A PETITION has been started which calls for a probe into why council has failed to develop basic infrastructure like sealed roads and adequate sewerage for the Southern Moreton Bay Islands.
The online petition - which has gathered nearly 300 signatures since September 25 - called for a Commission of Inquiry into why council has not yet provided the islands with urban infrastructure of the same standard as other urban areas.
It said Russell, Karragarra, Lamb and Macleay islands were subdivided 50 years ago without standard urban services like reticulated sewerage and sealed roads with concrete kerb and channelling.
"Up to 10,000 residents have to put up with sub-standard roads, many of them half-normal width with many yet to be sealed," the petition said.
Since the implementation of the program five years ago, council has spent $12.3 million sealing 45 kilometres of roads.
Landowner and Russell Island Development Association president Ian Olsson - who started the petition - said there were also risks to public health and marine life from overflowing septic systems.
Councillor Mark Edwards said the cost of providing reticulated sewerage to the SMBIs was about $500 million.
Cr Edwards said council had produced a sustainability study into the islands' wastewater systems in 2011.
"It recognised that the management of domestic wastewater is critical to the long-term sustainability of the islands (and) that a centralised reticulated sewerage network was the only solution," he said.
"I am concerned that as density grows, so too does the need for council to consider onsite wastewater options, including reticulated sewerage."
A council spokesperson said council was investigating options for sewerage on the islands.
The spokesperson said the islands had a complex infrastructure history.
Responsibility for the islands was transferred from the state government to council in 1973 with little infrastructure built.
"Since (then), successive councils have worked from a relatively small, city-wide rates base to improve infrastructure," the spokesperson said.
In the last three years, council had funded projects including a car park, seawall and boat ramp, sports and community facilities and fire prevention and maintenance works.
It was also working with the state government to upgrade ferry terminals on Lamb, Russell, Macleay and Karragarra islands.
Mr Olsson said proper infrastructure was long overdue.
"They've put in shoddy streets and passed off the islands as this laid-back lifestyle," Mr Olsson said.
"It's gone on for too long, this substandard provision of infrastructure."