The last article was about development in Noosa and this one is about the wider Sunshine Coast.
This development model highlights the fact that the region is very physically attractive and a relatively close peri-urban community to Brisbane, so people will inevitably come here. Hence the massive housing developments planned for our outer perimeters.
These populations need to be serviced by new major community infrastructure such as hospitals, airports, train lines, universities, city centres, stadiums etc and these items leverage off one another to support an essentially new population.
At the moment we are a construction and tourism led economy but this model supports the ideal notion of workforce diversification, which might be more attractive to a wider spread of people.
It is interesting that the economic development strategy of the Sunshine Coast Council lists seven high value industry sectors but these do not include construction.
This is a high growth model which inevitably brings the dangers of loving the place to death. But the well-travelled might appreciate that some of the most populous areas of the world such as Hong Kong, Paris and even Sydney, have retained pleasant areas of natural beauty and social engagement.
The kicker however, is that it is infinitely harder to create these areas of respite later, so planning within our natural boundaries is all important now.
Adrian Just runs Archicology Architects at Yaroomba and is current Chair of the Sunshine Coast region for the Australian Institute of Architects.