On Brisbane's northside, the city council's strategy for managing growth is changing the face of the historic suburb of Lutwyche.

Lutwyche is one of Brisbane's oldest suburbs but it is undergoing a massive transformation at a remarkable pace.

In street after street, developers have moved in to demolish dozens of houses and replace them with blocks of apartments.

The Lutwyche Road corridor neighbourhood plan has been on the drawing board since 2006, but construction has begun at a frantic pace with hundreds of new units springing up around the Lutwyche Busway Station.

According to the plan, "Intensive redevelopment will focus on the Lutwyche Centre [and Windsor East] Precincts to reflect their role as established activity centres and their high level of accessibility to high quality public transport nodes".

Linda Watson wanted to stay in Lutwyche but accepted an offer for her house when she saw the height of the planned units.

The Lutwyche corridor neighbourhood plan. ( Supplied: Brisbane City Council )

"We felt that our hand was forced given that we didn't want to live next door to a unit apartment the size of these ones," she said.

"We've gone from a street here where we had 10 houses to possibly over 200 units."

On the other side of Lutwyche Road the Slaughter family has lived for decades in a house that was built in 1863.

Fearful of a high-density future, the Slaughters purchased some surrounding houses as a buffer.

"Essentially it'll be a canyon of high-rises and it'll become a ghetto full of ice dens and all that sort of stuff," Ed Slaughter said.

"Too much is happening, too quickly, with too little consultation by the Brisbane City Council.

"They've got to get some vision and maybe start protecting some of the heritage and some of the green spaces and some of the character of this suburb before it's too late."

Council's Planning and Development Committee chairwoman Amanda Cooper said locals were consulted at length about building up the centre of the suburb.

"The vast majority of Lutwyche will stay as it is," she said.

"We worked with residents to discuss where the growth should occur.

"They actually helped us shape the outcome for the area."

Cr Cooper said if suburbs like Lutwyche, Chermside and West End were not built up, new developments would spread out and encroach on green space.

"In our city there isn't really any more land left for residential sub-divisions," she said.

"Generally for Brisbane it's infill development, so existing sites to be redeveloped."