The CBD is dead – long live the home office!

That might be overstating it a little,but the man tasked by City Hall with revitalising Brisbane’s suburbs says the work-from-home trend must force a rethink in urban planning.

And recent events have only hastened the inevitable.

When Ross Elliott was appointed chairman of the Better Suburbs Initiative in September 2019,the world was a few months away from a major – and catastrophic – global shift.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many to abandon their workplaces and set up home offices. Australian Bureau of Statistics census data shows the proportion of people working from home rose from 4.6 per cent in 2016 to 17.4 per cent in 2021.

Certainly,there is evidence many CBD workers have clung to their newly found work-from-home habits,particularly on Mondays and Fridays.

Translink data shows Tuesday-to-Thursday patronage has come back to only 80 per cent and 82 per cent of pre-COVID levels,while Monday had recovered to 75 per cent and Friday 72 per cent – all more than two years after the last lockdown.

“The CBD is more reliant on commuters and shows a lower recovery percentage for all weekdays compared to the[wider] SEQ network,” a Translink spokesperson said.

“Some of this could be attributed to more school,pensioners and seniors travel.”

But Elliott says that shift was already on the cards. The pandemic merely turbocharged a two-decade trend that needed to be reflected in planning regulations.

In Brisbane alone,he says,between 80 per cent and 90 per cent of residents live and work in the suburbs.

“They get up from a suburban bed in a suburban home and they go to a suburban place of work,” he says.

“It’s a small minority who work in the CBD,so the great challenge for a city like Brisbane is to make those suburban places so much more livable.

“That’s not just about the housing. It’s also about the nature of some of these places,where people will come together for work and health,education and so on.”

For Associate Professor Debra Cushing,from the Queensland University of Technology’s School of Architecture and Built Environment,it is about how people interact with,and are affected by,their environment.

“I use a term called ‘salutogenic’,which is health-promoting environments,” she says.

“It’s focusing on what we can do that is actually beneficial in getting people to either reduce stress or enabling them to reduce stress,or refocus their attention. Then,also,it’s all the other activities that are promoting health and wellbeing.

“If we actually design spaces where it’s possible and easy to walk more or bike more,or get more physical activity,that’s beneficial for our health and wellbeing.

“We have to design the spaces to enable that to happen,and we have to design them in a way that there are cues,so it doesn’t become too difficult,so people don’t think they’re not allowed to do it.”

But given that most of the money being spent is private,that could be easier said than done. The conflict between commercial and community interests is never-ending.

University of Queensland urban sociologist Peter Walters,who has akeen interest in suburban livability and “third places”,says south-east Queensland councils are in a bit of a bind.

“We all know we need more housing,and if a developer comes and says,‘I’m going to build 10,000 houses’,the council goes,‘Great,that’s the housing problem solved’,” he says.

“Most of these developments are going on in places like Logan and Ipswich,where the city councils don’t have the bargaining power that Brisbane City Council might have.

“We have a long tradition of letting developers do pretty much what they want to do.

“I think it’s worse in Queensland than other states,but this sort of suburban development is happening in all major cities in Australia.”

Just last week,anew draft South East Queensland Regional Plan was released,showinga need for 900,000 new homes across the region. Of these,209,000 would be within Brisbane City Council boundaries.

That’s for an additional 2.2 million people by 2046.

The conversations around population growth grate with Elliott,who says they often miss the mark.

“The thing that still bugs me so much about the current discussion around housing and population is that it’s all a discussion about housing and population,” Elliott says.

“There’s so little thought given to where are people going to work. What types of jobs will they have? How are they going to access schools? Where are we going to put the schools?

“If we’re looking at such a significant infill population,there are no big chunks of seven-hectare blocks of land ready to build new schools in the established urban footprint. They just don’t exist. So,what are the alternatives?”

Elliott points to recent developments such as West Village at West End –not without its share of controversy – and the Mill at Petrie as gold standards.

And he hopes recent adjustments in planning philosophy will result in more to come.

“I’ll be the first to say it’s taken a lot longer than I thought,but we did actually get some very significant changes in policy within Brisbane City Council late last year in the two sort of sacred cows,if I can put it that way,” he says,referring to acouncil decision to rezone parcels of commercial land into suburban renewal precincts.

“One was that some of these large swathes of former industrial land had to be preserved because one day,we might need that for industrial purposes again. That’s just so unlikely to happen. It’s almost ridiculous because B-doubles can’t turn around in some of those little streets that were designed for Morris trucks.

“The other thing was that if they were to be repurposed to mixed uses,that could not include residential.

“I could never understand that because the favoured mixed-use district of planners in the whole state is the Brisbane CBD. Everything goes,and why not?

“Anyway,we’ve got a significant change. I think the announcement of the suburban renewal precincts in Brisbane is huge news,but it’s going to take a long time. Keep in mind that New Farm has taken 20 years to get where it is.

“I think you’re going to see that change.”

Comment was sought from Brisbane City Council planning chairman Adam Allan,who outlined the council’s suburban priorities at a recent Property Council of Australia business lunch.

Allan said Brisbane had been wildly successful renewing inner-city precincts. The challenge was to replicate that in the suburbs.

“Every site and every location in the inner city is nuanced,and people live there for different reasons,” he said.

“What we’re trying to achieve in Brisbane is to create some of those urban-renewal outcomes that have been so successful in the inner-city area and replicate them in their own way in some of the suburban precincts.

“The things that make it attractive to live in these locations in the city,we want to see that out in the suburbs.”

Council opposition leader Jared Cassidy said efforts so far – perhaps buoyed by the success of Newstead and Teneriffe – had been a little more hit-and-miss.

So,what’s the secret to suburban renewal?

“That’s a very,very good question,” Cassidy said.

“I’m sure if I had the perfect answer,I’d probably just run for lord mayor and implement it and everyone would vote for me.

“But it’s definitely going to take a very ambitious council,the political leadership of a council,to then drag the bureaucratic leadership of council to a place where it’s taken seriously,rather than a piecemeal approach.

“In Brisbane’s case,you want it to be unique ... Sandgate will have different ideas and views to Murarrie;Murarrie will be very different to Runcorn and Salisbury and places like that. But you still need a citywide approach that can take all those communities’ unique views into account.

“It needs to be led from the top because when you just put a system in place and set and forget,which is what happened with neighbourhood planning,it really doesn’t deliver.”

For many northside commuters,Bindha railway station evokes a sensory overload of odours from the nearby Golden Circle cannery,and a vista far too actively industrial to be considered chic.

For Elliott,that area in Virginia represents opportunity.

“We’re talking about sites where you’ve got 13 hectares of land and post-war sawtooth sheds that now store boxes,and on those 13 hectares of land,there are 35 people working,” he says.

“Now,that’s just bizarre,isn’t it? That was preserved as industrial,and still arguably is until the owners make an application for it to change.

“By changing these land uses,you’re then creating opportunities for people to have jobs nearer to where they live,to be able to access hospitals,education,entertainment,recreation,or third places,just places to hang out.”

Allan,the council’s planning chairman,says not all sites are created equal.

“We consider[transport] pretty important because what we are finding is that a lot of these renewal sites,just by default,are often close to train stations or bus interchanges,” he told the Property Council lunch.

“We see it as important because there’s an investment in that infrastructure anyway,so to the extent that you can leverage it,it’s important.

“Ultimately,if we’re looking around the city,that map of potential opportunities,those that are close to public transport,are going to get a better outcome,but it doesn’t mean other sites are out of the picture altogether.”

Ultimately,Allan says,it is about convenience.

“People will live and work there without having to jump into a car and go somewhere,” he says.

One thing that needs to be avoided,Cassidy says,is the further homogenisation of Brisbane.

“The look and feel of everything is the same. All your bus stops are the same. There’s not different councils doing different planning,” he says.

“For the past 100 years – coming up to 100 years now – that homogeneity probably has resulted from that[amalgamation of councils in 1924].

“But I still think,in the context of us being one capital city,there are distinctly different communities and fields within a larger one.”

Cassidy says it comes down to zoning and,where possible,retrofitting established communities to encourage a gamut of activity.

“As we change and evolve and older areas redevelop,I think it’s the role of council to do that and to do it collaboratively with the community,” he says.

“If you bring the community along with you,it’s much easier to do this.

“You’re never going to get unanimity. In politics,it’s about majorities – you have to make sure that you’re doing the change that you’re making for the greatest good,and have the majority of people along the way with you.

“Otherwise,it’s all too hard.”