It also revealed a blind spot: landowners are not always recognised as part of the community. Many may not live within the municipality, but they have often held and invested in their land over long periods of time. Their decisions shape the future of the place, yet they are not always meaningfully engaged in the same way as other community stakeholders. Bridging this gap is critical to turning vision into action.
Early impacts are evident in more proactive engagement. Landowners, investors and developers are now proactively seeking updates, exploring partnership opportunities and requesting insights into other sites, and engaging earlier and more confidently in pre-application discussions.
In practice, this reflects an evolving role for economic development: not just facilitating individual developments, but building trust, strengthening collaboration, and creating the conditions for change to happen. Over time, this is what enables more coordinated, scalable and deliverable outcomes that genuinely transform and benefit the community.
THE BLUEPRINT IN PRACTICE
• It makes opportunity visible.
• It enables earlier conversations.
• It supports informed decision making.
• It provides choice, allowing landowners to act, partner, transact or wait.
• Internally, it aligns Council.
• Externally, it positions Council as a proactive connector.
• Council is not the developer; it is the facilitator.
CASE STUDY
ILLUSTRATING COORDINATED OPPORTUNITY One of the most powerful outcomes of the Blueprint has been the ability to move beyond individual sites and visualise coordinated outcomes across multiple landholdings.
In one key precinct, several adjoining landowners agreed to explore how their sites could be considered collectively. While each retains individual ownership, the Blueprint created the space to test what a consolidated development outcome could look like.
• The first image above shows the current condition- fragmented sites, underutilised land and limited activation.
• The second image shows a potential future scenario, where coordinated development delivers increased density, active ground floor retail, improved public interface, upper-level setbacks and a stronger connection to the centre.
These illustrations are not prescriptive. They do not require landowners to act. Instead, they provide something that had previously been missing: a shared vision that landowners, Council and the market can respond to.
EARLY SIGNALS AND WHAT IT MEANS The Blueprint remains in its early stages of implementation, with an official and public launch in September 2026. However, there are clear and measurable indicators of emerging momentum across the precinct. This progress is anchored in a strategically significant landholding, comprising 13
Blueprint properties, 43 individual titles and approximately 103,510 square metres of development-ready land.
Key early signals include:
• active, structured and ongoing precinct engagement with over 40 landowners and stakeholders associated with these holdings
• strengthening alignment among Councillors and government partners
• increasing interest from investors, hotel operators and service providers
• more informed and proactive discussions regarding development opportunities and constraints
• commencement of the first new commercial development in over a decade.
These signals are significant. They point to growing market confidence, improved alignment between public and private sector stakeholders, and a gradual transition from fragmented, site-specific activity toward a more coordinated, strategic and precinct-wide approach.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL 19 NO 2 2026 33