Article: Brisbane CBD hubs to drive future of city living

[ozbob]

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Brisbane CBD hubs to drive future of city living

Brisbane CBD hubs to drive future of city living

    by: Michelle Hele
    From: The Australian
    January 21, 2012 12:00AM

THEY may not be built yet, but they are the places that thousands of Queenslanders will soon call home.

Residential hubs and precincts built around existing infrastructure, and with a strong focus on public transport, are the future face of residential development.

Thousands of people are expected to move into these areas close to the Brisbane CBD within the next decade.

Developers have already recognised that buyers are not prepared to move into a community and wait for the facilities to eventually arrive.

They want it all at the start - shops, cafes, restaurants and public transport.

Current and future hubs all focus on higher-density living with multiple high-rise towers, and are proposed for sites close to public transport and taking advantage of existing infrastructure.

According to researcher Lachlan Walker of Place, South Brisbane and West End precincts are tipped to house an extra 25,000 residents by 2031, Fortitude Valley an additional 20,000 with 10,000 more predicted to move into Bowen Hills, as part of a push in inner-city suburbs to high-density population.

"A lot of the ones (suburbs earmarked for transit oriented development or residential hubs) are all inner-city locations, and the push for population in those areas is to try and prevent urban sprawl," he said.

Mr Walker said the aim was to capitalise on existing infrastructure in these locations.

He said there was about $30 billion being spent on infrastructure in inner-city locations.

He said the one problem with developing in these areas was making sure roads and public transport could cope with the increase in users.

"We are going to see a lot of people on our roads, absolutely," Mr Walker said.

He said one of the big problems in Brisbane and Queensland as a whole was a continued reliance on private transport to get around.

"I can't see us getting away from that," he said.

"(The current) transport infrastructure does not allow us to get on one mode of transport and get there quickly."

He said the areas would grow in appeal to Generation Y and the upcoming Generation Z - which he labels the Peter Pans and Snow Whites, who never want to grow up - because they could afford to live closer to the city, renting in high-density hubs, than they would if they were to buy a property.

Close-to-Brisbane hubs include the urban development area, Northshore Hamilton, and three projects by Anthony John Group - East Village at Cannon Hill, which will be launched this weekend, Southpoint in South Brisbane and The Boulevard at Buranda.

Over at Albion, FKP is pushing ahead with its Mill development on the site of the former flour mill. Lend Lease has already started its redevelopment of the RNA showgrounds at Bowen Hills.

[Derwan]

So they're calling them hubs - not transit oriented developments?  There was only one mention of TOD - as though it was synonymous with a hub.  But it conjures a very different image of what the development is.