Policy Online carries a link (17.1.17) to an article posted at the ‘Urban Developer’ blog site, asking whether there is an appropriate balance between jobs growth and housing growth forecasts in the state government’s draft SEQ Regional Plan.
‘The draft South East Queensland Regional Plan (link is external), released for comment last year, has made a number of improvements on previous versions. There will always be dissent from industry and property sector interests and there are certainly some sections of the plan and its intended application that really should be amended once the comment period closes on March 3rd.
‘But there’s one aspect in particular which goes to some of the fundamental assumptions in the draft and that’s the balance between jobs growth (where people are expected to work) and housing growth (where they’re expected to live).
‘The draft SEQ plan takes its assumptions about future employment and housing growth from Queensland Treasury. The people drafting the plan have altered some of the housing and population projections because they are closer to this land use consideration than a room full of Treasury economists, but they have largely left the future employment projections intact.
‘Previous versions of the SEQRP made only scant reference to where people actually work so this latest draft is a significant improvement in that it addresses this side of the equation, but there is clearly more work to be done as I am sure they’d agree.’