Seqwater strives to embed water management in urban and rural land use planning through positive improvements in land use planning and land management processes to protect water assets, enhance water quality and water productivity from drinking water catchments.

Land use planning

Seqwater works collaboratively with state and local government, individual land holders, agencies and the community to implement planning processes and outcomes that recognise the importance of a safe, secure and reliable drinking water supply.

The Planning Act 2016 sets the framework for planning in Queensland. The State Planning Policy (SPP) is the pre-eminent state planning instrument, and identifies the State’s interests in land use planning. Seqwater holds interests in ‘Water Quality’, ‘Energy and Water Supply’, ‘Infrastructure Integration’ and ‘Natural Hazards, Risks and Resilience’. The South East Queensland (SEQ) Regional Plan, also known as ShapingSEQ, provides a framework to manage growth, land use change and development, and includes protections for drinking water catchments in SEQ.

Local governments are responsible for integrating the SPP and Regional Plans into local planning schemes. Seqwater is involved in the state interest review process through the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning, which includes the state interest reviews of planning schemes and regional plans to ensure the protection of Seqwater’s state interests.

As part of the preparation of a planning scheme, Seqwater encourages early consultation, supporting a collaborative approach with local government.

The State Government is responsible for ensuring the SPP is integrated into state planning assessment processes. Seqwater collaborates with State Government departments to ensure development in these areas effectively integrates the water quality, energy and water supply, infrastructure integration and natural hazards, risks and resilience interests.

For further information, please contact [email protected].

Additional Resources

• ShapingSEQ - South East Queensland Regional Plan
• State Planning Policy
• Integrating state interests in planning schemes.

Development in catchments

Protecting drinking water catchments from the adverse impacts of development is essential for the delivery of a high quality and affordable drinking water supply. Unlike many other water authorities in Australia, much of South East Queensland’s (SEQ) catchments are open catchments, which contain a variety of land uses including rural and urban development. Adverse impacts of development can compromise catchment water quality and subsequently the treatment process, increasing treatment costs and threatening public health. In the longer term, these impacts can require infrastructure upgrades to provide effective treatment and increase ongoing costs associated with increased levels of treatment (e.g. energy, treatment process augmentation, chemical usage and waste disposal). Development must therefore be appropriately sited, designed and managed to prevent adverse impacts to catchment water quality.

Local government may seek Seqwater’s Third Party Advice on Council-managed development applications and the State government may seek Referral Entity Advice for State-managed development applications, to assist them in determining whether an application has met the intent of the SPP, Shaping SEQ and local planning schemes.

The SPP Interactive Mapping System contains the mapping layers to determine what matters of state interest may apply to a development, including Seqwater’s catchment interests. For development in drinking water catchments, the mapping layers include:

• Water Supply Buffer Areas; and
• Water Resource Catchment Areas.

Guidance materials have been developed for the Water Quality state interest, which include the Seqwater Development Guidelines for Water Quality Management in Drinking Water Catchments (the Seqwater Development Guidelines). The purpose of the Seqwater Development Guidelines is to ensure that development in a Water Resource Catchment and/or Water Supply Buffer Area are appropriately sited, designed and managed to maintain or improve water quality, flow regimes, environmental values and the physical integrity of natural processes to protect drinking water supply.

The current version of the Development Guidelines is available here: Seqwater Development Guidelines (2024)

The superseded Seqwater Development Guidelines (2017) are available here: Seqwater Development Guidelines (July 2017)

Seqwater has developed a Land Use Risk Tool (LURT) for on-site sewerage facilities for domestic and small scale applications. This interactive web-based tool is available for applicants or designers of on-site wastewater treatment and disposal facilities to ensure their proposal involves suitable outcomes for preserving local drinking water quality and complies with the Seqwater Development Guidelines.

For larger, commercial on-site wastewater systems over 21 Equivalent Persons (EP) in capacity, the LURT is unable to be used, however Seqwater’s Development Guidelines contain benchmarks (Performance Outcomes and Acceptable Outcomes) that are required to be achieved.

Development in proximity to bulk water supply infrastructure

There are specific requirements for development in, or around, Seqwater’s bulk water infrastructure and easements. The Seqwater Network Consent Guidelines detail the outcomes required to be achieved in order for Seqwater’s consent to be provided for development occurring in these locations. Local governments should review this guideline to determine if there are provisions that should be incorporated into the planning scheme as assessment benchmarks, or alternatively, into the development assessment process as conditions of approval.

The SPP Interactive Mapping System contains the mapping layers to determine what matters of state interest may apply to a development. The mapping layers include:

• Pump station and reservoir facilities
• Water treatment plants and water quality facilities
• Pipelines and channels
• Bulk water storage infrastructure
• Facilities for extracting groundwater
• Future bulk water supply infrastructure.

Guidance material regarding living and working near water infrastructure is available on Seqwater’s website and provides details and examples of where the protection of Seqwater assets needs to be considered. There are also example code provisions in the Network Consent Guidelines for local governments to utilise when drafting Overlay provisions in a planning scheme.

State Development Assessment

Seqwater is also involved in the assessment of development applications managed by the State Government, coordinating with the Office of the Coordinator-General (OCG) and Economic Development Queensland (EDQ) for development within designated areas, including State Development Areas (SDA) and Priority Development Areas (PDA).

Bromelton State Development Area (SDA)

SDAs are created under section 77 of the State Development and Public Works Organisation Act 1971, and are listed in the State Development and Public Works Organisation (State Development Areas) Regulation 2019, which identifies the regulatory maps for each SDA.

The Bromelton SDA is the only SDA within SEQ, located to the west of the Beaudesert CBD. The majority of the Bromelton SDA is contained within the Water Resource Catchment and Water Supply Buffer Area for the Logan River drinking water supply in accordance with SPP mapping and the water supply state interest.

Seqwater acts as a Referral Entity for development applications in the Bromelton SDA and provides advice to the Office of the Coordinator-General on the protection of drinking water quality and the water supply state interest.

Priority Development Areas (PDA)

PDAs are declared under the Economic Development Act 2012 and are designated areas intended achieve the Act’s purpose to facilitate community and economic development.

Under the Economic Development Act 2012, there is no statutory State agency referral process, however, collaboration with State agencies to resolve issues during the plan making process is required, along with the consideration of State interests when making a decision on a PDA development application. Accordingly, Seqwater is able to provide advice to delegates of the Minister of EDQ where there may be impacts to the ‘Water Quality’, ‘Energy and Water Supply’, ‘Infrastructure Integration’ and ‘Natural Hazards, Risks and Resilience’ state interests.