Regional Council Growth Forecasting Across City, Town and Rural: One Model, One Evidence Base

How Toowoomba Regional Council uses Forecaz as an evidence base covering an established city, growth fronts, small towns and farmland, and what it means for Victorian councils, or anywhere else with the same mix.

Before we start: a short word list

This post is about a Queensland council. It is written so that a council anywhere in Australia can read it and recognise the same problem at home. A few words change from state to state, so here is the short version.

Planning permit and development application mean the same thing: the approval a council gives before land is developed. Victoria calls it a planning permit, or permit. Queensland calls it a development application, or DA. Where this post describes Toowoomba it uses the Queensland word, and where it speaks to Victorian councils it uses the Victorian one. Read across, they are the same thing.

Planning scheme: the rulebook that sets what can be built where.

Trunk infrastructure: the big shared water mains, sewers, roads, drains and parks that serve many properties at once. Not the pipes inside a single estate.

LGIP, or Local Government Infrastructure Plan: the Queensland plan that sets out trunk infrastructure and how it is paid for. The nearest Victorian equivalent is an Infrastructure Contributions Plan, and before that a Development Contributions Plan.

Growth model: a forecast of how many homes, people and jobs will appear, where they will appear, and when. 

If you work in planning or infrastructure at a regional city council, your problem is not the problem faced by a growth-corridor council on the edge of a capital city. You are not managing one big greenfield front. You are managing an older town centre where infill happens, new estates on the edge, smaller towns half an hour down the road, hobby farms, industrial land, and working farmland. Each of those develops at a different speed, puts a different load on the pipes, and sits under different rules in the planning scheme.

That mix is what makes the forecasting hard. It is also the situation Toowoomba Regional Council has been working in.

What follows is what the council has to plan for, why the mix makes forecasting difficult, what changed in 2026, and what a council anywhere can take from it.

Key Takeaways:

• Toowoomba Regional Council runs city suburbs, growth fronts, small towns and farmland through one growth model instead of separate exercises for each, a mix regional Victorian councils will recognise.

• That single model has to satisfy a water main in a farming town and a housing estate on the city edge with the same charge schedule, which is why a model built for only one kind of development falls short here.

• In 2026, the same model backed two separate, high stakes decisions: a rewritten statutory infrastructure plan, and two grant submissions worth $165.1 million.

• Two water treatment facilities were found to be reaching capacity a decade earlier than expected, what a forecasting gap costs when it goes undetected.

• Victorian regional cities such as Greater Geelong, Ballarat, Greater Bendigo and Greater Shepparton face the same test under Plan for Victoria's housing targets, with scheme reviews that need the same breadth of evidence.

What this council has to plan for

Toowoomba Regional Council was created in 2008, when Toowoomba City was merged with seven surrounding shires. The result is one of Queensland’s larger and more varied council areas.

Toowoomba is Queensland’s largest inland city and the service centre for the region around it. The council area runs about 125 kilometres west of Brisbane across the Darling Downs. Inside it sit the established city, a ring of newer suburbs, towns including Clifton, Pittsworth, Crows Nest and Oakey, a great deal of farmland and rural-residential land, and industrial areas serving manufacturing, transport, agriculture and health.

The 2021 census counted 173,204 residents. By mid-2024 the Australian Bureau of Statistics put the figure at 184,377, which works out at roughly 1.5 to 2 percent growth a year. In the year to June 2024 the council area ranked eighth in Queensland for the number of people added.

On 30 June 2026 the council adopted a $728 million budget for 2026-27, made up of $492 million of operating spending and $236 million of capital works. It looks after assets worth more than $7 billion. The capital program is large, spread across a wide area, and depends on knowing when growth will arrive so that capacity turns up when it is needed rather than ten years early or five years late.

184,377 People in the council area ABS, 2024

~13,000 km² Size of council area TRC / ABS

$728M Budget for 2026-27 TRC, June 2026

>$7B Value of assets managed TRC Annual Report 2024-25

Why the mix makes forecasting hard 

Forecasting growth for one kind of place is difficult enough. Forecasting it for four or five kinds of place at once, with the same team and the same networks, is a different job. Three things make it harder than it looks.

One network, several kinds of demand

A water main does not care whether the new load comes from a housing estate on the western edge of the city or a business expanding in a farming town. Both add demand. Both have to be sequenced. Both have to be paid for out of the same charge schedule. A model that handles only one kind of development well cannot produce an evidence base that stands up across the whole network.

In April 2025 the council endorsed the findings of studies into the Pittsworth and greater western Toowoomba sewerage networks and the Yarraman water supply. The studies found that the Pittsworth and Wetalla water reclamation facilities will reach capacity at least ten years earlier than previously expected, based on growth data released the year before. Upgrades across three catchments are estimated at about $30.5 million over ten years. That is Cost 2 detailed in the post The 5 hidden costs to Victorian councils of getting growth forecasts wrong: infrastructure built at the wrong time.

Rules that change from street to street

The planning scheme treats residential land differently depending on the zone, treats rural-residential land differently again, and sets separate expectations for commercial and industrial areas. Each zone carries its own density, its own demand rate, and its own likelihood of actually being built out. Apply one set of assumptions across 13,000 square kilometres and the answer will be wrong, in a predictable direction, everywhere.

A rulebook review already running

The council is part-way through the largest planning scheme review it has undertaken. The Toowoomba Region Futures program has been running since 2021 and is producing a new planning scheme, a new growth plan and a new infrastructure plan at the same time. A draft scheme is expected to go out for public comment from mid-2026. The scheme it replaces dates from 2012 and was written to handle growth to about 2031.

A review like that needs a current, property-by-property picture of where growth will land. A one-off consultant study cannot supply it, because the assumptions keep moving while the review is under way. That is Cost 5 from the post The 5 hidden costs to Victorian councils of getting growth forecasts wrong: reviews stuck in a queue.

What changed in 2026 

The infrastructure plan was rewritten, and it now applies

On 21 July 2026, Interim Local Government Infrastructure Plan Amendment No. 27 took effect. It became version 29 of the Toowoomba Regional Planning Scheme.

In plain terms, the council’s statutory plan for shared water, sewerage, transport, stormwater and parks infrastructure was rewritten, and the new version is the one that now applies. The amendment removed works completed since the previous version in 2022. It updated the forecasts for population, employment and development to match the State’s SEQ Regional Plan targets. It added new trunk infrastructure land and works, updated the cost estimates, redrew the maps, and pushed the planning horizon out to 2036. Public submissions ran from 21 May to 11 June 2026. The Priority Infrastructure Area was left unchanged, which the interim amendment process requires rather than a choice the council made.

Underneath all of that sits one thing. A council cannot update a statutory infrastructure plan without a current, defensible view of how much development is coming, where it will go, and in what order. The demand assumptions behind this amendment came from a Forecaz scenario model built to line up with the zoning in the current planning scheme.

Here is what that means in money. Under Charges Resolution No. 7, a new urban residential lot with a three-bedroom or larger dwelling, connected to all five networks, carries an infrastructure charge of $36,670.70. That figure rests entirely on the demand assumptions in the plan. If a developer disputes the charge, the growth model is what the council points at.

Two grants worth $165.1 million

In August 2025 the Queensland Government committed $20.1 million from its Residential Activation Fund to the Central Highfields Activation Project, a $22 million job. The money pays for three new roundabouts, a road realignment, stormwater work, and putting water, sewer, power and telecommunications underground. The State’s announcement described the project as clearing infrastructure barriers that had held up a modelled 343 new dwellings across greenfield and infill sites. Construction started on 17 April 2026.

In July 2026 the same fund committed $145 million towards a new Southern Water Treatment Plant at Westbrook. The council described it as the largest single project grant it has received. The plant is expected to support about 33,000 homes over the long term. The council’s existing water treatment plant at Mt Kynoch was built in 1975.

Both submissions had to answer the same question: how many homes does this unlock, and where are they? That is not a question a council can answer from a five-year-old consultant study. Look at the wording in the State’s own Highfields announcement, “a modelled 343 new dwellings”. The number came out of a model. This is Cost 4 from The 5 hidden costs to Victorian councils of getting growth forecasts wrong: grants you miss. A council that can produce a property-level answer in days is in a position to apply. A council that cannot produce this data is not in a position to apply.

The pattern worth noticing

Three separate pieces of work in a single year, all resting on the same evidence base: a statutory infrastructure plan amendment, a $20.1 million grant, and a $145 million grant. All of them need a current, property-level growth forecast before they can proceed.

Where the growth model gets used 

Infrastructure plan evidence: the council’s LGIP was first adopted in June 2017 as Amendment No. 15. It was updated in November 2022 as Amendment No. 26, and again in July 2026 as Amendment No. 27. Each of those needed a current, property-level forecast to support it.

Infrastructure charges: Charges Resolution No. 7 was adopted on 19 August 2025, following State changes to how charges are levied. A charge schedule is only as defensible as the growth sequencing behind it. That is Cost 3 from The 5 hidden costs to Victorian councils of getting growth forecasts wrong: decisions you struggle to defend.

Capital works timing: a $728 million budget and a $7 billion asset base need capital works timed against realistic development curves. The April 2025 study findings show what it costs when that timing slips.

Planning scheme review: the new scheme being written under Toowoomba Region Futures needs current, property-level assumptions to support a growth plan and infrastructure plan running out to 2051.

What the council can now do

• Forecast demographics across the infrastructure networks in days rather than months, so the team can respond to new growth data or a proposed scheme change without commissioning a study first.

• Model housing, commercial and employment growth in one place, instead of running three separate exercises with three sets of assumptions.

• Send property-level results straight into GIS and network modelling software without reformatting them by hand.

• Rerun the assumptions in-house when the scheme changes, when a study lands, or when the State updates its projections.

Where the knowledge sits

When a council buys a growth study from a consultant, the understanding of what is in the model, how the assumptions were built, and where the soft spots are leaves with the consultant. When the council runs the platform itself, that understanding stays in the planning team. For a council part-way through the largest scheme review in its history, that is not a nice-to-have.

What this means for councils in Victoria 

Victorian regional city councils have the same shape of problem, under different legislation and different words.

Plan for Victoria was released on 28 February 2025 and replaced Plan Melbourne. It sets a housing target for every municipality and expects councils to make room for those homes in their planning schemes. It was written into all Victorian planning schemes on 8 September 2025 through Amendment VC283. For councils such as Greater Geelong, Ballarat, Greater Bendigo and Greater Shepparton, that means a planning scheme review that needs current, property-level evidence about where housing can actually go.

Toowoomba shows what that review looks like without an in-house model. The Toowoomba Region Futures program was given $8 million and has been running for more than five years. Late census data, staff turnover, and the work of building an evidence base from scratch pushed the timeline out more than once. The draft scheme is now expected from mid-2026, with the final version subject to State approval after that.

Councils that enter a scheme review with a growth model already running finish sooner, lean on consultants less, and can defend the assumptions when someone argues with them.

One point of translation for Victorian readers. Everything above that refers to a development application in Queensland is a planning permit in Victoria. The value of loading your own permits into a growth model is the same in either state. It gives you a near-term view of what has actually been approved and is actually moving, which no public dataset provides.

What Toowoomba deals with	The same thing at your council	What a growth model changes
An established town centre taking infill, plus new estates on the edge	A regional city with both older suburbs and growth fronts	One model that handles infill and greenfield in the same evidence base
Farmland and rural-residential land with different constraints	Any council area with a large rural or farming share	Different density assumptions applied zone by zone and area by area
A charge schedule covering many kinds of land use	Any council with contributions plan obligations, current or coming	A property-level evidence base for the charge schedule
A large capital program timed against growth forecasts	Any council delivering major infrastructure across a wide area	Sequenced forecasts so works are timed against realistic curves
A planning scheme review that needs current evidence while it runs	Councils facing scheme review obligations under Plan for Victoria	A live model that runs alongside the review rather than before it
Several networks needing forecasts that agree with each other	Councils running networks across a large and varied area	One platform generating demand for every network from one forecast

A treatment plant reaching capacity ten years early is not a construction failure. It is a forecasting failure, and it is exactly the kind of failure a live, property-level model exists to catch.

Forecaz VIC for Victorian Councils

Forecaz VIC is an urban growth modelling platform set up for Victorian councils.

The platform arrives pre-loaded with:

• Precinct Structure Plans

• Victorian Planning Authority growth projections

• Planning scheme settings, and

• Land use data for your LGA

Council planners run real scenarios within weeks. No data scientists, no long onboarding, and no rebuilding assumptions from scratch each time policy shifts. 

Forecaz Urban Growth Modelling Platform configured and pre-load for Victorian Councils

Forecaz VIC uses AI-powered Bayesian Network modelling

The model assigns a development propensity to every land parcel, based on proximity to infrastructure, development yield, current land use, and local constraints. Growth follows realistic paths across projection years you define.

The Forecaz VIC platform produces parcel-level forecasts for:

• dwellings

• population

• gross floor area, and

• employment.

The platform also produces unlimited scenario comparisons that can spatially viewed in the map explorer. 

When Councils load their own development permits into the model, each council instance gains a near-term pipeline view no public dataset offers on its own. 

Forecaz appears on the MAV AI Procurement Register

Every vendor on the Municipal Association of Victoria's (MAV) AI Procurement Register meets the AI Vendor Evaluation Criteria, covering ethics, governance, data security, regulatory compliance, and implementation support.

To discuss the procurement path for your council contact Annette Henry. 

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In this series

Previous posts set out the infrastructure contributions evidence problem and the wider growth modelling pressure on Victorian councils and et out the five costs of getting growth forecasts wrong: revenue you never collect, infrastructure built at the wrong time, decisions you struggle to defend, grants you miss, and planning reviews stuck in a queue.

This post applied those five costs to Toowoomba Regional Council as the reference case for regional city councils.

The next post covers the City of Gold Coast, the large metropolitan reference: how a council area of 681,000 residents runs its infrastructure plan evidence base through Forecaz.

Sources and References:

Population: 2021 census figure of 173,204 (ABS Census of Population and Housing 2021). Estimated resident population of 184,377 at 2024, via profile.id.com.au/toowoomba citing ABS.

Growth ranking: Eighth in Queensland by population growth volume, year to June 2024. Queensland Government Statistician’s Office, Population Growth Regional Queensland 2023-24.

Council area: Approximately 12,957 square kilometres, consistent with TRC published materials.

Budget: 2026-27 budget of $728 million, made up of $492 million operating and $236 million capital works, adopted 30 June 2026. TRC media release via Inside Local Government, 30 June 2026. The 2025-26 budget was $705 million.

Asset base: More than $7 billion. TRC Annual Report 2024-25, tr.qld.gov.au.

Water and wastewater findings: Studies endorsed at the Ordinary Meeting of Council on 15 April 2025. Pittsworth and Wetalla water reclamation facilities projected to reach capacity at least a decade earlier than expected, based on growth data released in April 2024. Upgrades across three catchments estimated at approximately $30.5 million over ten years. TRC media release, April 2025.

Interim LGIP Amendment No. 27: Took effect 21 July 2026 as version 29 of the Toowoomba Regional Planning Scheme. Consultation ran 21 May to 11 June 2026. Planning horizon extended to 2036. Priority Infrastructure Area unchanged. TRC planning scheme amendments page and yoursay.tr.qld.gov.au/Local-Government-Infrastructure-Plan.

Earlier LGIP amendments: Amendment No. 15 took effect 9 June 2017. Amendment No. 26, the previous interim LGIP amendment, took effect 28 November 2022. tr.qld.gov.au.

Infrastructure charges: Charges Resolution No. 7 adopted 19 August 2025. Charge of $36,670.70 per urban residential lot with three or more bedrooms connected to all five LGIP networks, as published on TRC’s Have Your Say LGIP page.

Central Highfields Activation Project: $20.1 million from Residential Activation Fund Round 1 towards a $22 million project, announced 29 August 2025. Queensland Cabinet and Ministerial Directory, statements.qld.gov.au/statements/103415. Construction start and scope detail from TRC news, 17 April 2026.

Southern Water Treatment Plant, Westbrook: $145 million from the Residential Activation Fund, announced 14 July 2026. Described by TRC as its largest single project grant, with capacity to support about 33,000 homes over the long term. TRC news article, 14 July 2026.

Toowoomba Region Futures: $8 million program budget, draft planning scheme expected from mid-2026. TRC media releases and yoursay.tr.qld.gov.au/tr-futures.

Toowoomba Region Growth Plan, March 2023: Endorsed by TRC, available at yoursay.tr.qld.gov.au.

Plan for Victoria: Released 28 February 2025, replacing Plan Melbourne. Introduced into all Victorian planning schemes on 8 September 2025 through Amendment VC283. planning.vic.gov.au.

MAV AI Procurement Register: The register and the AI Vendor Evaluation Criteria are published by the Municipal Association of Victoria at mav.asn.au.

Legal Disclaimer:

This article covers the operational and commercial context for Victorian growth area councils, drawing on publicly available information. This article is not legal or planning advice. This article does not describe the specific legal obligations of any council under the Planning and Environment Act 1987 (Vic) or associated Ministerial Directions. Councils should seek their own legal and planning advice on their obligations. Forecaz recommends councils review all relevant guidance from the Department of Transport and Planning and the Victorian Planning Authority.