The new growth areas for the city were identified in the draft Activation Strategy, which will be presented to councillors at Monday night’s meeting alongside a draft open space strategy and the final Integrated Transport Strategy.

In order to cope with an additional 20,000 residents by 2040, planners have suggested residential housing north of Boorooma along Coolamon Road, west of Pomingalarna Park and east around Forest Hill.

Residential infill in Central Wagga was also identified as a way to house more people, but strategic asset planner Ben Creighton was keen to point out that didn’t mean high-rise apartments in the CBD.

“We want to cater for growth, but also maintain and improve the livability of the city,” Mr Creighton said.

“We’re planning for an additional 20,000 people by 2040, but beyond that as well to when the city will grow to 100,000 people.

“That’s looking at all aspects of the city between the three different documents and they integrate quite closely.”

The draft documents, available on council’s website, were vastly different from a transport study that drew fierce criticism earlier in the year for suggesting the city embrace high-density housing as a way to combat urban sprawl.

Many people, including councillor and lifelong resident Yvonne Braid, said it was vital to retain Wagga’s unique “city in the country” character.

“We’ve got to be prepared for the future but we’ve also got to be careful that we don’t lose what we have,” Cr Braid said.

“People will move to Wagga to get away from the hurley-burley of metropolitan areas and that’s what we should be looking at, not huge high-rises.”

Holding the livability of the city in tension with the continued growth of the region’s unofficial capital was foremost in the minds of planners like Mr Creighton.

“Wagga caters for a much broader area and we want to plan more broadly to cater for the region’s growth, particularly the ageing demographic of towns around us,” he said. 

“This is the culmination of a 12-month engagement process – there have been thousands and thousands of ideas presented – and it’s very important that people review these documents and provide their feedback.”