AN article in the Times about housing affordability has reignited a row between the Jimboomba region’s state representatives.
What set them off?
Raising a related issue that plenty of residents are passionate about, principal of Harcourts Jimboomba Robbie Drew said: “This state government seems to have no idea of what is needed to service these new housing developments but keeps increasing the capacity anyway.”
Did the government take that?
According to state member for Logan Linus Power, the development of new housing in communities is a local government not a state issue, but he agreed that more needs to be done to meet the growing needs for the area.
“It’s a difficult thing to do, to create supply of new homes for young families,” Mr Power said.
“We’re doing better in Queensland on the release of land but the delivery of services needs focus.”
What about the opposition?
State member for Beaudesert Jon Krause said poor planning by Labor governments during 16 of the past 19 years created the congested roads in the area today.
“Flagstone and Yarrabilba have brought unprecedented, fast growth,” Mr Krause said.
“By approving these massive developments without providing additional funding or putting in place conditions to improve the Mount Lindesay Highway, Labor created the congestion problems we have now.”
“Labor still has no plan for improving the Mt Lindesay Highway.”
Why so unbelievable?
“Last week we had the unbelievable situation where the member for Logan, a member of the government, was in the Jimboomba Times criticising plans that his own government created for improving the highway at North Maclean – improvements, mind you, that are only happening due to federal funding from the Coalition government,” Mr Krause said.
“Where was he when these plans were being drawn up?”
Where to from here?
According to Mr Power, he has been pushing to make the Mount Lindesay Road safer.
“In 2015, Main Roads conducted the Mt Lindesay Highway safety review to identify projects,” he said.
“From this process I pushed for $20 million for service roads to enhance safety between Greenbank Rd and St Aldwyn Rd, including Wearing Road and the mushroom farm; $26m for the Beaudesert Road bypass; $5m for signalisation of the Camp Cable Road intersection; $4.1m for works including construction of Veresdale Scrub Road and Gleneagle State School access at Gleneagle and Undullah Road at Woodhill, and over $900,000 to complete a channelised right turn into Worendo Street.
“The State government is working to identify projects that will deliver the best improvements with the funding available – we’re currently partway through a $790,000 planning project that continues to identify, cost and plan further projects.
“I’m 100 per cent on the side of the community – we need more funding for the road and I’ll fight for it,” Mr Power said.
