Creating a sustainable Sunshine Coast: The potential contribution of an expanded sippy downs

The reality of the quest for a sustainable urban future is that to get there at an indefinite time in the future, we have to start from where we are, now. In a major greenfield development area at Sippy Downs, in the Sunshine Coast Subregion of South East Queensland, the ingredients for a sustainable regional node are all there. Sippy Downs has a university, and there is firm State Government commitment to the CAMCOS major public transport corridor. But the two don’t connect. A new regional hospital has been diverted away from its intended site next to the university. A sprawling housing estate, with disconnected street patterns, separates the university campus from Palmview, one of the subregion’s major greenfield sites. Yet with all these challenges to sustainable urban planning, there is still the potential to shape the urban expansion of Sippy Downs in a way that leads towards a more sustainable development pattern for the Sunshine Coast. This paper discusses that potential and proposes a possible urban form that reconciles the sustainability objectives of the South East Queensland Regional Plan, Caloundra City Council, the University of the Sunshine Coast, and the developers of the Palmview urban expansion area.