New plans for new Brisbane CBD
17 December 09 A new plan for Brisbane's CBD, incorporating river crossings, more high-rise living and possible development on Northbank, will be released next year.Premier Anna Bligh and Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman joined together to announce a partnership to plan the future of Australia's fastest growing capital to the year 2031.
River City Blueprint, to be unveiled next August, will incorporate existing plans for Brisbane's inner-city five kilometres addressing living, working and lifestyle issues for the next 20 years, with the 50 years to 2061 also to be considered.
Ms Bligh said the planning was essential for the coming decades, with 25 per cent of the city's population and half of all jobs in just six per cent of its area.
"We will need to see some increased density but getting the transport planning right around that, making the right decisions about rail and other cross-river transport links will be about improving that livability," she told reporters in Brisbane on Thursday.
She said the government and council would be considering all reaches of the river in future planning, and that would incorporate Northbank - the site of a scrapped commercial precinct.
The next pedestrian bridges, cross-river roads, and a new CBD train station would also be in the mix.
Mr Newman said he hoped the co-ordinated approach - not occurring in other major Australian cities - would assist the city with asking for federal government money for infrastructure projects.
"It will get us a lot further ahead of Sydney and Melbourne in showing that there is a very, very, high-level, strategic, holistic plan with definite linkages between town planning and infrastructure delivery," he said.
Public comment will be called for once the plan is released in 2010.