Tumby Bay’s population is set to double if the Northern Water desalination plant at Cape Hardy goes ahead.
Planning is already underway to prepare for a 1200-person boost to staff the ongoing operation of the facility.
Tumby Bay District Council chief executive officer Rebecca Hayes said in addition to the Northern Water desalination plant, there was also the Amp Energy green ammonia and green hydrogen plant and Iron Road’s multi-use port – all of which had major project status.
All are set to use the 1207 hectares of land owned by Iron Road at Cape Hardy, north of Tumby Bay.
Ms Hayes said all three companies had assisted the council in preparing a federal government Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program submission, which she expected to be lodged this week.
“Tumby Bay would double in size in the next 10 to 15 years,” she said.
“It is an incredibly exciting time and it is just a matter of getting the planning right.”
She said building regionally was more expensive than in metropolitan areas, as it was difficult to entice “developers to come out here”, and there was about an 18-month wait for house builders in Tumby Bay at the moment.
The council owned land which could be developed, but “we don’t want that haphazard approach”.
The state government announced a $10 million priority housing scheme last week – up for grabs for regional councils, local industry, employers and developers to help kickstart their residential projects.
Ms Hayes said the council would “always welcome government funding” but that $10m was for across all of regional South Australia and was “not going to elicit the outcomes needed”.
The council’s planning also includes all towns in the district – Tumby Bay, Port Neill and Ungarra.
By comparison the federal government Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program would fund up to $5m for each successful applicant for master planning, consultation, design, business cases and partnership establishment, under stream one.
Stream two is grants of between $5m and $50m to help deliver one or more elements of a precinct, to redevelop regional towns and spaces.
It could be used to enable infrastructure – roads, pathways, underground infrastructure – public infrastructure, or open spaces between elements or a particular building that activates other investment.
“We have council-owned land that we could use,” Ms Hayes said.
In addition, there was privately owned land that could also be developed under the collaborative nature of the federal funding.
“Bearing in mind the water and power costs $1 million to connect – [developing housing land] is an expensive exercise,” Ms Hayes said.
“We can’t afford to do it without [government assistance].”
She said when it came to providing housing for the three major projects, Tumby Bay rental houses were “few and far between” and residential properties between $350,000 and $400,00 that were listed for sale moved quite quickly.
