Housing and Woogaroo Forest

We are not anti-housing. Housing is essential, and the need for more homes across South-East Queensland is real. This page is not about opposing development, it is about where development happens, and whether the arguments used to justify clearing some of Australia's most ecologically significant habitat actually hold up when tested against the public record.

They don't.

The trade-off being proposed is not necessary.

The largest development threatening Woogaroo Forest would clear approximately 667 square metres of intact, biodiverse bushland for every dwelling delivered. Meanwhile, Springfield City Group, the same developer behind two of the four proposals threatening the forest, has held approval for up to 10,000 apartments on already-cleared, station-adjacent land at Springfield Central since 2016. A decade later, only 503 units have reached formal development application. The land is vacant. The forest does not need to be cleared to house people. The choice to clear it is just that - a choice.

Land banking is part of the picture.

Independent research by Prosper Australia, which specifically examined Springfield as one of nine major master-planned communities, found that after an average of 9.5 years of development, the developers studied still held 76.2% of their approved land banks vacant. At Springfield specifically, after 19 years of development, 77.24% of its approved land bank remained unbuilt. Land is released at a rate that supports prices, not at the rate that housing need would demand.

Offsets are not a solution.

When Critically Endangered habitat is cleared and "offset" elsewhere, it is not replaced; it is reclassified. Woogaroo Forest contains communities that cannot be recreated on any human timescale: Lowland Rainforest of Subtropical Australia, one of only four remaining Vine Scrub remnants in the Ipswich region, and centuries-old ironbarks supporting species that depend on the very age and continuity of this forest. There is no offset for that.

The full argument is in our White Paper.

Download the Woogaroo Forest Housing White Paper below.