The Greens will this morning call for a new inner-city primary and high school to be built within a revamped "smarter" multi-billion dollar Queens Wharf development in inner-city Brisbane.
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The Queens Wharf project is Brisbane's new casino and resort development between George and William Street.
The Greens have modelled their idea on a 10-storey school in inner-city Melbourne which opened this week with 230 students after the college renovated an old NAB building for $51 million.
The Queensland Government is scrambling to fit students living in thousands of inner-city apartments into Brisbane's inner-city schools.
The proposal will be released by The Greens Brisbane Central candidate Kirsten Lovejoy – who has stood as a Greens candidate in the past federal and state elections – and national Greens leader Senator Richard di Natale.
"I think it is a model; I think it is an option," Greens candidate Kirsten Lovejoy said last night.
"And what we are not doing at the moment is bringing forward any options that deal with the huge, increasing demand on our inner-city high schools and primary schools," she said.
In Melbourne, the private Haileybury College opened in January 2017 in a 10-storey refurbished inner-city National Australia Bank building, as the number of children in Melbourne's inner-city increases dramatically.
It opened this week with 230 students from kindergarten to Year 9, after buying the building near Flagstaff Gardens for $52 million.
The Queensland Government is now spending $42 million to put 51 new classrooms in five inner-city suburbs; in New Farm, Toowong, Bulimba, Kelvin Grove and West End.
Pressure is also building in the suburbs of Buranda and East Brisbane.
Ms Lovejoy, who works as a public servant, said she did not believe Star Entertainment Group would automatically object to including a "CBD school" proposal in the plan if it was well made.
"We know that as part of their development, they are talking about resident towers," Ms Lovejoy said.
"So where are all these kids who live in those towers going to go to school?
"The reality is that this is public land and they are just gifting it to the casino (developers) and not considering what needs to happen on the ground."
The increasing number of children living in inner-city apartments creating problems with inner-city schools was identified in two stories in the past fortnight by Fairfax Media.
The University of Queensland also announced plans this week to convert two storeys of an inner-city building in Queen Street into a part of its Faculty of Business, Economics and Law.
Greens national leader Richard di Natale will on Thursday launch Ms Lovejoy's Queensland election campaign on Thursday for the seat of Brisbane Central held by Labor's Grace Grace.
"Instead of allowing a mega casino complete with 2500 pokies to swallow up 10 percent of Brisbane City, we could invest in infrastructure that actually services the community," Senator di Natale said.
"We will fight for schools instead of pokies, affordable housing rather than fancy hotel rooms Queenslanders can't afford."
Ms Lovejoy said their badly needed to be community debate about alternatives to the current Queens Wharf development plan.
"Our inner-city schools are landlocked and bursting at the seams, yet this Government is just going to give away a huge chunk of precious public land right in the heart of Brisbane," Ms Lovejoy said.
"The LNP closed down schools like Fortitude Valley State School and Labor and the LNP then sold off Education Department land in South Brisbane to property developers," she said.
"A couple of extra classrooms here and there is not going to solve this massive problem."
