# Southern Thornlands plan for 8,000 homes goes out for public comment The proposed development scheme for the Southern Thornlands Priority Development Area in Redland City is open for submissions until 15 September, with $544 million of infrastructure listed. --- The planning rules for one of South East Queensland's largest new communities are now on public display. Economic Development Queensland is taking submissions on the proposed development scheme for the Southern Thornlands Priority Development Area until 15 September, and Redland City Council has urged residents to take part, Inside Local Government reported on 12 August 2026. The scheme would guide about 8,000 dwellings for up to 24,000 residents. Economic Development Queensland's consultation page gives the notification period as 3 August to 15 September 2026, which it counts as 30 business days. ## What the scheme proposes Southern Thornlands was declared a Priority Development Area on 4 April 2025. A declaration moves planning and assessment for an area from the council to the State's development agency. The development scheme is the document that then sets land uses, densities and infrastructure. According to Economic Development Queensland, the area covers approximately 890 hectares. Inside Local Government's report rounds this to approximately 900 hectares. The consultation page lists more than 150 hectares of green space, recreation areas and environmental corridors, 11 neighbourhood recreational parks, two primary schools and one secondary school, and approximately 100 hectares of employment land placed along Boundary Road and Mount Cotton Road. The housing is meant to be mixed. The proposed scheme, dated August 2026, provides for secondary dwellings, dual occupancies, terraces and multiple dwellings alongside detached houses, with multiple dwellings of up to three storeys near the centres. It sets a target net residential density of 25 dwellings per hectare. At that density, 8,000 dwellings would occupy about 320 hectares of net residential land, a little over a third of the area. The scheme document contains no affordable housing quota. Inside Local Government reports that an early release area is already under construction, with up to 1,000 dwellings for about 2,900 people. The agency places the plan in the context of the city's growth. Its consultation page says Redland City is forecast to grow from 172,831 people in 2025 to more than 212,000 by 2046. The 24,000 residents the scheme allows for would account for more than half of that increase of roughly 39,000. ## Centres, schools and green corridors The scheme document is organised in four parts: a land use plan, an infrastructure plan, an implementation strategy and schedules that define which development needs assessment. The land use plan fixes the main structural elements of the new community.

What the proposed scheme sets asideSouthern Thornlands Priority Development Area

Element	What the scheme provides	Standard or size
Centres	One district centre and three local centres	Up to 9,400 sq m of retail in the district centre; 3,900 sq m in each local centre
State schools	Two primary schools and one secondary school	7 hectares for each primary; 12 hectares for the secondary
Neighbourhood parks	One park for every 2,500 residents	At least 1 hectare, within 500 metres of homes
District sports park	One for every 10,000 to 20,000 residents	7.5 hectares
Ecological corridors	A green network in three tiers	300, 100 and 50 metres wide
Industry and enterprise	Low and medium impact industry	100-metre transition buffers to housing

Source: Economic Development Queensland, Proposed Southern Thornlands PDA Development Scheme, August 2026.

The park standard can be checked against the headline numbers. One neighbourhood park for every 2,500 people would require about ten for a population of 24,000, and the consultation page lists 11. The scheme also allows an existing independent school inside the boundary, Sheldon College, to intensify its use of its site. Waterways that the scheme classes as of high or moderate significance may not be realigned. The document addresses bushfire, flood, acid sulfate soils and landslide hazards. ## The $544 million question The largest number in the documents is the infrastructure bill. Economic Development Queensland lists $544 million of catalyst infrastructure for the area.

Infrastructure listed for Southern Thornlands$ million, by network

Source: Economic Development Queensland, Southern Thornlands consultation page, August 2026. The five amounts add up to $544 million.

Roads and transport take close to half of the total, and sewerage a quarter. The scheme's infrastructure plan shows how the sewer figure is built. It separates municipal infrastructure, the trunk works inside the area that serve only the new community, from sub-regional infrastructure, which lies outside the boundary but is needed to service it and is shared with other growth areas. For sewerage, the municipal works are costed at about $27.9 million and the sub-regional works at $109 million. Four-fifths of the sewer bill, in other words, is for works beyond the area itself. The two sources describe the money differently. The agency's page presents $544 million as an infrastructure commitment. Inside Local Government reports it as the amount the Queensland Government expects to collect in infrastructure charges from development in the area. The two readings are compatible, since charges paid by developers are the usual way such works are funded in a Priority Development Area, but they are not the same statement. ## What each new home would pay The proposed scheme publishes the charge itself. For a home with three or more bedrooms the development charge is $53,500, made up of a municipal charge of $43,000 and a sub-regional charge of $10,500. For a home with one or two bedrooms it is $38,214, made up of $30,714 and $7,500. The rates are expressed in 2025-26 dollars and indexed each year. The charge falls due late in the process. The scheme says it is payable before the earliest of three events: endorsement of a building format plan, the issue of a certificate of classification, or the start of the use. It is paid by whoever develops the land. How much of it reaches the price of a finished home depends on the market at the time. Some arithmetic gives a sense of scale. If all 8,000 dwellings paid the higher rate, residential charges would raise $428 million at today's rates. If all paid the lower rate, they would raise about $306 million. The real figure will lie between the two and will be added to by charges on the employment land and the centres, and by indexation. This is an illustration from the published rates, not a figure in the scheme. Delivery is spread over more than two decades. The infrastructure schedules run from 2027, when a first sewerage pump station and a first neighbourhood park are listed, to 2049. A transport corridor and three water mains are scheduled for 2029, and a water reservoir, a bridge and gravity sewer mains for 2031. The scheme says trunk infrastructure may be delivered by the relevant provider, including Redland City Council, or by developers where a condition of a development approval requires it. Schools, emergency services and health facilities are funded separately through the State budget. That is where the council has placed its marker. Redland City Council takes part in an advisory capacity only, Inside Local Government reports, and its stated position is that the State should fully fund critical infrastructure both inside and beyond the area's boundaries, at no cost to the council or local ratepayers. The council has listed the matters it expects residents to weigh: where shops and commercial uses are placed, the timing of infrastructure, housing diversity, the capacity of the road network and how traffic is distributed, protection for wildlife corridors, and the balance between growth and amenity. It has said it will review the material and consider a formal submission. ## Other money attached to the area Southern Thornlands is also one of three Priority Development Areas named in the joint housing infrastructure package announced by the Commonwealth and Queensland governments on 18 May 2026, with Mount Peter near Cairns and Waraba in Moreton Bay. The Commonwealth's statement described $2 billion of federal money, made up of $399 million in grants and $1.6 billion in zero-interest loans, with Queensland matching the grants. It said the package would support more than 51,000 homes across the State, more than 20,000 of them reserved for first home buyers, and that the first homes were expected by mid-2028. Zero-interest loans are a way of building trunk works ahead of the charges that will eventually repay them. Neither that statement nor the consultation material says how much of the package is allocated to Southern Thornlands, or how it relates to the $544 million. ## What happens after 15 September The process has three formal stages, and the area is in the second.

From declaration to an approved scheme

4 April 2025Priority Development Area declared. An interim land use plan applies while the scheme is prepared.
3 August to 15 September 2026Proposed development scheme on public notification. Submissions are open.
October 2026Scheme submitted to the Minister for a decision, after submissions are considered.

During the notification period the agency is running a webinar on 13 August and drop-in information sessions between 15 and 22 August, its consultation page says. Submissions can be made through the agency's online portal, in writing or by email, and are open to residents, landowners, businesses, community organisations and industry. Until a scheme is approved, the agency's proposal is a draft and its numbers may change. For people who live nearby, the notification period is the formal opportunity to comment on road upgrades, densities and the placement of schools and parks. For people hoping to buy there, the scheme is the first detailed picture of what the area is meant to become: around three residents for every dwelling, schools and parks drawn in from the start, land set aside for jobs, and an infrastructure program whose funding the council wants spelled out before the homes arrive.