Twelfth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Earlier this year Bond University gathered a substantial amount of data looking at how industrially zoned land is changing in the 21st Century. With the impact of global megatrends such as globalisation, rapid adaption of new technologies and elevated demand for commercial spaces that house small to medium sized business. The research findings clearly show that land use conflicts have begun to take their toll across numerous light industrial precincts within the City of the Gold Coast. The recent global pandemic has placed enormous pressures on land values and industrial activities in Southeast Queensland, considered a highly desirable place to live, work and play are morphing in new ways. This region of Australia has become one of the most desirable places to locate, after extended pandemic lock downs in Sydney and Melbourne. These and other business trends have highlighted the idea of a new way of applying land use zones that provide a hybrid of acceptable land uses as location drivers for prosperous business activity. In the wake of a rapid rise in the knowledge economy and boutique products that reflect the immediate demographic evolution has resulted in new emerging business activities that are significantly different from business trends two decades ago, when these industrial land use laws were originally applied. This paper explores what are the new demands on these precincts and how local governments can better support start-ups and a broad variety of land uses not before considered relevant to local government planners.