TEN16422 - South Gracemere Local Area Plan
The purpose of this Invitation to Tender is to secure the services of appropriately qualified persons to develop a local area plan (LAP) for the southern area of Gracemere. The ‘South Gracemere Local Area Plan’ will be incorporated into the Rockhampton Region Planning Scheme to ensure appropriate planning and development controls are provided. This will ensure that diverse, accessible and well-serviced housing and land for housing is provided. In addition, this will support more affordable housing outcomes for the Rockhampton Region.
Gracemere has undergone a number of changes over the last 20 years, with periods of rapid population growth and development. Previously no local area plan has been developed for Gracemere, which has led to some fragmentation of residential subdivisions and a lack of streetscaping and other design elements. Gracemere is an important locality for residential growth within the Rockhampton Region planning scheme area and along with the locality of Parkhurst, it is strategically identified as an area to accommodate primarily urban expansion.
Gracemere will benefit from the application of consistent planning guidance and development controls. This will ensure a liveable, well-designed and serviced community to ensure well-being and enhanced quality of life for the current and future residents of Gracemere.
Gracemere also contains a number of large vacant or undeveloped land parcels within the existing urban footprint. These sites provide an opportunity to ensure higher density living on land well serviced with infrastructure, particularly where the sites will be located in proximity to existing commercial, employment and community services. In addition, the recent announcement of establishing a high school in Gracemere provides an opportunity to accommodate students and added incentive for families to live in Gracemere.
The local area plan will also consider other supporting land uses, such as a neighbourhood centre, open space and recreation, and community facilities. The local area plan will also help to resolve the existing land use conflicts with the landfill site and outline the realistic developable area in Gracemere by undertaking a number of studies such as flooding for the local catchment, ensuring the protection of environmentally significant areas, avoiding areas of high and very high hazard bushfire, and preservation of natural drainage corridors. Further refinement of plans for key infrastructure networks will need to be undertaken, and consideration be given to alignment with the Council’s Local Government Infrastructure Plan. The forward planning of all infrastructure networks is critical to provide cost-effective and efficient delivery of infrastructure and to contribute to developer certainty.
The South Gracemere LAP will provide information of major amendments to be undertaken to the planning scheme. Given the urgency to provide greater planning controls due to the development pressure expected in the short term, a tailored amendment process will be undertaken under section 18 of the Planning Act 2016. This tailored process will ensure a fast track amendment process and include early State agency engagement, remove ministerial steps and coordinate multiple steps together (state interest review and community consultation).
The proposed area for the South Gracemere LAP will include the established residential areas of Gracemere, large infill residential zoned sites, the proposed Gracemere High School site and other community infrastructure, significant waterways, natural areas and drainage corridors, large vacant greenfield sites, rural residential sites and rural land.