Page 951 - Week 03 - Thursday, 7 April 2022
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ownership, including co-housing, rent-to-buy and financial options. They wanted us to include landscape plans and streetscape elevation to describe the character of green space, to encourage the diversity of street fronts and make sure that these are enforceable for multi-unit developments. They said that future developments in RZ3 to RZ5 needed to meet mandatory standards for the proportion of soft landscaping and plantable areas. That is to make sure we have room for shade trees and gardens to reduce the heat island effect and reduce stormwater run-off. We know how important those are as our climate is changing.
There was a greater preference for infill development over greenfield development, particularly along transport corridors. They said we needed to make sure that that was not done at the expense of parks and urban open space, but that we kept those green spaces while we did that transit-oriented development. For both infill and new developments, people wanted government to require or incentivise developers to deliver an increase in a mix of dwelling sizes and diversity of dwelling types, and an increase in the set proportion of new dwellings that meet universal design standards, whilst taking into account the different precinct characters and changes over time.
They wanted precinct plans to provide a framework for planning in and around suburbs and centres; an increase in government housing in line with our population growth, including an increase in the types of dwellings to reflect the changing demographics; housing built to a high quality throughout all stages, including independent inspection and certification processes; adoption of a sustainable outcome-based standard of design that demonstrates best practice design quality and liveability standards; allowing dual occupancy with separate title in RZ1; and avoiding lots of tall buildings closely packed next to each other.
That is what the community told us when we went through that deliberative process. Those are quite sophisticated recommendations that came out of that. It was quite a detailed debate and a detailed engagement with the issues. It was a bit less simplistic than debates we often have here in this chamber. I find it interesting what happens when you give the community a bit of time and a bit of expert guidance in terms of the sorts of solutions they are likely to come up with for us.
The community have told us what they want, and they will continue to tell us what they want. There is a strong preference there for infill development over greenfield development, for good quality development, dual occupancy in RZ1—whilst retaining greenspace—and for a diversity of dwelling types. They definitely do not want development at the expense of parks and urban open space.
In our parliamentary and governing agreement, we have a commitment from the ACT government to have at least 70 per cent of new housing development within Canberra’s existing urban footprint. It is really important that we maintain that infill development as the preference. It is important because land is not an infinite resource.
We need to protect our environment and we need to make sure we do not endlessly sprawl. That is not merely to save the environment; that is the community’s preference. They do not want to have to travel far and wide to get all their basic needs met. The community want easy access to centralised services. The best way we can do
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