Housing infrastructure fund tally passes 166,000 homes of capacity

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Central Queensland is the latest region to be funded in the second round of the Residential Activation Fund. A Queensland Government media statement published this morning, Thursday 24 September, allocates $55.5 million to four projects and says they will open the way for 2,899 homes.

With it, the Government's running total for the fund reaches more than 166,000 homes of capacity across the State. On 31 July the same figure stood at more than 141,000.

The four Central Queensland projects

The projects are spread from the Capricorn Coast to the Dawson Valley, and no two are alike.

The smallest grant has the largest stated effect. The statement says the Gracemere pump station alone is expected to open the way for more than 1,000 homes, more than a third of the regional total, for $7.5 million. A pump station sets the capacity of the sewer network behind it, so replacing one can release land across a whole catchment.

Theodore is a different case: the money there goes to the town's water treatment plant, not to a particular estate. The two Capricorn Coast projects are the more familiar kind, with roads and mains built ahead of subdivisions near Yeppoon.

Hidden Valley is not new to the Government's statements. On 17 June it put funding for the same residential precinct at $25 million and 1,500 homes, and said construction of the first stage of an east-west connector road had begun; today's statement lists the precinct at $24.6 million, and its regional total counts that money once. The same statement gave $4.3 million for road and stormwater works serving a retirement village of more than 500 homes at Parkhurst, in Rockhampton's north.

Across both rounds of the fund, today's statement says, Central Queensland has received more than $87 million for about 7,000 homes of capacity. The four new projects account for $55.5 million of that money and 2,899 of those homes.

Tracking the tally

The Government has restated the fund's statewide total with each regional announcement. Six statements over eight weeks show how it has moved.

The total rose by about 25,000 homes between the first and the last of the six statements. More than half of that came in a single step. The Fraser Coast announcement of 12 August put nearly $100 million into projects it said would open the way for more than 14,000 homes, and the statewide figure moved from 141,000 to 155,000 with it. Two of those projects are plant and pipeline on a regional scale: a $50 million upgrade of the Pulgul Creek sewage treatment plant, for about 5,000 homes, and a 27 kilometre water main costing $40.4 million, for 5,530. A third, $7.46 million of sewer infrastructure at Fraser Lakes, was put at about 4,000 homes.

The series began on 31 July with Bundaberg, where $52 million across three projects was put at more than 4,700 homes. The largest of the three, $38 million for infrastructure on Back Windermere Road, sat alongside water and sewer works at Elliott Heads and pump station upgrades at Ashfield.

The later statements are smaller. Townsville's four projects on 18 August were put at about 4,900 homes, the three in the North West on 11 September at 167, South Burnett and Somerset's on 14 September at 710 and Central Queensland's at 2,899. With the Fraser Coast, the announcements made after 31 July add up to about 22,700 homes, most of the 25,000 increase. One statement in the period, for the second phase of the Gympie water treatment plant upgrade on 13 August, gave funding of more than $66 million without a home count.

A longer view shows how fast the figure has grown since round 2 decisions began. On 17 June the Government put the fund at more than 98,000 homes across 98 projects. Three months later it is more than 166,000.

What a home of capacity costs

Dividing each announcement's funding by its stated homes gives very different results from one region to the next.

The spread reflects what is being built and where. In the North West, $28 million across three shire council projects at Burke, Cloncurry and Richmond is to service 167 homes, in towns where a few dozen new lots is a significant addition and where every metre of road, sewer and water main serves few properties. In South Burnett, most of the $70 million goes to 8.4 kilometres of trunk water mains and 5.5 kilometres of sewer mains in Kingaroy.

At the other end, a treatment plant or a pump station in a growing coastal city is credited with thousands of homes at once. Neither end of the chart measures value for money. A remote town cannot add housing at all without the works, and a coastal figure counts every home the plant could eventually serve.

What the tally measures

The figure is capacity. It counts the homes that the funded roads, mains, pump stations and treatment plants would allow to be connected. It is not a count of approvals, starts or completions.

The fund's own rules draw the same line. According to the State Development department's guidance for round 2, the money pays for trunk and essential infrastructure, and specifically excludes subdivision works inside an estate, the preparation of lots and the building of dwellings. Councils, developers and landowners can apply. An applicant has to show that the housing is new, or a new stage, and cannot proceed without the infrastructure.

The guidance does set a clock on the works, if not on the homes. Construction of a funded project must begin within 12 months of its announcement and be finished within three years. For the four Central Queensland projects that means a start by September 2027 and completion by September 2029.

There is early evidence of what that looks like in practice. The North West statement of 11 September reported that a round 1 project in Mount Isa, $5 million of works on Gliderport Road for more than 40 homes, had been completed five months after construction began.

How the fund is structured

The fund is worth $2 billion in total. The Bundaberg statement of 31 July described it as a two-stage design, with round 1 supporting planning and round 2 funding construction, although some round 1 grants, such as Mount Isa's, also paid for works. The Government doubled round 2 from $500 million to $1 billion, it announced on 14 June, after receiving 209 applications by the closing date of 24 April: 73 from South East Queensland and 136 from regional, rural and remote areas.

At least half of the $2 billion is to be spent on land supply in regional Queensland, according to a statement of 1 April. The six announcements tracked here are all regional.

Some regions have now been funded in both rounds, and the statements give running totals for them. Townsville has received $159.7 million, including more than $80 million in round 2 for trunk water and sewer infrastructure in the Upper Ross, which the Government put at about 3,500 homes, with a reservoir duplication at Mount Margaret for 730 more and works at Mount Low for nearly 700. Gympie's water treatment plant has drawn more than $100 million across its phases. Central Queensland's total of more than $87 million sits below both.

The statements place the fund alongside the Government's other housing measures, including a commitment of one million homes by 2044, $30,000 First Home Owner Grants, the removal of stamp duty on new builds and more than $2 billion of joint Federal and State funding intended to support 51,000 homes. The 31 July statement also said a record 50,000 homes were under construction across Queensland.

For the communities concerned, the announcements mean that the least visible obstacle to new housing, the capacity of water and sewer networks, has been funded. The homes are the next step, and that one belongs to councils, developers and builders.

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.

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