Sunshine Coast Council’s vision for future growth is an impressive line in the sand aimed at ensuring future development is both supported by infrastructure and sustainable.

In just what form the Sunshine Coast Growth Management Position Paper, the council’s preliminary submission to the state government’s SEQ Regional Plan review, will survive that process remains to be seen but there can be no doubt that it has delivered on the election expectation that things would be done differently from the past.

The document clearly had universal support when councillors went through its 65 pages line by line Monday to ensure absolute clarity of meaning and intent.

It demands a future informed by the realities of peak oil, climate change and emissions trading and the need for water and food security.

Its intent, which council has signalled would be carried through into a new regional planning scheme, would limit growth to 2031 within the existing urban footprint except potentially for an urban investigation area at Beerwah.

The state government may have demanded approvals for greenfield sites at Palmview and Caloundra South but council wants structure planning and all necessary infrastructure delivered first.

The council’s decision to open the document to the public is in line with its fundamental value to be open and transparent.

The hope is that if the community understands the issues, it will give council a stronger voice when it takes its argument to the state government table.

The Camp Tranquility summit involving senior staff and all councillors last week emerged with the vision statement: “The Sunshine Coast as Australia’s most sustainable region - green, vibrant, diverse’’.

There is a broad community expectation that council will do everything in its power to protect and enhance the region’s dwindling environmental values and keep the Sunshine Coast as free as possible from the big city negatives from which most of us escaped.

Those expectations, the desire to retain the individual integrity of the region’s towns and villages and the need to provide for a range of age and income groups are all addressed in the position paper.

So, too, is the need to shift people out of cars and onto bikes, buses and foot.

And it is clear that council is not prepared just to accept state government dwelling targets if they are found to be unsustainable.

That detail has still to be worked through but the position paper signals that all assumptions made in previous Local Growth Management Strategies would be subject to a review of residential carrying capacity.

The document is essentially this community’s line in the sand.

It is now up to the state government to show whether or not its direction is in step with our aspirations.

While sectional interests may consider its approach restrictive to their opportunity, any detailed examination reveals a document that has set a necessarily high bar aimed at meeting not only the challenges of the future but also the demands of the present.

The paper argues that a sustainable future for the Sunshine Coast region requires a balance between accommodating growth and maintaining liveability.

Councillors on Monday praised and applauded the efforts of staff and the input from strategy and planning chair and integrated transport systems portfolio head Viven Griffin for driving the creation of the document during the first heady three months of the new council.

Tensions that had become apparent between councillors in recent weeks appear to have been eased by last week’s Camp Tranquility.

Whatever they put in the water up on the Blackall Range has had an effect because even debate which ultimately led to a full green light for the Cooroy Community precinct was conducted with deference and mutual respect.

Or perhaps it is the realisation that common goals are stronger than areas of disagreement and will only have a chance of being achieved with a united front in the face of a state government that has ultimate control.

There is a long way to go to deliver on the position paper’s hope and promise, but for the first time this region in moving in a shared direction.