Forest Lake, Queensland


Forest Lake is an outer south-western suburb of the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the, Forest Lake had a population of 22,904 people.
It was the first Master Planned Community within the City of Brisbane.

Geography

Forest Lake was considered instrumental in the creation of affordable housing within Australia. The development was the first modern-day community to contain small lot product, a first during its time. The master-planned community contained retail, commercial, educational, residential, retirement, and recreational uses. The entire community is linked by an extensive network of pedestrian and cycle paths, which are integrated into the large open-spaced network.
Forest Lake lies within the Brisbane City Council municipality and is approximately from the Brisbane central business district. It adjoins the suburbs of Doolandella, Inala, Richlands and Heathwood. It successfully mixes wildlife with residential development.
The Forest Lake Shopping Centre is located in Forest Lake.

Villages

The Forest Lake development consists of a series of neighborhoods known as villages. Each village was marketed separately and features an entry statement. These villages are; Woodvale Village, Parkland Village, Homestead Village, Lavender Court, Banksia Village, Pine Village, Lakeside Village, Settlers Village, The Chase, The Woods, Brooklands, Hillbrook Village, The Point, Greentree Pocket, Jetty Walk, Centennial Park, College Park, Creekwood, Creekwood Pocket, Chain of Ponds, Jubilee Crossing, The Cascades, Sanctuary Pocket, Sanctuary Point and The Peninsula. There is also a retirement village called The Terraces and an apartment precinct adjoining the Forest Lake Shopping Centre called Prima on Grand.

The Lake

The centrepiece of Forest Lake is an $8.9 million, 10.9 hectare man-made recreational lake, with a perimeter of. $1.8 million was spent on the dam wall, outlet structure and boulevard embankment. It has an average depth of 2.6 with a 300 to 600 mm around the safety ledge, deepening to 4 metres in the centre. The volume of the lake is 310,000 cubic metres or 269 Olympic sized swimming pools. Surrounding the lake is 3.5 kilometres of pedestrian and cycleways and 8 hectares of adjacent parkland. It was completed and opened in 1994.

History

A homestead was built by Henry Farley in the late 1870s on a site that is now Homestead Park. It was a substantial building of two-stories and timber construction. In 1881 the homestead and surrounding property were purchased by Michael' Stumpy' Durack. The surrounding area became part of "Archerfield Station". In the 1930s it was destroyed by fire, although it has been said that termites caused a great deal of damage to the structure beforehand.
During World War II, there was a command post of the Darra Ordnance Ammunition Depot in the area now Forest Lake. This depot was the largest ordnance depot in the South West Pacific Area. On 31 August 2005 the Richlands-Inala History Group erected an honour stone in Homestead Park, the site of the command post, commemorating the ammunition depot and the American army camps in Inala and Wacol nearby.
In the 1970s the property was acquired by Hancock Plywoods. Any timber that was of value was harvested by the company and in 1986 Hancock Plywoods decided to sell the property. With 2,170 acres and located only 18 km at its closest point to Brisbane CBD the land had considerable potential, but at that time the Brisbane market was quite depressed. Viv Hancock, Chairman of Hancock Plywoods interviewed the marketing managers and directors of the major real estate companies including, Richard Ellis Ray White, Jones Lang Wooten, LJ Hookers, Raine & Horne and several others to discuss the marketing of the property. Every company was asked to give the owner their realistic estimate on the price, the property can achieve in a sale either by auction or tender.
All the companies except one, advised that the property has a market value of between $5 million to $6 million for the following reasons:
One company however saw the property differently. Raine and Horne Commercial headed by Tony Atkinson and special consultant Oliver Tham saw a different picture of what is possible and came up with a different vision for the property and a value of $20million for the property. They saw the potential for an entirely new self-contained suburb on the property:
As a result, Viv Hancock commissioned Raine and Horne represented by Oliver Tham to work with Lloyd Hancock, a consulting partner with Price Waterhouse at that time,, his youngest son to develop a viable development concept so that the property can be sold for the highest value. He intimated that he would be happy with anything more than $10 million as all the other parties said it was worth $5 million.
Some of the highlights concerning the property planning and marketing and its success included:
Due to the cost of the planning exercise, there was less budget for marketing the property. One solution was to tap into media editorials and creating some newsworthy articles of the vision. At that time Lloyd Hancock who worked with Price Waterhouse and Oliver Tham work extensively to market the property locally and overseas.
Many Japanese companies were contacted as at that time as they were investing heavily in Queensland. Some companies particularly clients of Japanese construction giant, Kumagai Gumi expressed interest to participate in a major residential development and see the potential for 10%-15% of the development to be used for "Corporate Retirees" as part of a "Silver City" concept for retiring Japanese to enjoy a higher quality of retirement life overseas for several months in a year. Many other Asian companies including, Far East of Singapore, Mbf group, Sime Darby, Lipland, YTL in Malaysia and many others in Hong Kong as well, and many other countries were approached on the development.
To complement the marketing apart from advertising, the group decided to generated several news worthy articles to generate interest. They used the media to write editorials about the project to create interest as at that time there was not a great appetite for major projects of this scale in Australia.
During an early media interview, a reporters were told that one of the catalysts to make the development viable, was to include a small component of homes to cater for the Japanese corporate retirement market. A dwelling by a golf course or lake could be a great "golden handshake" for those taking early retirement. It was said that the population of Forest Lake could be as high as 50,000 people and the component of overseas retirees as well as Japanese would be no more than 10%. However the information was sensationalised with a front-page article was published by the Brisbane Courier Mail, with Lloyd Hancock sporting an Akubra with the caption "Young Tycoon want to build retirement village for 5,000 Japanese". The news went "viral" and every newspaper and media source from radio and television weighed in on the controversy. RSL heavyweights and sometimes "rednecks" or nationalist which they prefer to be known, like Bruce Ruxton from Sydney suddenly became more famous overnight in his vocal tirade against the concept of Japanese retiring in Queensland The pent-up emotions of some misinformed RSL members gave the media a lot to write about and very soon the entire Asian media weighed-in on the subject. Helicopters were flying over the property on behalf of local and foreign media. Many thought that the project was to be a "fenced off, Japanese only retirement village" when in reality that was never the intention. There were many debates on television all over Australia, Asia and beyond, including a debates on migration by Jana Wendt on A Current Affair.
In the real estate business there is no bad publicity, the extreme exposure brought in buyers far and wide and the price of $20million was achieved and the property was sold. The buyers was Girvans Limited and from there even English group Beezer Investments Plc became a partner. Eventually Delfin through the ANZ Bank got involved in the development when Girvans went into problems in the New Zealand and Sydney investment market. The project was renamed "Forest Lake" and Delphin which eventually became Delfin Lend Lease became the principal developer.
Maha Sinnathamby the now famous developer of Greater Springfield also tried very hard to buy the property however when he was not successful. He was told by one of the consultants, "Look Maha, it does not matter if you cannot buy this property, find something further down the road that is twice the size and half the price and when this property is done, you will be sitting on a gold mine". Nearly 10 years later Maha Sinnathamby advised that he secured a property three times the size and one third the price and the result is the most successful Master Planned community in Australia, Greater Springfield. The Forest Lake concept was expanded to Springfield Lakes and Delphin Lendlease transferred its expertise by participating as a development partner in Springfield Lakes.
In 1990, construction of the master planned community commenced by Delfin Lend Lease. In 1991, Forest Lake was officially launched by the then Premier of Queensland, Wayne Goss. The development lasted until 2006, when the last block of land was sold.
Forest Lake State School opened on 1 January 1994.
Forest Lake College opened in 1994.
By 1998 the suburb had 10,100 residents.

The master planned community which was created by Delfin Lend Lease was so successful, that in the latter years of the development, up to 40% of new homes sold were purchased by existing residents..

Grand Avenue State School opened on 1 January 1999.
Forest Lake State High School opened on 1 January 2001.
As the first Master Planned Community within the City of Brisbane, Forest Lake won numerous awards for its design and Delfin, the developer of Forest Lake, was absorbed into Lend Lease in 2001. Now operating as Delfin Lend Lease, they are developing the adjacent Springfield Lakes Master Planned Community.
Forest Lake College opened on 2002.
Mary McConnel School opened on 28 January 2003.
Forest Lake had a population of 20,900 residents, as of February 2006.
In 2011, Forest Lake College was renamed St John's Anglican College.
In 2011, the lake experienced a blue-green algae bloom, causing some concern to local residents. A local councillor advised people to not enter the water due to the high toxicity levels from the algae bloom. The algae bloom occurred again in 2017.
In the Forest Lake had a population of 22,426 people.
In the, Forest Lake had a population of 22,904 people.

Education

Forest Lake State School is a government primary school for boys and girls at Kauri Place. In 2017, the school had an enrolment of 865 students with 69 teachers and 38 non-teaching staff. It includes a special education program.
Grand Avenue State School is a government primary school for boys and girls at Cnr Centennial Way & Grand Avenue. In 2017, the school had an enrolment of 1225 students with 90 teachers and 46 non-teaching staff. It includes a special education program.
Forest Lake State High School is a government secondary school for boys and girls at High Street. In 2017, the school had an enrolment of 1485 students with 121 teachers and 57 non-teaching staff. It includes a special education program.
St John's Anglican College is a private primary and secondary school for boys and girls. It operates two campuses: a primary campus at Alpine Place and a secondary campus at College Avenue. In 2017, the school had an enrolment of 927 students with 80 teachers and 63 non-teaching staff.

Amenities

Forest Lake is serviced by a weekly visit of the Brisbane City Council's mobile library service at the Forest Lake Shopping Centre.

Sport

Sports include: Australian rules football, rugby union, netball, baseball, basketball, tennis, swimming, water polo, triathlon, cricket and athletics.

Transport

operates 5 routes that serve stops in Forest Lake:
In the, Forest Lake recorded a population of 22,426 people, 51.9% female and 48.1% male. The median age of the Forest Lake population was 33 years of age, 4 years below the Australian median. 61% of people living in Forest Lake were born in Australia, compared to the national average of 69.8%; the next most common countries of birth were New Zealand 7.9%, England 4.7%, Vietnam 3.1%, India 1.8%, South Africa 1.6%. 73.6% of people spoke only English at home; the next most popular languages were 5% Vietnamese, 1.6% Samoan, 1.4% Sinhalese, 1.3% Mandarin, 1.2% Hindi.
According to the, Forest Lake includes the largest Sri Lankan Australian community of any suburb in Queensland, numbering 344 individuals and making up 1.5% of the suburb's population.

Awards