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Kooky
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About Kooky and Shaka →Work has started on a new connector road south of Yeppoon that is intended to open up a 1,500-home precinct, the Queensland Government said in a media statement on 17 June 2026. A second statement the next day, 18 June, listed three funded projects in the Bundaberg region. Together the two statements describe five infrastructure jobs paid for through the State's Residential Activation Fund.
None of the five is a housing project in itself. Each is a road, a sewer or a treatment plant that has to exist before homes can be connected.
Queensland Government media statements, 17 and 18 June 2026. Totals are sums of the announced figures.
The five projects
The largest in Central Queensland is $25 million toward the Hidden Valley Residential Precinct south of Yeppoon. The statement says construction has begun on stage one of the East West Connector Road, which will link the precinct to the Yeppoon to Rockhampton road. It also says a first development application, for 300 homesites, has been lodged, and that construction of those lots is expected to begin in early 2027.
At Parkhurst in Rockhampton, $4.3 million goes to road upgrades for a retirement village being developed by Living Gems. The statement lists traffic lights, signage and stormwater works among them.
In the Bundaberg region, the biggest grant is $22 million for trunk sewer, water and roadworks at the Coral Cove Ocean Estate. A further $7.7 million goes to Bundaberg Regional Council for an upgrade of the Millbank Wastewater Treatment Plant, and $1.02 million to a sewer and roadworks project with a private developer.
| Project | Works | Grant | Homes the State counts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hidden Valley, Yeppoon | Connector road, stage one | $25 million | 1,500 |
| Parkhurst, Rockhampton | Road upgrades and stormwater | $4.3 million | More than 500 |
| Coral Cove, Bundaberg region | Trunk sewer, water and roads | $22 million | More than 1,200 |
| Millbank plant, Bundaberg | Wastewater treatment upgrade | $7.7 million | Not stated |
| Bundaberg sewer and roads | Sewer and roadworks | $1.02 million | More than 70 |
Queensland Government media statements, 17 and 18 June 2026. Home counts are the Government's estimates of homes the works make possible.
The five grants add up to about $60 million: $29.3 million in Central Queensland and $30.72 million in the Bundaberg region. The four projects that carry a home count come to at least 3,270 homes. The treatment plant upgrade has no figure attached in the statement, which is reasonable: a plant serves a whole network and not one estate.
Related readHow a development gets approved in Queensland: from application to decisionThree stages of progress
The five jobs are not at the same point, and the statements are careful about the difference.
The small Bundaberg sewer and roads project is the furthest along. The 18 June statement says it has reached practical completion, the point at which works are finished and handed over. Its 70 or so homes are described as brought forward, which is a more modest claim than a new estate and probably a more exact one: the land was always going to be developed, and the grant moved the date.
Two projects are under construction. The Hidden Valley connector road is one, and the Millbank treatment plant upgrade is the other, with the statement saying building work there has commenced.
For the Coral Cove and Parkhurst projects, the statements give the amount and the scope and say less about the stage reached. Roads and sewers have started, in other words, on some of the five sites, and the statements do not claim machinery on all of them.
Why regional estates wait for pipes
The cost of trunk infrastructure does not shrink with the size of the town. A connector road or a sewer main costs much the same per kilometre in Yeppoon as on the edge of Brisbane, but lot prices in a regional centre are usually lower. That leaves less margin to pay for the works up front, and estates can sit approved but unbuilt for years.
A grant changes that sum. The amounts vary widely per home counted. At Hidden Valley, $25 million against 1,500 homes works out at roughly $16,700 a home. At Coral Cove, $22 million against 1,200 homes is roughly $18,300. The small Bundaberg sewer and roads job, at $1.02 million for about 70 homes, comes to roughly $14,600, and the Parkhurst road upgrades, at $4.3 million for 500 homes, to $8,600. These are simple divisions of the announced figures and say nothing about total infrastructure cost, since a grant may cover only part of a project.
Related readInfrastructure charges in Queensland: who pays for the roads and pipesThe same measure is part of how the fund chooses. The program guidelines for round two, published by the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning in February 2026, list cost per residential lot among the tests of value for money, next to a comparison of what would happen with and without the funding. They also ask applicants to show that the infrastructure is a major constraint on land supply in an area with a documented housing shortage.
The guidelines draw a firm line around what a grant can buy. Trunk water, sewerage, stormwater, transport and higher-order power and telecommunications are in. The roads and services inside a subdivision, the preparation of lots for sale and the building of homes are out. Every project in the table sits on the eligible side of that line, which is why none of them, taken alone, produces a house.
The five also show the two kinds of applicant the fund accepts. Under the guidelines a local government can apply, as Bundaberg Regional Council did for the Millbank plant, and so can a developer or landowner that is an Australian-registered company holding a development approval for residential development in Queensland, which is the route open to the developers of estates like those named here. A co-contribution from the applicant is not compulsory, though the guidelines say confirmed co-funding is looked on more favourably. The two statements give the grants and not the full cost of each job, so the share carried by the councils and developers involved is not known.
Related readLakesview at Robina wins State approval for 2,500 Gold Coast homesNot the first grants for either region
Both regions already had projects from the fund's first round. A Queensland Government statement of 8 July 2025 announced $27.58 million for three Rockhampton projects, which it tied to more than 3,600 homes. The largest was $17.26 million toward a $23 million package of enabling infrastructure at Parkhurst, the same suburb as the retirement village road upgrades. The others were $9.75 million toward a $13 million disinfection facility at the North Rockhampton sewage treatment plant, and support for the planning and design of a trunk sewer network at Limestone Creek.
That history is a reminder that a growth area usually needs several pieces of infrastructure, not one. Parkhurst has now appeared in two announcements a year apart, once for the network that serves the suburb and once for the road connections to a single development within it.
Regional applicants have been the majority in both rounds. The June statements restate that round two drew 209 submissions, 136 of them from regional, rural and remote areas and 73 from South East Queensland. The 2025 statement gives the round one figures as 178 submissions, 114 of them regional. At least half of the $2 billion fund is reserved for projects outside the south-east.
What happens from here
The Hidden Valley timeline in the statement shows how long the sequence runs even after funding.
- NowStage one of the East West Connector Road is under construction. A first application for 300 homesites has been lodged.
- Early 2027Construction of the first lots is expected to begin, once the application is approved.
- Over about ten yearsThe remaining homesites follow in stages, to a planned total of 1,500.
The first application covers one fifth of the precinct. It has only just been lodged and still has to be assessed. Houses follow lots, so the first residents come later again, and the statement describes the whole precinct as a ten-year rollout.
That is the normal rhythm of greenfield housing, and it is why counts of homes "unlocked" should be read as capacity created over time. The fund's own rules allow for it: the round two guidelines give a successful project 12 months from its announcement to start construction and three years to finish.
Both statements also restate where the wider fund stands. It totals $2 billion. Round one supports 98 projects, which the Government says will unlock more than 98,000 homes. Applications for round two closed on 24 April 2026; the round has since been doubled from $500 million to $1 billion, the second time a round has been doubled, and its successful projects are expected to be announced from mid-2026.
For the Capricorn Coast and the Bundaberg region, the more immediate news is simpler. One job is finished, two are being built, and the first 300 lots of the largest estate have an application in the system.
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.
