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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →The Queensland Government published the Victoria Park Precinct Draft Legacy Plan on Sunday 2 August 2026 and opened it for public comment from Monday 3 August. The joint statement from Premier David Crisafulli and Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie sets the closing date at Sunday 27 September, which gives the public eight weeks.
The draft was prepared by the engineering and design firm Arup. It is the first document to show how the inner-city park is meant to work once two Games venues are standing in it, and what the suburbs on its edges, Herston, Spring Hill and Bowen Hills, can expect to live beside after 2032.
Queensland Government media statement, 2 August 2026; seat count from the 2032 Delivery Plan.
What the draft plan puts on the map
The statement describes one precinct made of four parts: Victoria Park itself, Brisbane Stadium, the National Aquatic Centre and the Brisbane Showgrounds. The plan's job is to join them into what the Government calls a recreation and entertainment hub.
The features listed in the statement are mostly about the ground between the buildings. They include a public amphitheatre, footbridges, a community sports hub with an athletics track, an enlarged wetland at York's Hollow, forest trails and walkways. The statement also says the park stays free to enter and open to the public all year.
The ABC, reporting on the release the same day, added detail on the links out of the park. Its report describes pedestrian and cycling connections over the Inner City Bypass and the rail corridor, and routes towards the Brisbane CBD and Fortitude Valley, along with what the plan calls "urban forest" plantings.
Related readBMD to move the first earth at Victoria Park from early AugustArup's project director Penny Hall is quoted in the Government statement calling the work "a once in a generation opportunity to define what Brisbane's future looks like". The statement does not give floor areas, hectares or building heights, and this article does not supply any.
The venues the parkland wraps around
The legacy plan is not where the venues were decided. Those decisions came earlier, and the numbers attached to them sit in other documents.
| Part | Where | Published scale |
|---|---|---|
| Brisbane Stadium | Victoria Park, Herston | 63,000 seats |
| National Aquatic Centre | Centenary Pool, Spring Hill | 25,000 seats in Games mode, 8,000 after |
| Brisbane Showgrounds | Bowen Hills | Athlete village for more than 10,000 people |
| Parkland | Between and around them | About two-thirds of the park |
2032 Delivery Plan (Queensland Government, March 2025) for venues and village; media statement of 2 August 2026 for the parkland share.
The 2032 Delivery Plan, released on 25 March 2025, named Victoria Park as the stadium site and placed the aquatic centre at Spring Hill. The same plan puts the Brisbane athlete village at the Showgrounds, with room for more than 10,000 athletes and officials during the Olympic Games and more than 5,000 during the Paralympic Games.
After the Games, the Premier's office has said the stadium becomes the home ground of the Brisbane Lions, the Brisbane Heat and the Queensland Bulls. The aquatic centre keeps 8,000 seats in its permanent form, according to the Delivery Plan.
The venues are funded from the $7.1 billion Games Venues Infrastructure Program shared by the Australian and Queensland governments. The ABC reported that the State gave no cost and no funding source for the precinct works described in the draft legacy plan.
How two-thirds green is being framed
The figure the Government leads with is that about two-thirds of Victoria Park remains green and public space. It was already in use before the plan appeared: a page on the Premier's website dated 1 June 2026 said "more than two thirds" of the park would stay free green public space.
Related readAthlete villages for Brisbane 2032: where they go, what they becomeMr Bleijie, quoted by the ABC, said the park "will be more utilised than it has ever been before". Mr Crisafulli's line in the statement was that the precinct is "a place that belongs to Queenslanders once the Games have gone".
Opponents of the stadium read the same ground differently. The ABC's report on the release recalls that the choice of site in 2025 reversed an earlier position, and that people were arrested at protests in the park earlier in 2026 over its cultural and historic importance to Indigenous people. A second ABC report, published on 21 July 2026, counted five arrests in May.
The draft plan does not settle that disagreement. What it does is show, for the first time, what the remaining two-thirds is supposed to contain, so that the argument can be about a drawing instead of a fraction.
What the consultation can and cannot change
It helps to separate three things that are easy to run together.
The first is the stadium's location. The State's delivery website recorded the stadium location as "locked in" on 31 March 2026. The consultation is not asking whether a stadium should be built.
The second is planning approval for the venues. Under section 53DD of the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games Arrangements Act 2021, inserted by an amending Act that received assent on 30 June 2025, development to build a listed Games venue is taken to be lawful despite fifteen State Acts, among them the Planning Act 2016 and the Queensland Heritage Act 1992. The venues therefore do not pass through a council development application, and this consultation is not a step in such an application.
Related readThe Brisbane 2032 venue plan: what is being built, where and whenThe third is the parkland and the connections, which is what the draft legacy plan covers. The statement invites Queenslanders to help "shape" the precinct, and the listed features, from the amphitheatre to the wetland, are the parts presented as open to comment.
The draft plan is about the park, not the permit
Games venues are made lawful by State legislation passed in 2025, not by a development application. The eight-week consultation concerns the parkland, the paths and the public spaces around the venues. The Government statement does not say what legal status the final plan will have.
What neighbours are living with now
For people in the streets around the park, the plan arrives two months into construction.
According to the ABC, excavators began work at Victoria Park on 1 June 2026, when the first site was handed to the Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority, the State body that delivers the venues. The Premier's page of the same date lists what stays open during the build: the North Brisbane Bikeway, York's Hollow and its pond, the pump track and some green space.
The same page lists what closed. Gilchrist Avenue is shut to traffic and parking, and so is park access from the QUT and Herston bus stations. For people who used the park as a walking route between those stations, Herston and the city, those are the changes felt first.
The aquatic centre side is at an earlier stage. The ABC's 21 July report described the National Aquatic Centre as still in design, after a redesign to keep it inside its budget, and the Government marked six years to the Games on 23 July with a statement headed "Vision for National Aquatic Centre unveiled".
The draft legacy plan is the first document that tells those neighbours what the fences come down to reveal. A footbridge over the Inner City Bypass, a larger wetland or an athletics track open to local clubs are the kind of features that decide whether a household's daily use of the park gets better or worse after 2032. None of those features has a published cost or a delivery date in the material released on 2 August.
How the precinct reached this point
- 25 March 2025The 2032 Delivery Plan names Victoria Park for the stadium and Spring Hill for the aquatic centre.
- 30 June 2025Assent to the amending Act that makes listed Games venues lawful despite fifteen State Acts.
- 1 June 2026The first site is handed to the Games authority and excavators start work.
- 3 August 2026The draft legacy plan by Arup opens for public comment.
- 27 September 2026Consultation closes.
The Premier's 1 June page said the draft masterplan by Arup would be released "soon" and that main construction partners for the stadium would be appointed "within a matter of months". The first of those has now happened.
What is still unknown after the release
Three questions are left open by the documents published so far.
The first is money. The $7.1 billion program pays for venues. The ABC reported that no cost or funding mechanism was provided for the precinct works, so it is not yet known who pays for the footbridges, the wetland or the sports hub, or in which budget year.
The second is timing. The statement gives the consultation dates and nothing after them. It does not say when a final plan will be published or which features are meant to be finished before the Games and which after.
The third is the edge of the park. The precinct described in the statement is the park, the two venues and the Showgrounds. The statement says nothing about how land in Bowen Hills, Herston or Spring Hill beyond that boundary is to be treated.
Feedback is open until 27 September 2026. The next thing to watch for is the Government's response to what it hears, and whether that response comes with a budget.
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.
