Sunshine Coast Residents Demand Action as Growth Transforms Neighborhoods

The Sunshine Coast is growing faster than any infrastructure plan has managed to absorb. Population projections from the Sunshine Coast Council's own Regional Economic Development Strategy put the region on track to house more than 500,000 people by 2041, up from roughly 360,000 today, and the pressure of that trajectory is landing squarely on the doorsteps of people who have lived here for decades.

The urgency sharpened this year. The Queensland government's new short-term rental registration scheme came into effect in April, council finalised its Maroochydore City Centre Priority Development Area controls in late 2025, and construction cranes now dot the Birtinya hospital precinct as the Sunshine Coast University Hospital expansion pushes toward its next stage. All of it at once. Residents say the cumulative weight of change is something else entirely.

In Buderim, where fibro cottages once defined a hilltop village, some streets near King Street and Park Road have seen four or five development applications lodged in a single quarter. Long-term residents describe watching mature fig trees cleared on lots rezoned for townhouses, with little more than a fortnight's notice in the local government gazette. One household on Gloucester Road, a couple who have owned their property for 22 years, told The Daily Sunshine Coast they received a letter about a proposed six-unit development next door only after the application had already been submitted.

Short-Term Rentals and the Rental Squeeze

The Airbnb issue runs hot in Mooloolaba and Caloundra. The state's new registration system requires hosts to pay a $350 annual fee and comply with new safety standards, but critics argue it does not go far enough to return properties to the long-term rental market. Vacancy rates on the Sunshine Coast sat at 0.7 percent as of May 2026, according to the Real Estate Institute of Queensland, among the tightest in the state. A family in Alexandra Headland, who asked not to be named, said they had been searching for a three-bedroom rental for four months and found most listings in their price range had disappeared into the short-stay pool since 2023.

Community group Sunshine Coast Renters Alliance, based in Maroochydore, has been lobbying the council since February to introduce a local planning overlay capping short-term rentals at 180 days per year in certain residential zones. The council has so far described the proposal as being under review. Meanwhile, on Minyama Island Drive, neighbours of a converted short-stay property say weekend noise and turnover of strangers has fundamentally changed the feel of their street.

Environmental Anxiety on the Hinterland Edge

Growth is not only a coastal concern. In the rural fringe around Eumundi and Doonan, landholders are watching the boundary of the Urban Footprint creep closer. Several properties adjacent to the Noosa Road corridor received letters from a private planning firm in May canvassing their interest in rezoning, unsolicited, residents say, and disorienting. The Eumundi Progress Association has called a public meeting for July 16 at the Eumundi Showgrounds to gauge community sentiment ahead of any formal submission process.

The vegetation clearing pressure worries ecologists connected with Sunshine Coast Environment Council, which has monitored habitat corridors between the Glass House Mountains and the Blackall Range for 15 years. The organisation says approval rates for self-assessable clearing on rural lots have risen noticeably since state-level code changes in late 2024, with the koala-mapped habitat around Valdora and Bridges Road among the most exposed.

Sunshine Coast Council is scheduled to present its refreshed Local Government Infrastructure Plan to a full council meeting on July 22. Residents can make written submissions until July 18 through the council's Have Your Say portal. The Maroochydore CBD Residents and Workers Reference Group meets on July 9 at the new First Avenue civic building, open to the public, where traffic modelling for the Cotton Tree Parkway extension is expected to be tabled. Anyone with a stake in how this region handles the next decade of change would do well to show up.