeast Council of Mayors chairman Campbell Newman warned against centralised land planning control.

"What we don't want to see is a top-down approach with distant federal bureaucrats dictating via the State Government what will happen," he said.

The inquiry follows lobbying by councils to have the sustainability of Queensland's population growth put back on the local government agenda.

LGAQ chief executive Greg Hallam said terms of reference for the inquiry would be drawn up within months.

[Dean Quick]

After years of poor planning and blunders by inept local councils, I am not surprised that this has been proposed. At least the federal gov't recognises the need for a different approach to sustainable planning for future growth. I guess if Little Mister Big stopped wasting time and money building roads and bridges to nowhere and actually concerned himself with real future orientated planning he might just keep his job.

[Jon Bryant]

The intention is correct but the mechanism is wrong.  By putting a cap on the popluation there is no incentive to change from the unsustainable urban sprawl developed to date.  All it does is limits the impact overall.  It is better to use growth to make the region (per person) more sustainable.  Noosa with it cap has limited the overall impact but has not encourage the existing unsutainable development to change one bit.  Only 1-2% use public transport in the Sunshine Coast.

The cap should be on a number of key indicators of the carrying capacity of the region.  The only way growth can occur is if the impact per person is reduced. This way we are encouraging development to be more and more sustainable.

[stephenk]

A population cap in SE Queensland is unworkable. Better town planning, increasing population density, limiting urban sprawl, and thus making public transport much more sustainable and efficient would be a better option.

[#Metro]

I don't think a cap would work, but if you can find a town willing to cap itself, by all means try it.
If successful, think that it might have a long run effect of increasing house prices.

Secondly, the council can't keep tabs on everyone because they only know about how many ratepayers there are. How are they going to enforce this? What if people have children and this breaches the cap? Will the cap then be amended to keep up?

And what does this mean for density? If you cap the population at X, then overflow will have to spill over into fringe areas of low density, far away from the "desirable area". This could be worse from a PT perspective.

If you look at the so called "world cities" (what a cliche!), they are all very dense and urban. There are buildings everywhere. Low density and good PT? Probably not likely.

[mufreight]

Tramtrain your comment is right on the mark.   

[awotam]

The practicalities of a population cap have always puzzled me. If the cap is set at "X", and a baby is born that takes the population to "X+1".... what then? 

[#Metro]

I think it would give rise to an unusual situation where the children are ready to leave home, would have to leave the entire region and go to the country (the reverse of what they want to do, esp. when they have careers to start).

Depends on whether the cap was uniform over the region or suburb level. But this would be fraught with political problems... it is very subjective thing to decide whether the suburb is half-full or half-empty. Just as contentious as arguing what the "right" height of a building is?

How long is a piece of string again?

There are other parts of the state that could become "CBD 2". Places up north like Rockhampton, Cairns, Townsville. Put proper PT and release land etc. Might draw people away from SEQ.

[brismike]

This is just pie in the sky stuff. It will never happen and whoever suggested it needs to get a real job.