LNP Council Continues to Push Through Unsustainable Development
Speech to Council Chambers, delivered by Councillor Seal Chong Wah on Tuesday 17th March 2026
Responding to:
Amendments to Brisbane City Plan 2014 — Indooroopilly,
Carindale and Nundah Major Centres, & Wynnum Centre
Suburban Renewal Precinct E&C Committee Clause A & B
I rise to speak on the E&C Committee report clauses B, regarding proposed amendments to the City Plan relating to WYNNUM CENTRE SUBURBAN RENEWAL PRECINCT
I’ll start with the obvious: these are all major upzonings. Most of the Wynnum Centre precinct will increase to 15 storeys.
To be clear, upzoning can be positive. Dense, affordable neighbourhoods around major public transport nodes, with tree canopy, parks, and green space, are much more sustainable than clearing forests for suburban sprawl. People living in apartments trade away yards to be closer to common spaces like Council libraries, parks, and pools.
But the trees, affordability, parks, community facilities, and infrastructure need to be there.
These plans lack any new parks or green space.
Brisbane’s dense neighbourhoods already lack adequate park space per household. This administration is expecting these precincts to house thousands more people, but it can’t even set aside a pocket park.
Developments in these locations will require just 10% deep planting. Precinct plan amendments can improve deep planting requirements, like the 15-20% required in Moorooka’s ‘Magic Mile’ precinct.
But these ones won’t.
Through performance outcomes, developers get away with even less than 10%. 11 days ago, this administration approved a 27 storey tower in Milton with no deep planting at all.
Is this a cruel joke?
This city is getting covered in more concrete, which traps heat. It scorches you during the day, and keeps neighbourhoods hot at night, risking heat stroke, hospitalisation, and even death.
The science is extremely clear: more concrete traps heat in our cities through the urban heat island effect. Trees cool our cities through transpiration, and tree canopy interrupts part of the urban heat island process. We need more deep planting to be resilient to heat waves and climate change.
This LNP administration’s lack of action has facilitated the cutting down of Brisbane’s canopy by developers.
Brisbane can’t sustain the kind of development being voted on here today.
Wynnum residents, who are present in the gallery (wearing yellow), have raised major concerns about services, infrastructure, community facilities, and tree canopy. In the Wynnum precinct, trains only run half-hourly during the day, and bus service is abysmal. This whole precinct contains just one green space; Wynnum Central Park. The Wynnum Centre Precinct Plan will create a concrete jungle!
Upzoning like this also hands property owners, shopping centres, and developers millions in property value for nothing. This Council doesn’t capture any of that value for the public.
In Wynnum Centre precinct they’re largely 2 or 3 storeys tall. Developers can already build 12 or 8 storey towers in these precincts. But instead, they’ll make money for nothing by holding these sites empty and lobbying this administration to increase the height limit. They profit once the Council passes these amendments.
Why won’t this administration push vacant and landbank property onto the market through a vacancy levy?
And rather than hoping that some new dwellings will be affordable, why not mandate inclusionary zoning for social housing?
Wynnum residents are not being heard! And were denied full transparency!
Residents requested the Council’s economic feasibility study behind this plan, and they were refused. Over 500 people poured time into submissions for the Wynnum Central Suburban Renewal Precinct Plan.
They proposed sustainable ways to reshape the precinct; to put people first in this process. It’s awful that this administration barely listens, but it gives me hope that residents put forward a vision of something better.
Cr Givney, through the chair, has been quoted saying in the Redland Bayside news on the 26th of September, 2025, “Local voices will shape how we grow, ensuring the plan echoes the values and aspiration of Wynnum residents”. I will leave it here!
