Colpak haulage company director Colin Pakai has leased a warehouse from a commercial landholder in Meadowbrook since 2015.
When he was on the lookout for a new location in 2013, Logan was unknown to him until a friend suggested he check out the new Meadowbrook industrial estate.
“I thought ‘Meadowbrook? Why would I go to Meadowbrook?’” he said.
He checked it out, saw potential, and decided to take a punt on the area because it was a good price.
“We moved in about June-July 2015, and I would never move from here, it is the most convenient place to be,” he said.
Mr Pakai manages 26 trucks which deliver small hire equipment all over Australia, so having a location so close to major roads is a strength of the area.
“If you want to get to Sydney, the highway’s just there, you want to go west, Logan Motorway, you want to go north, the freeway is just here,” he said.
Looking to the future, the idea of having a new block of land to build on is appealing.
“I don’t need to buy anything, our yard is a good size, but I wouldn’t mind going slightly bigger eventually because we’re only 9,000 sqm here,” Mr Pakai said.
Finding land of that kind in Logan is a rare feat right now, according to economic development chair Cr Jon Raven.
“There’s still places to move into and businesses moving in all the time, but when you’re trying to buy your own smaller lot for industrial development, that’s hard to come by at the moment,” he said.
Cr Raven said it is a good problem to have, signalling strong commercial confidence in the region.
“It’s definitely a challenge that we are aware of and working on,” he said.
The shortage has been caused by number of businesses moving in and the small allocation for commercial land under the current planning scheme.
“Only two per cent is set aside for employment uses [under the town plan],” he said.
That works out for be about to be about 20 km2 out of nearly 959 km2 across 70 suburbs.
“That’s something we want to review as part of the new planning scheme,” he added.
Discussions for the 2025 plan are happening now.
“It allows us to identify areas that are suitable for that smaller property, so that there’s a variety of businesses in the city, not just big logistics companies,” Cr Raven said.
“We don’t want to run out of employment land and industrial land before the Olympics comes, we want to keep growing that, which is why the new planning scheme is so important.”
