NGAA chief executive Bronwen Clark told the Local Government News Roundup the forum was designed as a peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing event for councils experiencing rapid population growth, distinct from the Congress, which she described as a thought-leadership event open to a broader local government audience. This year’s Congress will focus on industrial land use and data centres.

The forum comes as councils face what Clark described as intensifying pressure to deliver housing under the National Housing Accord’s target of 1.2 million new homes, alongside a $2 billion federal Housing Support Program. Clark said established growth-area councils had decades of experience managing this kind of expansion, but that pressure was now being felt more acutely by smaller, middle-ring and regional councils facing high residential growth targets for the first time.

A key session will address infrastructure sequencing — planning maternal and child health services, sporting facilities, libraries and transport links to keep pace with new housing, rather than retrofitting them after communities are established. Clark cites an example where a poorly designed slip lane at a new estate’s exit led to wait times of up to 45 minutes and years of community pressure before it was redesigned.

The forum will also cover advocacy, with the NGAA currently pushing the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Centre for Population within federal Treasury to adopt a formal classification for greenfield growth zones. Clark said current federal measurement treated entire metropolitan regions — such as Greater Melbourne or Greater Sydney — as single entities, obscuring the distinct growth and infrastructure pressures faced by outer suburban and inner regional areas within them.

The event is open to elected members, senior officers and council practitioners, with numbers deliberately capped at around 80 to 100 attendees to prioritise networking and connection over scale. No members of parliament or departmental officials are expected to attend, with Clark describing the inaugural forum as “our own people” sharing experience directly with peers.

Registrations are open at ngaa.org.au.