Evaluating Employment Centres in Master Planned Communities in South-East Queensland

Developers of large-scale greenfield master planned communities (MPC) in South-east Queensland (SEQ) Australia have been 'mandated' to provide employment opportunities in their greenfield development project sites. While not explicitly written into legislation, it has been heavily promoted by state and local governments and urban planners alike.The encouragement of mixed-use concepts such as an MPC contributes to the achievement of two economic objectives sought by local government – maximising local employment opportunities (self-sufficiency); and encouraging the local capture of employment (self-containment. However, current MPC data shows increased cross-suburban travel instead of minimising state and local government's journey-to-work objectives. MPC employment centres also have shown higher than average vacancy rates compared with surrounding commercial areas. Therefore, if the concept of mixed-use in a complete MPC is philosophically a sound urban objective, why then does this situation not manifest itself as envisioned by the state and local planners and MPC developers? Hence, this research assesses the value-add of 'mandating' these employment centres to be incorporated in large-scale greenfield MPCs.This research is exploratory in nature as it provides an understanding of the market processes and operations in creating a successful MPC employment centre. An extensive literature review, semi-structured interviews and observations was used to develop a theoretical framework. It also uses the Delphi technique to distil expert opinion and achieve group consensus.The findings of this research have wide implications on public policy and urban planning particularly in the creation of the employment component in mixed-use developments. Employment centres located within an MPC are intrinsically two distinct projects, an economic development project and an urban development project. While MPC developers can provide the urban form and an environment conducive for firms to locate, the underlying economic fundamentals to attract firm locators to the area are beyond the scale and reach of MPC developers, which will ultimately drive the success of any employment centre.