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About Kooky and Shaka →The Queensland Government wants taller buildings in Bowen Hills. A media statement published on Thursday 17 September proposes raising the height limit in the Bowen Hills Priority Development Area from 30 storeys to 50, and says the 108 hectare area could then accommodate up to 27,000 homes.
The proposal is open for public comment through Economic Development Queensland until 9 October 2026, and the agency's consultation page gives November as the target for finalising it.
What would change
Bowen Hills is about three kilometres north of the Brisbane city centre. Planning there is controlled by the State through Economic Development Queensland and not by Brisbane City Council, under a development scheme that the agency is now proposing to amend for the fourth time.
The central change is height. The agency's consultation material says larger sites in the mixed use zone, those of more than 3,000 square metres, would be allowed buildings of up to 50 storeys. Twenty more storeys on a tower site adds floor space without adding land, which is the only way to increase capacity in an inner suburb that is already subdivided. The Urban Developer, reporting on the draft on 18 September, says the permitted ratio of floor space to site area on those larger sites would rise from 9:1 to 12:1.
The height change does not stand alone. The agency lists the removal of what it calls restrictive housing, sustainability and urban design requirements, the removal of value uplift charges, and more flexibility for proposals to be assessed on their performance against the scheme's outcomes instead of fixed standards. It also adds assessment criteria for noise, air quality and industrial hazards.
Related readRoads and sewers funded for 3,270 homes in Central Queensland and Bundaberg| Rule | Current scheme | Proposed |
|---|---|---|
| Height on mixed use sites over 3,000 sqm | 30 storeys | 50 storeys |
| Floor space ratio on those sites | 9:1 | 12:1 |
| Homes planned over the life of the area | 23,000 | Up to 27,000 |
| Value uplift charges | Apply | Removed |
| Artisan food and drink industry | No such use defined | New defined use |
Sources: Queensland Government media statement and Economic Development Queensland consultation material, 17 September 2026; floor space ratios as reported by The Urban Developer, 18 September 2026.
On those figures the height limit rises by two-thirds and the floor space ratio by a third, while the planned number of homes rises by a little over a sixth. The gap is explained by where the new limit applies. It covers only the larger sites in one zone, and the area also takes in showgrounds, parkland and railway land.
The last change is to what can happen at street level. The statement describes a dining and hospitality district, with the planning rules amended to support artisan food and drink businesses, boutique breweries and micro-distilleries. The agency's material defines the new use as the manufacture of boutique, artisan or craft food and beverage products together with associated retail sales, hospitality, tastings, tours or workshops.
How the rules reached this point
Bowen Hills was one of the first areas the State took over for planning purposes. The agency's records give the declaration date as 28 March 2008, one day after Northshore Hamilton, and the first development scheme took effect on 3 July 2009. It has been amended three times, on 1 April 2010, 21 June 2019 and 9 December 2022.
- 28 March 2008Bowen Hills is declared, placing planning for the area with the State.
- 3 July 2009The first development scheme takes effect. Three amendments follow, the latest in December 2022.
- March 2026The Queensland Government commits to reviewing the area's planning rules.
- 17 September 2026The proposed amendment is published and public notification opens.
- 9 October 2026Submissions close. The agency is aiming to finalise the scheme in November.
The area takes in the Brisbane Showgrounds, the Old Museum, Perry Park and two railway stations, The Urban Developer notes. It also has a new role. On 11 August 2025 the Queensland Government announced that the Brisbane Showgrounds would become the athletes' village for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, housing more than 10,000 athletes and officials during the Olympics, with the village to be converted to permanent housing afterwards. The 17 September statement adds that the development area neighbours the Victoria Park precinct being planned for the Games.
Related readFive developers chosen for nearly 2,200 homes at Northshore HamiltonThat investment is the backdrop to the timing. The housing proposal itself concerns private land across the existing development area.
The Woolloongabba precedent
The Government's case for the change rests on what it says happened elsewhere. According to the statement, similar amendments to the Woolloongabba Priority Development Area were followed by a 466 per cent increase in housing-related development applications in less than 12 months.
Woolloongabba is the closest comparison available. It is an inner-city area of almost the same size, 106 hectares, declared on 22 September 2023 and planned for more than 16,000 homes and up to 24,000 residents, according to the agency. Its amended development scheme took effect on 10 October 2025 after public notification from 7 to 29 August 2025, so the period the Government is measuring is the eleven months since.
The statement does not give the number of applications behind the percentage, and a large percentage rise can come from a small base. It is nonetheless the Government's evidence that the planning rules, in its view, were what held projects back.
The Bowen Hills timetable follows the Woolloongabba one closely. There, six weeks passed between the close of submissions and the amended scheme taking effect. A November finalisation at Bowen Hills would be a similar interval after 9 October.
An application is also an early step. It is a request for approval, and an approval is not a commencement. Whether taller limits produce homes depends on whether towers of that height can be financed and built at prices buyers or investors will pay, which planning rules do not control.
Related readHalls Creek declared a Priority Development Area for 12,000 homesWhat the industry has said
The Urban Development Institute of Australia's Queensland branch welcomed the draft. It said, as reported by The Urban Developer, that the amendments responded to industry feedback about feasibility in the current market.
Feasibility is the argument behind each of the removals. A requirement that adds cost to a project, or a charge levied when an approval allows more floor space than the scheme previously did, counts against a tower when its finances are assessed. The Government describes the package as removing red tape, and its statement says the changes allow about 4,000 more homes than the planning previously proposed for the area.
The other side of that ledger is what the requirements were for. The agency's material describes the provisions being removed as restrictive, and does not set out what, if anything, replaces them. Submissions during the notification period are the formal opportunity to raise that question.
Up to 27,000 homes is a planning capacity
The figure describes what the rules would permit across the area over its life if sites were developed to their limits. Spread evenly it is 250 homes per hectare. It is not a construction program and carries no completion date.
Existing buildings, owners with other plans and the pace of the apartment market all stand between a planning capacity and a census count. For comparison, Woolloongabba's planned 16,000 homes on 106 hectares is about 150 per hectare.
What the notification period involves
The notification period runs from 17 September to 9 October, which the agency counts as 15 business days. Submissions must be in writing, must identify the person making them, and are addressed to the Minister for Economic Development Queensland. They can be lodged by post, by email or through the agency's online consultation page, where the proposed scheme, a development charges and offset plan, an infrastructure plan background report and a regulation map are published.
For people who live or own property in Bowen Hills, the proposal bears on building heights next door, on traffic and on what kinds of business can open nearby. For owners of development sites, a 50-storey limit changes what a site can yield, though each project would still need its own approval from the agency.
Those approvals are where the proposal would first show up in the numbers. Economic Development Queensland reported on 24 August that it approved 14,687 homes across all Priority Development Areas in 2025-26, that applications rose 29 per cent over the year, and that more than 94 per cent were decided within 40 business days. A count of housing applications lodged in Bowen Hills after the amended scheme takes effect is the measure the Government has chosen for Woolloongabba, and the one it can be expected to report here.
For the wider city, Bowen Hills joins Woolloongabba and the Montague Road riverfront at South Brisbane as inner-ring areas where the State is using its own planning powers to raise residential capacity ahead of 2032 and for the decades after it. At Northshore Hamilton, where an amended scheme took effect on 21 November 2025, the agency named five developers for nearly 2,200 homes on 6 September. Bowen Hills has a larger planned capacity than Woolloongabba, and the agency's target would put its amended rules in force before the end of the year.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
