GOLD Coast City Council is considering a substantial new grant for people looking to build a new home on the Gold Coast.

Councillor Peter Young said the council grant could be as high as $10,000.

It would run alongside the State Government's $10,000 Queensland Building Boost Grant, which starts on August 1 and runs for six months.

In conjunction with the first-home buyers' grant some people could be eli- gible for as much as $27,000 if Cr Young's proposal is successful.

The plan was endorsed “unanimously” by council's Sustainable City Future Committee on Tuesday.

The full council will consider it next Monday before the program is implemented.

Cr Young said council had “funds in an infrastructure reserve which can be used without impacting the current budget”.

Executive Director for Gold Coast and Northern Rivers Housing Industry Association Colin Buttenshaw said building figures in the area were at half their usual capacity and “any- thing that is going to stimulate the local market will help”.

Mr Buttenshaw said in the boom time as many as 7000 houses were built in the region each year.

“Most years there's always been at the least more than 5000.”

In 2010, 3309 dwellings were built and “this year we're worried we won't reach 3000.”

However he was positive about what the state government grant had already achieved considering it was not yet in effect until August 1.

“We've certainly had a lot of enquiry about new buildings, which is a good sign.”

Cr Young said the new grant was intended to run in conjunction with mechanisms aimed at streamlining the process and cutting red-tape costs for existing approved developments.

“New business rules could soon apply to approvals given prior to the July 1 implementation of changed infrastructure charges,” he said.

“Council has set local residential charges at between $1000 and $6500 below the state maximum standard charges.”

The report on the potential for council to provide the grant will be presented to the next sustainable city future committee meeting on July 26.