Positive Planning and Sustainable Brownfield Regeneration: The Role and Potential of Government Land Development Agencies

State governments in Australia increasingly outsource the co-ordination and delivery of 'difficult' regeneration projects to state-owned land development agencies (LDAs). These LDAs were originally established in the 1970s with a strong redistributionist agenda, operating mainly to deliver low-cost residential land on greenfield sites. In the last 25 years, however, their roles have been redirected towards brownfield regeneration and they have been required to operate profitably. This paper uses the recent rise and fall of a powerful Queensland LDA to examine the potential of ` positive planning' in political contexts where governments wish to both limit their involvement in planning and achieve sustainable brownfield regeneration.