Speech to Chambers

Delivered by Councillor Seal Chong Wah, to the Debate on E&C Committee Report Clause A – Amendments To Brisbane City Plan 2014 – Stones Corner Suburban Renewal Precinct, 11th November 2025

I rise to speak on the E&C Report Clause A, about the Stones Corner Suburban Renewal Precinct.

Surely we should not be endorsing this Precinct Plan until the Norman Creek Flood Study is completed. 

I was under the impression that this study would be completed first, to ensure we wouldn’t put new residents in harm's way. 

Based on my experience of this Council administration, I do not trust that this Precinct Plan will be amended after the flood study is completed. 

We know that in other catchment areas, this Council has not amended density increases when new data shows that the precinct flooding severity has increased.

As we have seen in new flood studies in the Breakfast Creek/Enoggera completed recently, many more areas are being added to high risk flood zones due to climate change impacts.

This Council wants us to vote today on upzoning the precinct right next to the creek before the flood study is completed.  It is highly likely to shift more of this precinct into high risk flood zones. 

Once again, this Council is letting developers build towers in what are or will be high risk flood zones. We’re learning nothing.

Apartment blocks along the river in West End get flooded routinely. Towers and blocks in Milton, Auchenflower and Toowong get flooded as well. 

This Council knew that this land flooded, but rezoned these areas to let developers build high-density housing there anyway. 

The same has happened in Newstead, where earlier this year we found that dozens of new apartment buildings have been built in a flood plain formed by the confluence of Breakfast Creek and the Brisbane River.

The residents that end up living in the high risk flood zone areas will get trapped in their apartments during floods. 

Their insurance premiums will continue to explode, if they can get insurance at all. All because this Council administration keeps letting developers profit from building towers in high risk flood zones.

And now this Council administration wants to ram through an amendment to let developers build towers next to Norman Creek before we know exactly where it will flood. 

Locking hundreds of future residents into the same fate.

That’s not to say there isn’t any land in Stones Corner that doesn’t flood. There is land that can be built on and lived on sustainably. But we need flood studies to find this out.

And for the land that is safe to live in, we need inclusionary zoning.

We keep on seeing new housing in Brisbane that’s completely unaffordable for ordinary people. Rent and house prices are still soaring, pushing low and middle income renters out to Brisbane’s fringes. This is another trend that we cannot sustain. 

Good international benchmark policy is ensuring a quarter of new dwellings are public or social housing. 

Genuine affordable public and community housing is the only way to guarantee people that are struggling can afford to live in this city.

This administration keeps calling Brisbane a sustainable city. 

What kind of sustainable city builds on flood plains? 

What kind of sustainable city pushes working and middle class people out to its fringe?

We can’t sustain this.