# Construction starts on Logan's Chambers Flat plant for 20,000 homes
The sod was turned on 11 October on a wastewater plant funded with $136 million from the State's housing infrastructure fund, serving growth between Park Ridge and Yarrabilba.
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Premier David Crisafulli and Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie turned the sod on the Chambers Flat Wastewater Treatment Plant in Logan on Sunday 11 October 2026, according to a joint Queensland Government statement published that day. The plant is backed by $136 million from the State's Residential Activation Fund, and the statement says it will provide the wastewater capacity needed for future homes between Park Ridge and Yarrabilba, unlocking 20,000 of them.
The money itself is not new. The State committed it in June 2025, as the first approved project of the fund's first round. What is new is that the plant has moved from paper to ground: Logan Mayor Jon Raven, quoted in the same statement, described the start of major construction as a significant milestone for the city.
$136mState contribution from the activation fund
20,000homes the first stage is meant to serve
2028plant expected to be up and running
Queensland Government statements of 29 June 2025 and 11 October 2026; Logan Water community meeting notes of 29 July 2026.
## What was announced on Sunday
The 11 October statement rounds the State's contribution to $136 million. The original funding statement of 29 June 2025 gave the exact figure, $135.98 million, towards a project it costed at $334.53 million. On those two numbers, the State fund covers about 41 per cent of the reported cost of the plant. The statements read for this article do not set out how the balance is split, beyond Logan Water telling its community reference group in November 2025 that it will fund the remaining conveyance pipework itself.
The 2025 statement described the plant as part of Logan's local infrastructure plan, said Stage 1 would allow more than 20,000 new homes to be built from 2028, and said the plant would ultimately service more than 60,000 new homes once fully operational. It named Yarrabilba, Park Ridge and Logan Village as the growth areas that depend on it.
The Sunday statement placed the sod turning inside a wider set of housing figures. It cited Australian Bureau of Statistics data showing more than 52,500 homes under construction in Queensland in the June quarter, which the Government called the fourth consecutive record for the State's pipeline, and said the number under construction had risen 35.6 per cent in two years. The same statement acknowledged that pressures following this year's Federal Budget had affected the housing and construction sector nationally and would show up in future quarters. It also repeated the Government's claim that the Residential Activation Fund has unlocked more than 166,000 homes across the State.
Those ABS figures were already published in the June-quarter release. The development here is local: trunk infrastructure that several Logan growth areas have waited on is now under construction.
## Why sewage capacity decides where homes go
A new estate cannot be lived in without a connection to a sewer network that has room for it. That capacity is not built lot by lot. It comes from what Queensland's planning system calls trunk infrastructure: the shared pipes, pump stations and treatment plants that serve a whole area, as opposed to the pipes a developer lays inside an estate.
The State planning department's guidance explains that a council plans this shared infrastructure in a local government infrastructure plan, which sets out what is needed to service urban development and when. Logan City Council's page on infrastructure planning lists the networks its plan covers: water supply, sewer, stormwater, roads and paths, parks, and land for community facilities. Its current plan runs from 2020 to 2036.
When a development needs a network earlier than the plan schedules, or falls outside the area the plan expects to service first, the State guidance says a council can attach extra payment conditions to an approval. In practice, if the treatment capacity simply does not exist, there is nothing to connect to, and approvals stall.
That is the situation Logan described in 2025. In the June 2025 statement, Mayor Raven said that with the city's wastewater infrastructure at capacity, the council would soon have had to stop approving new housing. Logan Water made a similar warning at the time, reported by Utility magazine and The Urban Developer in July 2025: without a new plant, development across much of the city would stall by 2028. Both outlets reported that Logan expects its population to pass 667,000 by 2046.
## The plant, the site and the timeline
Logan Water's project pages describe the plant as part of a 144-hectare property on Pleasant View Road at Chambers Flat, which the council bought in September 2020. The treatment plant itself sits on a 7-hectare portion of it, according to the November 2025 community update, with the site reserved for all potential future stages.
The plant will use membrane bioreactor technology and produce Class A recycled water. Under its environmental licence, issued on 21 November 2025, about 90 hectares of the site are to be irrigated with that recycled water. The November 2025 notes record that the plant is designed to treat up to five times its average flow in wet weather before any bypass.
Logan Water's July 2026 notice of works lists the structures to come, from inlet works and an odour control facility to the membrane bioreactor, a dewatering building, an administration building and possibly a small solar array. A large solar array considered earlier has been dropped.
From land purchase to first flows
September 2020Logan City Council acquires the Pleasant View Road land at Chambers Flat.
June 2025The State commits $135.98 million from the Residential Activation Fund.
November 2025The environmental licence for the plant is issued.
2026Early works begin on site, and the sod is formally turned on 11 October.
Second half of 2028The plant is expected to be running, followed by about six months of commissioning.
By the July 2026 meeting, Logan Water reported that the old sheds and buildings had been demolished, boundary and sediment fencing installed, and bulk earthworks started, with concrete works to follow. The notice of works gives the construction period as 2026 to 2029. At the same meeting, Logan Water confirmed that this project is Stage One: the site masterplan allows for a three-stage plant, but no dates are set for later stages.
## Who pays: the State fund and infrastructure charges
Normally, trunk infrastructure in Queensland is paid for in large part through infrastructure charges. The State planning guidance explains that a council with an infrastructure plan can levy these charges on new development that adds demand to its networks, up to a maximum set in legislation, through an infrastructure charges notice. Logan's current charges resolution, number 12, started on 1 September 2025. Where a developer builds trunk works itself as a condition of approval, the charge can be offset or refunded.
The catch for a fast-growing council is timing. A treatment plant must be built and paid for before the homes that will pay charges exist, and the charges collected may not cover the full cost. Mayor Raven put it this way in June 2025, saying the fund would "save our ratepayers from having to fund the infrastructure charge shortfall".
The Residential Activation Fund was set up for exactly that gap. Its round one guidelines describe it as dedicated to accelerating trunk and essential infrastructure such as water supply, sewerage, stormwater, power, telecommunications and transport. Councils and developers could both apply, and applicants had to cover any cost above the State's contribution and any cost increases. The guidelines also state an expectation that where the fund pays for trunk infrastructure, neither the council nor the developer will seek an infrastructure charge payment or refund that would otherwise be payable for it.
The State's program page, updated in April 2026, gives the fund's total as $2 billion, says almost $994 million had been approved for projects by then, and says at least half of the funding goes outside South East Queensland. Chambers Flat is the largest of three Logan grants announced in 2025. Two later Logan projects were funded in August 2025: $20 million towards $61.3 million of works in the Flagstone Priority Development Area, and $10 million towards the $20 million Dollarbird Drive intersection in Yarrabilba.
Homes the State expects three Logan grants to unlockNumber of homes, as announced
Queensland Government statements of 29 June 2025 and 31 August 2025. Figures are the Government's estimates of homes enabled, not homes built.
Taken together, the three grants come to $165.98 million and the Government's estimates add up to 28,250 homes.
## The suburbs that depend on it
The plant sits at Chambers Flat, but the homes it serves are elsewhere. Logan Water's notice of works says it is built for expected population growth in the Park Ridge and Yarrabilba Priority Development Areas. The State's statements and Logan Water's updates also name Logan Village as a growth area within its catchment.
Yarrabilba is the largest of these. Economic Development Queensland's page for the area, updated in August 2026, says it was declared on 8 October 2010, covers 2,222 hectares and is planned for up to 50,000 people. Its October 2025 fact sheet names Stockland as the major developer. A new town of that size cannot keep growing without somewhere for its wastewater to go, which is why the June 2025 statement called the plant critical to Yarrabilba's continued development.
Park Ridge is the other end of the system. A Logan Water fact sheet from May 2025 describes a future pipeline to carry wastewater from Park Ridge developments to Chambers Flat, expected to be needed within five to ten years, with its alignment still under study. At the July 2026 meeting, Logan Water said pipeline alignments and timing were not yet locked in.
## What neighbours and buyers can expect next
For residents near the site, the July 2026 notice of works sets construction hours at 6.30am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday, with some out-of-hours work possible and nearby residents to be told beforehand. It warns of noise, dust, vibration and frequent trucks. Once running, the November 2025 meeting notes expect chemical deliveries and biosolids trucks at typically fewer than five a day, and no tanker trips for septic or recycled water.
The site plan includes a vegetated buffer about 50 metres wide along the boundary, which the July 2026 notes say will hold some 40,000 trees. The same notes say the plant will not be staffed around the clock: two to three people will work there by day, with alarms watched by a control centre at all hours. An emergency access road from McPherson Road is to be kept and upgraded so local residents can use it during floods.
The separate upgrade of Chambers Flat Road was listed as on hold in the November 2025 update. In July 2026, Logan Water said the site masterplan follows the current design for that future upgrade, but nothing is locked in.
For buyers and investors looking at Park Ridge, Yarrabilba or Logan Village, the practical reading is the timeline rather than the sod turning. The State's own statement links Stage 1 to homes beginning in 2028, and Logan Water's latest meeting notes put the plant in operation in the second half of 2028, followed by about six months of commissioning. Whether a particular estate or lot is affected depends on its own approval and on when its connection to the network is scheduled.
> A treatment plant is the part of a new suburb nobody sees, and the part that decides when the first families can move in.
Logan Water has said it will tell its community reference group once the pipeline alignments are settled. The next public markers are those alignments, the start of concrete works on site, and the plant's commissioning, which the latest published timetable places from the second half of 2028.