New Ipswich City Plan paves way for 100,000 homes over 20 years
30 May 2025
Ipswich is set to remain a stronghold of housing affordability with a new plan to unlock construction of 100,000 homes across the next 20 years.
Ipswich Mayor Teresa Harding said Ipswich City Plan 2025, adopted by Ipswich City Council this week, tackles housing delivery head on to cater for a population expected to double to more than half a million by 2046.
The plan also includes the new Local Government Infrastructure Plan (LGIP) to drive infrastructure needed to support growth.
Mayor Harding said the new planning scheme’s endorsement was a major milestone for Ipswich, representing the culmination of seven years of work to develop a response to current and predicted growth that preserves the city’s character and quality of life.
“This new planning scheme will allow Ipswich, as one of Australia’s fastest growing communities, to capitalise on the opportunities and address the challenges that come with rapid growth,” Mayor Harding.
“It replaces a two-decade old planning scheme with a contemporary, fit-for-purpose scheme that will better allow Ipswich to respond to growth over the next 20 years.
“The City of Ipswich is growing at a faster rate over the next twenty years than any other council in Queensland. As we approach 2032, interest in the affordable and liveable lifestyle that Ipswich offers will only increase.
“The Ipswich City Plan will deliver increased diversity of housing, helping boost citywide stock from 92,700 homes to 192,400 across the life of the plan, putting downward pressure on home prices and helping address the housing shortage, homelessness and overcrowding.
“Importantly, this policy document promotes building up, not out. Our bolder approach to secondary dwellings, where planning approval will not be needed to build a granny flat on certain properties, could provide the opportunity for 22,000 homes across Ipswich.
“These measures reduce the need for urban sprawl where development encroaches on our natural environment, establishing homes in areas already supported by transport and essential services.”
Infrastructure, Planning and Assets Committee Chairperson Councillor Andrew Antoniolli said Ipswich City Plan 2025 was a significant upgrade to the previous planning scheme that served Ipswich for 20 years.
“The previous planning scheme was put in place in 2004 when we were a city of just 140,000 people – it is no longer fit for purpose, with Ipswich City Plan 2025 allowing us to manage growth so that Ipswich has the right balance of residential, commercial, industrial and green spaces going forward,” Cr Antoniolli said.
“With almost 100,000 people engaged during our community consultation period, and more than 500 submissions received, we have listened to extensive community, business and industry feedback to develop a planning scheme characterised by affordable housing options, less regulation, more streamlined development pathways and appropriately zoned land across the city.
“Crucially, with 88 per cent of Ipswich housing being detached or separate dwellings, the planning scheme advances the policy direction of the South East Queensland Regional Plan (ShapingSEQ 2023) in providing for a greater range of housing forms, including for increased gentle density housing between one and three storeys.
“It allows well-located areas close to transport and services such as parts of Booval, Dinmore, Bundamba, Ebbw Vale, Riverview, Goodna and Wulkuraka to increase densities in the right locations, while protecting the traditional, detached-house character of established suburbs.
“We continue to look at where land might be underutilised and could present opportunities for units and townhouses, including social housing.
“Council will continue to work with other levels of government to attract investment in housing across our city, as well as for funding for the vital infrastructure our city urgently needs to accommodate our growing population, particularly regarding transport.
"Importantly, this is a living document that can be updated, allowing council to respond as demographic and housing trends in Ipswich change and emerge over the next 20 years.
"There will also be benefits for residents and other stakeholders in the form of new online and user-friendly planning functions and instruments on council websites, including interactive information on the planning scheme and mapping."
Ipswich City Plan 2025 will:
- Support the availability of diverse housing, including affordable living options through appropriately zoned land, targeted regulation and more streamlined development pathways.
- Rely on a modern approach to consideration of natural hazards, including flood and bushfire.
- Meet the ShapingSEQ 2023 policy provisions for gentle density while exceeding targets for the number of medium and high-rise dwellings in the right locations.
- Provide land for future employment to cater for the doubling of local jobs.
- Protect regionally and locally significant environmental corridors through a new Biodiversity Overlay, Waterways and Wetlands Overlay, and Conservation and Environmental Management Zones.
- Include modernised development codes providing a best-practice approach to promote good development design, dwelling design and distribution.
- Protect the lifestyle of Ipswich communities, including our established suburban and character residential areas, through appropriate zoning.
- Ease regulation around dual occupancy and secondary dwellings.
- Provide more certainty to residents, industry and the community on planning outcomes.
- Provide a more user-friendly set of planning instruments.
- Reduce car parking requirements in the High Density Residential and Centres zones as well as additional reductions for demonstrated advancement of active transport and green travel.
Mayor Harding said Ipswich City Plan 2025 also strengthens planning and development considerations around the risk to residents of flooding.
“Ipswich is a city that needs more housing – but it’s also a city that floods, and this reality must be considered when building the homes and infrastructure that our communities need,” Mayor Harding said.
“Through code-enforced requirements, the new plan ensures developments do not pose an unacceptable risk to people and property from flooding, as well as not putting additional burden on our disaster management capacity.
“Our approach is to avoid areas of unacceptable flood risk, and where development must occur, there is a focus on resilience with strict requirements for flood impacts to be mitigated as much as possible.”
Council has adopted Ipswich City Plan 2025 after it was signed off by the Queensland Government in February.
The new planning scheme is supported by industry, with the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) welcoming council’s aim to ensure its planning scheme keeps up to date with the Ipswich community’s needs.
“Planning schemes are living documents, needing continual updates to meet the needs of evolving communities, and the Ipswich community had outgrown the provisions in the previous scheme,” UDIA Queensland Chief Executive Officer Kirsty Chessher-Brown said.
“With a state-wide housing crisis, it has never been more important to ensure access to diverse and affordable housing options for all Queenslanders.”
Ipswich City Plan 2025 will come into effect on 1 July, 2025.
A copy of the plan is available on here.