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Infrastructure Charges

What is an Infrastructure Charge?

Infrastructure charges are required to be paid by developers to cover trunk infrastructure costs that arise as a result of their development. Trunk infrastructure is the key network infrastructure that provides essential services to the Townsville area, including sewer, water supply, transport and parks. Infrastructure charges are for the cost of capital provision, and not used for maintenance or operational purposes.

When council determines you should receive an infrastructure charge, you will be issued with an infrastructure charge notice. Your development may be levied infrastructure charges if it is:

  • a reconfiguration of a lot (subdivision)
  • a material change of use of premises
  • carrying out accepted development subject to the requirements of the Planning Act 2016
  • certain types of building works.

Infrastructure charges will generally become payable when you complete your development. The final charge may require adjustments to reflect inflation, and will include offsets for any trunk infrastructure you have provided.

For further information on infrastructure charges and their operation, please read the following information sheet:

Infrastructure Charge Resolution

Infrastructure charge resolutions are a way for Council to set the charges levied. Charges reflect the costs of maintaining and growing the infrastructure networks. Depending on when your development application was approved, you will be levied charges based on the infrastructure charges resolution that was applied in that financial year. Information about Council's infrastructure charge resolutions can be found below.

Contributions Calculators

You can estimate the cost of your infrastructure charges by using our contribution calculators below. You must use the calculator version that applies to the time frame in which you received development approval.

When using these calculators, do not enable editing.

Superseded Contribution Calculators

Superseded contribution calculators are for developments that were assessed prior to the adoption of Council's first priority infrastructure plan. Find the contribution calculator that applies to your development by toggling the containers below.

Infrastructure Charges Register

Registers of infrastructure charges are required to made available under the Planning Regulation 2017. Townsville City Council is providing the register in two spreadsheets, for approvals from 1 July 2014. The manual register contains information on those infrastructure charges that have been manually calculated (generally older approvals). The Novoplan register contains information for approvals processed through the Novoplan software.

  • Manual register (XLSX, 303.6 KB)

    To view charge notices and calculations, please use the link provided in column E (“Link to Charge Notice and calculations via ePlanning link”). Details of the calculation methodology and indexing provisions can be found in the relevant Infrastructure Charges Resolution.

Trunk Infrastructure and Charges Information Annual Report

An annual report about trunk infrastructure expenditure and infrastructure charges for the previous financial year and forecasts into the near future is required under the Planning Regulation 2017.

Note:

  • Infrastructure charges revenue that is collected in monetary form is not required to be spent in the same suburb or locality.
  • Where trunk infrastructure is provided under a development approval condition, the value of this infrastructure is offset against the infrastructure charge that would otherwise be payable.
  • Infrastructure charges revenue may also be used to pay for regional scale infrastructure.

Disclaimer: This report is based on information sourced from the Townsville City Council Asset Capital Plan, Local Government Infrastructure Plan 2019, Property & Rating database, and from internal forecasting based on growth assumptions and other analysis. It is prepared only for the purposes of the trunk infrastructure information and infrastructure charges information reporting requirements of the Planning Act 2016. The information is not guaranteed for accuracy or reliability.