Great places
Create great places by strengthening our communities and protecting what we love about Ipswich - our lifestyle, our activity centres, and our rural areas.
The Ipswich City Plan 2025 is council’s new planning scheme.
The draft new planning scheme was shared with the community from 15 May to 16 July 2023. The draft Local Government Infrastructure Plan (LGIP) was shared with the community from 12 June to 25 July 2023.
Council received 506 submissions on the draft new planning scheme and 35 submissions on the draft LGIP.
Council has reviewed the submissions received and has prepared a public consultation report.
If you lodged a submission on the draft new planning scheme, draft LGIP or proposed ‘planning change’ (final Feasible Alternatives Assessment Report (FAAR)), you would have received a written notification in March 2024. The written notification will direct you to the Submissions Portal located below (click on 'Access the Submissions Portal'). Once you are in the Submissions Portal, you can access your personal response by using your unique reference number.
The draft new planning scheme, including supporting mapping, was amended in response to submissions received. The majority of the revisions made are related to clarification improvements, minor updates and minor corrections.
The draft new planning scheme and LGIP received State Government approval on 14 February 2025, subject to conditions. Council officers were required to make a number of changes to the draft new planning scheme in order to comply with these conditions before it could be presented to council for consideration and endorsement.
On 29 May 2025, Ipswich City Council resolved to adopt the final draft new planning scheme (Ipswich City Plan 2025) and LGIP. The Ipswich City Plan 2025 and LGIP commenced from 1 July 2025, replacing the 2006 Ipswich Planning Scheme.
Access the new Ipswich City Plan 2025 here.
Planning scheme's help shape our neighbourhoods, towns and cities. The new planning scheme aims to identify what areas to protect, what areas to build on, where we can set up businesses or go shopping, what services are needed for a thriving community, types of housing for people to live in and transport options to move around the city.
Create great places by strengthening our communities and protecting what we love about Ipswich - our lifestyle, our activity centres, and our rural areas.
Plan for the right Infrastructure to support our people, the economy and jobs, such as transport, open space, parks and community facilities.
Facilitate housing choices for where and how we live.
Strengthen the resilience of our communities to the changing climate, natural hazards such as flood and bushfires and human-made constraints such as former mining and pipelines.
Conserve our natural environment, open and green spaces, natural resources and heritage.
Keep us connected through transport and movement.
Support the growth of our economic development and jobs.
Protect the things we value, such as our heritage and cultural values.
A city wide focus and strategic framework is included in the planning scheme.
With our growing and changing city, what we plan now needs to consider our future. The planning scheme identifies where future growth and development should occur and aims to manage how our city grows and changes in a way that benefits people, places, the environment and the economy.
The planning scheme identifies key local areas within our local government area.
These areas each have a particular identity and more details specific to that local area, or neighbourhood in what is called a local framework.
Different properties are affected in different ways by the planning scheme.
A Property Report with information specific to a property can be viewed.
Search an address and then "Download a Property Report" from the left hand menu.
Click on the icons to read about the key parts of the draft planning scheme and how they might impact you.
Step 1 | View the planning scheme online or contact us via the contact details at the bottom of this page to get a copy of the full document. Please note that this version of the draft plan may be revised following submissions from community and updates due to changed planning circumstances. |
Step 2 | Navigate through the different parts of the scheme on the left-hand side search bar. |
Step 3 | Do a search on a property address to get a ‘Property Report’. The report will illustrate the draft planning scheme zoning and overlays affecting a property. Once you have searched the address, click on "View Property Report (PDF) to download the report. |
Each local government prepares and maintains its own planning scheme as the main ‘rule-book’ for determining what new developments should occur in their local government area and how.
The planning scheme sets a future vision for the city and can directly influence the way our city grows and changes, while also helping to protect the things that matter most.
The planning scheme achieves this by planning for and regulating what development should occur where and when, how development should occur and what assessment process is required.
Essentially, the planning scheme is the legal set of documents and maps that guides the way land, buildings and structures are used and developed in the Ipswich local government area and forms council’s legal framework for assessing development applications.
Planning schemes help shape our neighbourhoods, towns and cities. The draft new planning scheme for Ipswich, Ipswich Plan 2024 (draft) sets out the future vision for our council area over the next 20 years in line with the themes below. The draft new planning scheme aims to identify areas to protect, areas to build on, places to set up businesses, shops and services, types of housing for people to live in and transport options to move around the city.
You can view Council’s current planning scheme, the 2006 Ipswich Planning Scheme here.
Council is preparing a new planning scheme, Ipswich Plan 2024, to help us plan for our growing city.
No city stays the same.
Cities grow and change to respond to changing people, and opportunities, and respond to challenges.
Our City of Ipswich is a key regional growth area in South-East Queensland that is growing and changing at a fast pace. The current population of our local government area is approximately 247,000 people and is expected to grow to 535,000 by 2046.
We need a planning scheme to meet the challenges for the future, while protecting and maintaining the things our community love about life in Ipswich.
The draft planning scheme identifies where future growth and development should occur.
Planning aims to manage how our city grows and changes in a way that benefits people, the environment and the economy.
The planning scheme can influence what you, your neighbours, or others can and can’t do or build on a property.
This includes things like:
A planning scheme does not change the current existing lawful use of a property, however, it can affect changes that you might want to make in the future.
It is important to understand what planning controls affect you and where you live, your local area and your neighbourhood.
You can undertake a "Property Report" to determine the proposed zoning of your property and any overlays.
Overlays are areas identifying set aspects in the planning scheme, such as land which may be impacted by bushfires, known as a bushfire hazard layer.
You can look at the Table of Assessment relevant to your zone, applicable Zone Code and any Overlay Code relevant to your property to gain an understanding of the intended land uses and built form of the zone, the constraints that apply and when a development application is required.
Search for a property in the draft Ipswich Plan 2024 and then select "Download Property Report (PDF)" in the menu on the left.
Any interested member of the community (such as a person, group or organisation) provided a written comment about the draft planning scheme during the public consultation period. Written comments were provided by using the online submission on this page, email or posted.
The public consultation was held between 15 May and 16 July 2023.
All submissions included:
In 2019, council undertook early engagement on a Statement of Proposals (including a draft Strategic Framework) to gain the communities views and aspirations to inform the drafting of the new planning scheme.
Formal public consultation on the draft new planning scheme was undertaken following completion of the State Interest Review between 15 May to 16 July 2023.
To find out more about the consultation, click here.
Preparing a planning scheme is a lengthy process involving multiple steps and follows a process set out by state legislation.
The plan making process is anticipated to take four to five years to complete noting that the timing of certain steps in the process, such as state interest reviews, are not within council’s control.
The draft new planning scheme (Ipswich Plan) and draft LGIP is now in the adoption stage of the plan making process having received State Government approval to proceed to adoption, with conditions, on 14 February 2025.
Council officers will now review the Ministerial conditions and prepare an updated draft planning scheme for Council’s consideration to adopt at a future meeting. Further updates will be shared when available.
Council received 506 submissions on the draft planning scheme and 35 submissions on the draft Local Government Infrastructure Plan (LGIP).
Council has finalised the review and consideration of each submission and prepared a Public Consultation Report. Any person that lodged a submission on the draft planning scheme, draft LGIP or in response to a proposed ‘planning change’ in the draft Feasible Alternatives Assessment Report (FAAR) received a written notification directing them as to how they can access information on how council has addressed the key matters raised in their submission.
The draft planning scheme, including supporting mapping, and draft LGIP have been amended in response to the detailed review of the submissions, with the revisions primarily related to clarification improvements, minor updates and minor corrections.
The draft new planning scheme (Ipswich Plan) and draft LGIP is now in the adoption stage of the plan making process having received State Government approval to proceed to adoption, with conditions, on 14 February 2025.
Council officers will now review the Ministerial conditions and prepare an updated draft planning scheme for Council’s consideration to adopt at a future meeting. Further updates will be shared when available.
Ipswich is growing, and doing so quickly. Our population is forecast to grow from approximately 247,000 residents in 2023 to over 535,000 residents in 2046.
The State Government, through the South East Queensland regional plan (ShapingSEQ), sets the region-wide policy framework for managing our forecast population growth.
Council has a clear vision for growing sustainably, reflected in our corporate plan, and current planning scheme.
The new planning scheme will build on this existing policy framework, and will set the vision for the future of Ipswich, and guide growth and development to help achieve that vision.
This includes identifying where development can occur, and where it is not preferred.
The Queensland planning framework is governed by the Planning Act 2016.
Local councils prepare local planning schemes but must follow the state’s rules and guidelines and incorporate state interests.
Council must consider state interests and associated mapping when preparing a new planning scheme (including the state planning policy and South East Queensland regional plan (ShapingSEQ)).
Flooding is a concentration of water that could cause damage or injury, in an area that is usually dry. Although floods can be caused by different events, such as king tides or storm surges, most flooding in Australia is caused by rainfall. Floods occur at irregular intervals, and they vary in size, area of extent and duration, and can occur suddenly or slowly.
Sudden, heavy intense rainfall can cause floods to quickly rise in the minutes or hours following the rain. This type of flash flooding is often found along overland flow paths and is typically associated with small catchment areas that offer little escape for the rainwater.
Floods can also occur slowly in large catchment areas, where rainfall can build up over hours, days or weeks. The runoff from this rainfall concentrates and may create significant floods over larger areas of land for days, weeks or even months.
Rainfall is the most important factor in the generation of a flood event.
However there are many other contributing factors such as:
When rain falls onto a catchment, the amount of water that reaches the waterways depends on:
Some rainfall is absorbed by soil and vegetation and the remainder enters waterways. Creek and river characteristics such as size and shape, vegetation along the banks and structures (in or adjacent to the waterway) all affect the level of floodwater.
Flood risk includes both the chance of an event taking place and its potential impact. One of the holistic ways utilised in planning land use is by incorporating floodplain management plans. This can reduce risk for new development in affected areas. Flood risk is much harder to manage in existing developed areas. However physical mitigation measures such as dams or levees can change the behaviour of floodwaters. In many cases, physical mitigation measures move or alter the risk of flooding, but do not remove the risk of it happening again.
Where existing risk exists, land use planning seeks to maintain or reduce exposure to that risk. It will also improve the resilience of development to the future impacts of flooding. Property modification measures such as using resilient building materials can minimise against harm caused by floods to individual buildings.
Traditionally, flooding has been mapped as a combination of frequency and area. A line is then drawn on the flood map to identify the limits of where a flood can be expected once every 5, 20 or 100 years. Usually, the depth of that flooding is known too, given that the height of both floodwaters and the ground below is known.
The term Annual Exceedance of Probability (AEP) was developed to improve this understanding of flooding. The AEP is used to make it clearer that it is not that a flood is guaranteed every 5, 20 or 100 years, but that there is a 1 in 5, 1 in 20 or 1 in 100 chance each year of these defined flood events occurring.
An AEP is expressed as a percentage or probability that a particular event will occur in any year. A flood with a 1% AEP has a “one in a hundred” chance of being exceeded in any year. Traditionally, the 1% AEP event is designated as having an 'acceptable' risk for planning purposes nearly everywhere in Australia. However, good planning needs to consider more than just the 1% AEP flood.
After the flood event of 2011, The Brisbane River Catchment Flood Study produced the most comprehensive flood modelling of its kind in Australia. The study showed 11 flood events ranging from highly likely (1 in 10 AEP) through to extremely unlikely (1 in 100,000 AEP).
Mapping today shows a range of risk categories (from very low risk to extreme risk). The word ‘risk’ being the likelihood of damage to people or property as a result of flooding or overland flow. This use of risk mapping follows from the Brisbane River Catchment Flood Study which analysed and assessed combinations of flood events and their possible levels of hazard that could result from water velocity or depth. In the study, the possibility of risk of flooding is called ‘Potential Hydraulic Risk’ (or PHR).
Five categories of PHR are used to describe likely consequential risk of flooding across Ipswich:
Zone changes to the Limited Development Zone (identifies land that is significantly affected by 1 or more development constraints) have only been made where a flood can present the most serious of risks to life and property. Properties in the Limited Development Zone are in the most heavily flood impacted areas.
These areas are not suitable for further development, but existing uses can remain. Extensions to existing dwellings need to be built above the defined flood level to contemporary building requirements. Vacant land cannot be built on, but existing lawful use rights remain under section 260 of the Planning Act 2016. This means a site can continue to be used as it has been used in the past (provided that use is lawful). For example, if a house located in a Limited Development Zone burns down, a new house can be built at the site. However, the new house must be built above the defined flood level for habitable rooms and to contemporary building standards.
A Feasible Alternatives Assessment Report (FAAR) relates to:
This report outlines how we manage the potential impacts from natural hazards in our city.
Water, whether caused by a flooding river, overland flow, burst water pipe, or storm, can cause extensive damage to your home, contents and other assets. As such, it’s important to understand the different types of floods and other water-related incidents and how they may be covered under your insurance policies.
Flood insurance is often built into a range of insurance policies, including home and contents, strata title, motor vehicle and business insurance policies. The risk of a flood occurring is usually reflected in the cost of the premium. Property owners with a high risk of flood will pay a higher premium than other property owners.
Insurers treat flood in different ways in their policies:
Insurers make their own assessments of the flood risk of your property based on a range of factors. These factors are used to determine their risk when offering you insurance cover. In response to the increasing frequency of severe storm and flooding events, premiums are rising. In some cases, these premiums may be impacting on the viability of property ownership.
Sharing flood risk information is part of an ongoing council program to assist the community. This will help the community to make informed decisions during the development process. It will also provide a publicly accessible assessment of the risk of flooding at a site. Council mapping does not create more risk on a property. It simply provides information for a property owner or occupier to understand the existing flood risk. Unfortunately, commercial licensing arrangements between many insurers and the specialist flood risk experts who prepare their own flood maps means insurance risk mapping is not a public database in the same way as council’s flood mapping.Floods bigger than those we have experienced are inevitable. We have less than 200 years of formal flood records in Australia. While there may be no living memory or formal record of your property flooding, it does not mean that the land has not flooded in past centuries nor that it won’t flood in the future.
Hills are not always free of floods. Floods on sloping land can happen in two ways:
Even if your property is not flooded, you may not be able to leave or enter your property safely until the floodwaters have subsided.
Floods can go higher than we plan for. In Australia, the flood planning level is usually defined by what is often colloquially referred to as a ‘100 year flood’. Flood events can go higher than this level. This is not a flood which happens only once every hundred years but one which has a 1 in 100 or 1% of occurring in each and every year. In a 70 year lifetime there is a 50/50 chance of a 1 in 100 (1% AEP) flood being exceeded at any location, and two such floods can even occur one immediately after the other.
Ipswich City Council respectfully
acknowledges the Traditional Owners, the Jagera, Yuggera and Ugarapul People of
the Yugara/Yagara Language Group, as custodians of the land and waters we
share. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, as the keepers of
the traditions, customs, cultures and stories of proud peoples.
Phone: (07) 3810 6666
Email: communityengagement@ipswich.qld.gov.au
Postal: PO Box 191, Ipswich QLD 4305, Australia
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