In an attempt to protect the Brisbane backyard and the city’s unique character the Brisbane City Council (BCC) will look at implementing some fairly significant changes to residential zoning come 2019.
“Our city’s history and character is vitally important. Protecting Brisbane’s way of life will mean our exciting future looks familiar, by retaining the things we love about our city. More choice for how residents live and relax will mean families can still choose to spend time in the quiet of their own yard.” Excerpt taken from Brisbane’s Future Blueprint document produced by Brisbane City Council.
What do these changes to town planning mean to me? You may ask.
From what we understand from information provided by BCC and in talking to several Town Planners this is what we know and feel property owners need to be made aware of, if they have not already done their own research.
The specific allotments that with the new changes will be affected include Low Density Residential (LDR)/Res A and Low-Medium Residential (LMR).
Once the changes are in place for LDR zoned real estate, there will no longer be the option to develop townhouses on these sites.
We will also see emerging community/future urban impacted, these sites will be audited and many will be rezoned to Low Density Residential (LDR). The re-zoning of emerging community to Res A will mean many emerging community properties will no longer have townhouse development potential, this will have an adverse effect on the value of these properties.
Our aim is to alert you without alarming you. But if you are one of many holding a large residential site, ie; 2500m2 or above, thinking you might like to cash it in as part of your superannuation plan, now would be the right time to seek advice from Full Circle Property to discuss your options.
As for LMR sites, from our research, it has been confirmed by a number of Town Planners that new changes will impact their yield, because of the following:
- An increase in deep planting from 10 to 15% of the total site area, will now reduce building footprint.
- Stricter compliance with minimum setbacks- will reduce the build footprint
- Increased car parking requirements for buildings in suburban areas this too will reduce the build footprint.
All three of the abovementioned points will reduce the building footprint on LMR sites and will more than likely mean less units or townhouses will be approved per site and again this will diminish the property’s value.
What we have also discovered is a number of areas within the BCC where biodiversity overlays will be added, the effect of this ranges from: hindering the potential development, to completely removing all development potential from the site.
“Does this affect me? And how much time do I have?” you may ask. The expected time frame for these changes to take place as we understand at this stage is 6 months.
“A lot of the clients we have seen in the market place who have large allotments or are zoned LMR are sitting tight on their properties thinking they have time to ‘cash in’ at a later date when they’re ready to retire.
There is still time to look at the options before the changes take place. There are large amounts of property out there that are worth more being sold to a developer than to an owner occupier.
If you have had any thoughts of selling it would be wise to access the impact of these changes and taking into account the effect they may have on your property.