The council has announced the sites it has earmarked as so-called Suburban Renewal Precincts, areas of old industrial land it has deemed suitable for redevelopment as mixed use villages.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner, who revealed the program in this year’s council Budget, is holding up the plan as a means of easing Brisbane’s housing crisis.

Schrinner has painted the precincts as examples of where successful urban renewal projects such as Teneriffe, the Howard Smith Wharves and West End’s West Village can be extended into the suburbs.

“They will help remove tired old commercial sites that no longer stack up and replace them with vibrant developments that deliver new housing, as well as employment and retail opportunities,” he said.

“By utilising land within our existing urban footprint like this we will also deliver an environmental dividend by helping keep existing low-density areas, bushland and greenspace preserved.”

One of the better known of the 14 identified sites is the former Top Taste commercial bakery on Gympie Rd at Kedron, which ceased operations in 2020.

Others include a former paint factory, a brickworks and a metal fabricator. All are examples of industrial sites that are no longer fit for purpose.

Some of the sites, which range from 16 hectares to a mere 900 square metres, have already begun redevelopment while others are dormant.

The project is being driven by the council-created Better Suburbs Initiative board, chaired by property industry veteran Ross Elliott, a longtime advocate for more attention to be paid to Brisbane’s middle and outer suburbs.