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About Kooky and Shaka →Economic Development Queensland has created a formal channel for its largest private counterparts. The agency launched its Partner Program on Thursday 10 September and named Stockland as the first participant.
In a separate announcement this week it said it had signed memorandums of understanding with Unitywater and Urban Utilities, the two water businesses that serve most of South East Queensland, to coordinate water and sewer planning with development approvals.
What the program offers
The program is aimed at what the agency calls tier 1 developers. According to its announcement, a partner gets earlier engagement on projects, dedicated support, better coordination across government agencies and infrastructure providers, and a more consistent path from planning to delivery.
The difference is one of timing. Until now, the agency says, engagement has clustered around the formal milestones of an assessment. Under the program it becomes continuous: discussion of a developer's whole pipeline, advice on designs before they are lodged, and problems raised with other agencies before they hold up a project. The agency sums up the shift as moving from the role of reviewer to that of adviser.
No money changes hands under the program as described, and the agency does not say it alters how applications are assessed. What it changes is access and sequence: who a large developer talks to, and how early.
Stockland's own comment, carried in the announcement, was that more certainty and a more streamlined path allow it to invest with confidence and deliver homes and communities sooner.
Five development areas, one developer
Stockland was chosen, the agency says, because of the size of its pipeline in Priority Development Areas, the districts where the State and not the local council writes the planning rules. The company has projects in five of them. The agency's own pages for each area show how much of South East Queensland's planned growth they hold.
Related readBuild-to-rent in Queensland: what it is, who builds it, how it is taxed| Area | Declared | Size | Planned homes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ripley Valley, Ipswich | October 2010 | 4,680 ha | 48,750 |
| Waraba, Moreton Bay | August 2024 | About 2,880 ha | About 25,000 |
| Caloundra South, Sunshine Coast | October 2010 | 2,323.5 ha | About 20,000 |
| Yarrabilba, Logan | October 2010 | 2,222 ha | Up to 20,000 |
| Halls Creek, Sunshine Coast | July 2026 | 1,231 ha | Up to 12,000 |
Source: Economic Development Queensland, Priority Development Area pages, as published in September 2026.
Together the five areas cover more than 13,000 hectares and are planned for nearly 126,000 homes over several decades. Yarrabilba alone is expected to take 20 to 30 years to build out and to house up to 50,000 people. Waraba, west of Caboolture, has a 40-year horizon and a planned population of about 65,000. Ripley Valley, about five kilometres south-east of the Ipswich city centre, is the largest, planned for 131,000 people.
Three of the five were declared in the same month, October 2010, and are well into delivery. The other two are new. Waraba was declared on 2 August 2024. Halls Creek, south of the Bells Creek Arterial Road and about 6.6 kilometres south-west of Caloundra, was declared on 17 July 2026 and is operating under an interim land use plan while its development scheme is prepared. The agency's page for Halls Creek sets aside up to 633 hectares, about half the area, for open space.
Housing is only part of what the areas are planned to hold. The agency's pages put the employment expected at about 15,000 jobs in Caloundra South and about 17,000 in Waraba, spread across town centres and business land, and Halls Creek has 48 hectares reserved for jobs and business.
Those are the capacities of the areas as a whole. Other developers and landowners are active in them as well, and the announcement does not say what share of the total is Stockland's.
Three approvals that show the scale
The announcement lists three approvals over the past three months in areas where the company is developing.
Related readBundaberg gets $52 million for roads and pipes ahead of 4,700 homes| Area | Month | What was approved |
|---|---|---|
| Caloundra South (Aura) | June 2026 | Gagalba phase 2: about 2,899 dwellings, with more than 36 hectares of open space |
| Yarrabilba | July 2026 | 1,158 residential lots, a future primary school and a neighbourhood centre |
| Yarrabilba town centre | August 2026 | A 37,725 sqm sub-regional shopping centre |
Source: Economic Development Queensland, 10 September 2026.
The Yarrabilba subdivision is, the agency says, the largest approved in that area to date. The shopping centre is the first approval of its kind in the core of the future town centre, which matters to the more than a thousand households the July approval would add: a community that size needs its shops as well as its streets.
The Caloundra South approval covers three precincts and is expected to house around 8,300 people, with community centres, schools and recreation facilities. At about 2,899 dwellings it is two and a half times the size of the Yarrabilba subdivision.
The two residential approvals together cover about 4,057 homes and lots. For scale, Economic Development Queensland reported on 24 August that it approved 14,687 homes in all Priority Development Areas across the whole of 2025-26. The periods do not line up exactly, since two of the three approvals fall in the new financial year, but the comparison shows why the agency treats one company's pipeline as worth a standing arrangement.
Pipes before houses
The water agreements address the order in which things happen. In the agency's words, delivering homes and jobs at the scale South East Queensland needs depends on timely and coordinated infrastructure.
Two utilities now plan alongside the State agency
Economic Development Queensland says its memorandums with Unitywater and Urban Utilities set up technical working groups and executive oversight to line up development approvals with water approvals. Current work covers wastewater at Waraba and water and wastewater upgrades at Woolloongabba.
In South East Queensland, water and sewer networks are not run by the planning authority. Unitywater serves the Moreton Bay, Sunshine Coast and Noosa areas, and Urban Utilities serves Brisbane, Ipswich and neighbouring council areas. A new estate in a Priority Development Area therefore needs a decision from each side, and the agreements are meant to bring the two onto one timetable.
Related readBuying off the plan in Queensland: deposits, disclosure and sunset clausesThe agency's stated aims for the agreements are streamlined approval pathways, better planning processes and the identification of infrastructure that could be brought forward.
The two projects named are at opposite ends of the development spectrum. Waraba is a new growth area, where the agency describes the works as catalyst wastewater infrastructure: the first pipes that allow anything else to connect. The agency's page for the area says a $2.4 billion Infrastructure Activation Fund commitment from the Queensland and Australian governments is intended to accelerate about 16,845 homes there by mid-2034, of which 6,738 are to support first home buyers. Woolloongabba is the reverse case, an inner-city area of 106 hectares planned for more than 16,000 homes, where the agency says water and wastewater upgrades are being planned to support redevelopment.
A fair question about access
A program that gives the largest developers earlier and closer access to a planning authority invites an obvious question about everyone else. The announcement calls Stockland the inaugural partner, which implies others will follow, and it does not set out the entry criteria beyond the reference to tier 1 developers.
The argument for the program rests on volume. Priority Development Areas are declared under the Economic Development Act 2012, and each has its own development scheme against which applications are assessed. The number of areas, and of homes planned in them, has been growing: the agency says more than 22,000 homes were facilitated through new declarations in 2025-26 alone, and that $568 million of infrastructure was delivered across the areas in the year.
The assessment workload has grown with it. The agency's 2025-26 results, published on 24 August, recorded a 29 per cent rise in development applications and a 45 per cent rise in approvals issued over the year. If a small number of companies are responsible for much of that workload, a standing arrangement with each may save time for both sides.
Smaller developers in the same areas still lodge through the same assessment process, which the agency says decided more than 94 per cent of applications within 40 business days last financial year, after changes to its assessment process in November 2025. The same results showed its measure of trust and recognition among customers and partners at 73.6 per cent, up from 60 per cent a year earlier.
One qualification applies to the list of five areas. In Ripley Valley, the agency's page notes, development applications are handled by Ipswich City Council and assessed against the State's scheme, so a closer relationship with the State agency covers only part of the path there.
For buyers in Yarrabilba, Aura or Ripley Valley, the program is invisible. Its effect, if it works as intended, would show up as lots released closer to schedule and fewer estates waiting on a sewer connection.
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.
