FERNY GROVE-UPPER KEDRONDraft Neighbourhood Plan Strategy

Brisbane City Council has prepared a draft strategy to guide the future of the Ferny Grove-Upper Kedron area.

To find out more or have your say visit www.brisbane.qld.gov.au and search for ‘Ferny Grove-Upper Kedron Neighbourhood Plan’ or call (07) 3403 8888.

CONTENTS

Introduction ...................................................................2

Background ..................................................................4

Vision for the area ....................................................... 12

Living villages ............................................................. 14

Getting around and being connected ..................................................................................... 19

Bushland lifestyles ....................................................... 24

Implementation plan ...................................................30

Next steps ...................................................................35

2 DRAFT FERNY GROVE-UPPER KEDRON STRATEGY

Introduction

2

About this draft strategy

Brisbane City Council is updating the neighbourhood plan for the suburbs of Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron following a direction by the Queensland Government to facilitate development in Upper Kedron. Drafting a strategy to guide the plan is an important step in this process.

The existing neighbourhood plan was adopted in 2007. In 2015, following a review of a development application for 390 Levitt Road, Upper Kedron, the Queensland Government directed Council to work with the community to update the neighbourhood plan. Determining how land south of Cedar Creek should be used is the major focus of this update.

Neighbourhood plans help guide future development, protecting aspects of the area that locals love and coordinating land use and infrastructure over a 10-year period. They ultimately become part of Brisbane City Plan 2014 (City Plan), which sets out the potential uses for each and every block in the city and the rules for how development can occur.

This strategy has been drafted so community members can consider the future of the entire Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron area together.

Now is the time to have your say about the future of your neighbourhood. Tell us what you think of the draft strategy and the proposals to protect local character while allowing for future development. The draft strategy and community feedback will guide Council’s update of the existing Ferny Grove-Upper Kedron Neighbourhood Plan in late 2016 for the area southof Cedar Creek.

Once updated to incorporate Cedar Creek South, the draft neighbourhood plan will be sent to the Queensland Government for review. Following this review, you will have the opportunity to provide additional feedback to Council before it becomes a legal document guiding future development over the next 10 years and beyond in the Ferny Grove-Upper Kedron area.

Have your say

Come along to a Talk to a Planner session to speak one-on-one with a Council officer, ask specific questions or get more detail on how to have your say.

You can also:

• call the neighbourhood planning team on (07) 3403 8888

• email us at neighbourhood_planning@brisbane.qld.gov.au

• provide your comments through our online form by visiting www.brisbane.qld.gov.au (search for ‘Ferny Grove-Upper Kedron Neighbourhood Plan’)

• post or email your own written submission.

Submissions on the draft Ferny Grove-Upper Kedron Neighbourhood Plan Strategy close on Monday 7 November 2016.

Come and talk with us

• Ferny Grove Shopping Village, 10.30am-1pm Wednesday 26 October 2016

• Ferny Grove Shopping Village, 5-7pm Thursday 27 October 2016

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UPPER KEDRON

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Study area boundaryBrisbane Local Government Area boundaryCedar Creek SouthSuburb boundary

Note: Map not to scale

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Railway networkOpen space

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DRAFT FERNY GROVE-UPPER KEDRONNEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN STUDY AREA

3DRAFT FERNY GROVE-UPPER KEDRON STRATEGY

4 DRAFT FERNY GROVE-UPPER KEDRON STRATEGY

Background

About Ferny Grove-Upper Kedron

Located on the outskirts of Brisbane City, Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron are residential suburbs much loved for their bushland setting, quiet family streets, and relaxed, outdoor lifestyle.

The area has great community facilities including two primary schools and a high school, sporting fields and 18 parks, a bowling club, public bus and train services, convenience shops and a tavern. It’s a short drive to shopping centres at Mitchelton and Keperra, and the CBD is a half-hour train trip from Ferny Grove Station.

Almost 10,000 people live in the study area, half of whom are under 14 years or over 65 years of age. More than 90% of houses in the area are stand-alone houses. With mostly stand-alone houses and only some townhouses choices are limited, so long-term residents may need to move away from Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron if their circumstances change.

The area supports employment for around 400 people who work locally at schools, shops and other small businesses.

65+

Community snapshot graphic

> 90%

live in a stand-alone house

21%

use the train to get to work

75%

use a car to get to work

25%

of residents are seniors (65+ years)

25%

of residents are children (14 years or

younger)

5DRAFT FERNY GROVE-UPPER KEDRON STRATEGY

The natural environment

Forested hills in and around the area offer a scenic backdrop to homes. Environmental reserves and bushland corridors border the suburbs on three sides and are considered important to the whole region. These are Keperra Bushland, Samford Conservation Park and a portion of the D’Aguilar National Park (formerly known as Brisbane Forest Park).

Locals enjoy bushwalking through eucalypt forests and the relics of old gold mines at nearby Bellbird Grove. The Walkabout Creek Discovery Centre is also close by, hosting the heritage-listed Enoggera Reservoir dam and water playground. The national park is popular for camping, horse riding, mountain biking and wildlife spotting. Many streams flow through the area and feed into Kedron and Cedar creeks, which are tributaries of Kedron Brook, one of the city’s major creeks. Kedron Brook’s headwaters, located in the national park in Ferny Grove, are critical to the health of the entire waterway.

Residents love the natural aspects of the area and understand the inherent risks of living close to this natural setting.

History

Aboriginal people who spoke the Yaggera language once camped in the area along creeks in the fern-filled gullies. Red cedar and pine drew the first Europeans in the 1840s and timber-getters soon cleared the land for farming. John Delaney Bergin became the first major landowner in 1865 and the first school opened a decade later as dairy farms and small-crop farms growing grapes, oranges and vegetables flourished. Ferny Grove-Upper Kedron remained a farming community and industrial area, with a large clay pit and tile factory operating south of the train station, until the 1970s and 1980s when the suburbs boomed.

6 DRAFT FERNY GROVE-UPPER KEDRON STRATEGY

A growing Brisbane

We all know Brisbane is a great place to live. As Queensland’s major economic, services and employment activity centre, the city will continue to grow. Over the next decade, we will need more homes as people relocate here and local residents move through different stages in life.

The Queensland Government’s South East Queensland Regional Plan 2009-2031 broadly sets out where new development can and cannot go in the region through an ‘urban footprint’, which responds to anticipated residential growth. Based on this plan, by 2031 Brisbane will need to cater for an additional 156,000 more homes than we had in 2006, 138,000 dwellings as ‘infill’ development and 18,000 houses in ‘greenfield’ sites.

Brisbane City Plan 2014 anticipates that infill dwellings will be located in established suburbs, around major shopping centres, along railway lines and busways. New houses in greenfield areas will focus on undeveloped sites suitable for housing such as Rochedale, Lower Oxley Creek and Upper Kedron.

The existing neighbourhood plan has been guiding the development of new homes in Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron since 2007. Council will use the latest flooding, bushfire and infrastructure information to update areas of the plan and assess the suitability of new sites for housing.

Future development must be carefully managed so it’s well designed, has good supporting infrastructure, fits in with nearby neighbourhoods and respects the ecological value of green spaces and waterways. Council will carefully assess potential locations and types of new housing to protect the natural environment for future generations. The neighbourhood plan will ensure the area has a wide range of housing options so people can stay in their community throughout their lives. It will also seek ways to improve access to active travel, public transport and road networks, and create more spaces for recreation and play.

Homes for older residents

Over the next 10-20 years, older residents may be looking to downsize from a large family home to something more manageable. Most people tend to find a pocket of Brisbane they like and try to stay local when their housing needs change, so ideally neighbourhoods should have homes that vary in size, style and price. We are now having longer retirements with greater independence than previous generations and most older residents want housing that allows them to ‘age in place’.

7DRAFT FERNY GROVE-UPPER KEDRON STRATEGY

A changing Ferny Grove-Upper Kedron

Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron have developed over the last 20 to 30 years through many small-medium scale greenfield subdivisions. Most homes in the area suit families and large households, and there are few units, townhouses or other types of housing suited to smaller households such as singles, older people or young families.

Since 2007, the existing Ferny Grove-Upper Kedron Neighbourhood Plan has guided residential development along Hogarth and Upper Kedron roads and focused commercial activities into existing centres. More parks and recreation spaces have been delivered, such as along Parksedge Street, and existing parks such as Upper Kedron Recreation Reserve have been improved.

The timeline below illustrates various changes that have occurred in Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron over the years. While some local neighbourhoods have been around since the 1970s, many are relatively new. Over the last five years, around 780 new homes have been built in communities such as The Palisades, Cedar Vue, Jarrah Estate and Parks Edge Estate. These estates are close to completion.

8 DRAFT FERNY GROVE-UPPER KEDRON STRATEGY

Ferny Grove-Upper Kedron timeline

1960s-1970s

• Ferny Grove tile factory closesand residential subdivisionstarts

• New schools established, railline to Ferny Grove electrified

• Farms in Upper Kedron reducerural production, grazingpaddocks retained

1980s-1990s

• Ferny Grove largely settled,few large lots remaining,shopping centre developed,schools expanded

• First subdivisions in UpperKedron commenced

9DRAFT FERNY GROVE-UPPER KEDRON STRATEGY

2000s

• South East QueenslandRegional Plan – urban footprintlocated midway betweenCedar Creek and Mt NeboRoad (2006)

• Ferny Grove Upper KedronNeighbourhood Plan adopted(2007)

• South East QueenslandRegional Plan – urban footprintextended to Mt Nebo Road(2009)

2014-today

• Infrastructure Agreement to transfer 90ha of landfrom Cedar Woods to Council for environmentalpurposes out of total area of 227ha (2014)

• Council approved Cedar Woods developmentapplication for a development permit for Stages1 and 2 and preliminary approval over the site(2014)

• Ministerial call-in development decision toapprove Stage 1 and preliminary approval overexisting Emerging Community zone land

• Ministerial direction to review the Ferny Grove-Upper Kedron Neighbourhood Plan (2015)

Community input so far

In November 2015, Council distributed a newsletter to local homes and businesses to let people know that a neighbourhood plan had started for the area, what the neighbourhood planning process covered and how people could be involved.

An online survey was available between November 2015 and March 2016. About half of responses were from residents of the area. More than half of respondents had lived in the plan area for more than ten years. More than three-quarters of local respondents live in a standalone house on a 600m2 block.

The top five issues as voted by survey respondents were as follows.

1. District roads

2. The environment

3. Community spaces and parks

4. Local roads

5. Buses

In April 2016, Council distributed a second newsletter calling for nominations from residents and business owners for a Community Planning Team (CPT). CPT members then shared their insights and valuable knowledge through a series of four workshops. For those who did not nominate for the CPT, Council held information kiosks at the Ferny Grove Shopping Village in April to talk with locals about the planning process and their ideas for the area.

10 DRAFT FERNY GROVE-UPPER KEDRON STRATEGY

Community engagement activities snapshot

11 November 2015

Launch of the online survey

31 March 2016

Closing of the online survey –

600 submissions

April 2016

Two Ferny Grove info

kiosks. Spoke with more than

60 people

May, June, July and

August 2016

Community Planning Team

meetings

November 2015 – August 2016

Individual feedback via emails and one-on-one

discussions with the project team

11DRAFT FERNY GROVE-UPPER KEDRON STRATEGY

Summary of community insights and ideas

Online survey Community Planning Team

• We love: natural green spaces, bushland The CPT worked with Council over four months character, proximity to parks, quiet and peaceful to provide invaluable local knowledge about area, space for kids to play. challenges and opportunities for the area.

These insights helped Council understand what • Opportunities to improve: getting in and out ofthe community considers important and wants our suburb, lot sizes allowed in the area, localfor the future. A summary of this feedback is road connections, bus services, bike paths,provided below. footpaths.

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• The natural setting ishighly valued and newresidential lots shouldrespect the area’sbushland character.

• Higher densitydevelopment shouldbe provided at thestation, not in theouter areas.

• Better shoppingfacilities are needed.

• More vibrant andcreative spaces wouldimprove options forwork-sharing, diningand entertainment.

• Smaller lot sizescould be consideredto assist withhousing affordability,for all ages anddemographics.

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• Part of the area’sattraction is itsproximity to naturalhabitat for wildlife.

• Wildlife is often seenalong the waterwayand bushlandcorridors.

• Being close tobushland andhaving opportunitiesfor bushwalking isimportant.

• Forested ridges areimportant visualfeatures.

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ND • Getting around the

suburb is difficult,whether by car,foot, bike or publictransport.

• The bus loop doesnot go far enough andservice times in theevening are too limitedand do not connectwith train times.

• More pedestriancrossings are neededat schools and schooltraffic at peak hours isheavy.

• People drive to thetrain station and can’tfind parking.

• New road connectionsare required to get outof the local area.