Granny flats are small game when it comes to building our way out of the housing crisis but they do have a role to play. There's no good reason to make them harder to build.

We'll be putting in a submission making it clear that this Amendment runs against the tide of planning reform happening across Australia. Anything that even marginally makes it harder or less economical to build more homes is a mistake in the middle of a housing crisis.

New parking changes means new apartments in West End don’t have to build parking. It’s likely in a few years it’ll be more like Newstead and the Valley where only a small % of homes have a car

If you'd like to join our impromptu submission drive for more homes where people want to live, put one in here. services.brisbane.qld.gov.au/online-servi...

One of our local volunteers was livid when they saw the poster up.

They made a few changes.

It's all the same complaints.

It's too tall. It's making the area unsafe. It isn't in the neighbourhood character. It's unaffordable. It's taking away street parking. It'll make congestion worse.

Fear of change. Fear of shadows. Fear of the mildest inconvenience.

A few months ago, the local councillor organised a community meeting to discuss the project. Between that and this latest push from neighbouring residents, this project has received nearly TWO HUNDRED submissions against it.

Stockwell's project adaptively reuses the heritage factory facades around the corner, adds greenspace and delivers 132 new homes and 2 storeys of retail and commercial space in one of Brisbane's highest demand areas.

A block away are two parks, sports fields and Boundary Street shops and another block away is West Village Shopping Centre.

Within a fifteen minute walk is South Bank, the Cultural Centre, Brisbane State High and the CBD.

If you don't know West End too well, here's the local area. The site's currently a carpark, gym and warehouse.

Across the road is newly expanded state school and the new police station.

We're going to be advocating to the Commission to end Brisbane’s “townhouse ban”, remove restrictive zoning and character regulations that ration high-amenity land and remove minimum lot sizes, car parking minimums, excessive setbacks, height restrictions and floor area ratios.

And nearly 70% of residential zoned land within a kilometre of train stations or six kilometres of the CBD make it effectively impossible or outright ban building townhouses or even small apartment blocks like Brisbane’s iconic six-packs!

In fact, character restrictions apply to nearly 13% of all of Brisbane’s residential zoned land, and the majority of residential lots in the highly desirable neighbourhoods within 6 kilometres of the CBD.

Council policies on height limits, lot minimums and character protections in residential zoning all severely limit the developable land to a handful of large sites, particularly in the inner city where transport access is barely relevant for access to employment.

This in turn drives up the cost of housing, punishes new residents with hours-long commutes away from their families, and costs taxpayers billions in subsidising the cost of infrastructure to be built that already exists in the inner city.

Brisbane has remarkably restrictive planning regulations for most of our city. This land rationing drives up the cost of housing and pushes it to the fringes of our city.

Water-sensitive urban design isn't just building flood-resistant apartments and rewilding stormwater drains.

It's also unlocking urban land that isn't at risk for more intensive development.