Page 1313 - Week 04 - Thursday, 5 May 2022
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development, carefully balancing environmental considerations with a need to build more housing to improve affordability and choice for Canberrans.
In a 2015 report, the National Capital Authority suggested that an area of 726 hectares could be developed whilst retaining strong environmental safeguards. They estimated this would accommodate between 15,000 and 20,000 people, depending on the housing mix. This is an area that is within close proximity to existing infrastructure—essential services like education, health care, supermarkets, community services, employment and public transport—and there is real potential here to grow the Tuggeranong town centre to make sure that Tuggeranong maintains its vibrancy for the future while providing land to help address Canberra’s housing crisis.
Let me be clear—because the minister for planning is all-too-predictable—my motion very clearly calls for a feasibility study for the development in the west Tuggeranong area which will specifically take into consideration a number of factors, including, very importantly—and I quote from my motion:
… identification and assessment of environmental impacts, including minimisation, mitigation and offsets.
It is a given that any government that has responsibility for development will and must balance the needs of our growing community with the protection of our local environment. What our community wants to see, what our community needs to see, is a government committed to taking those steps to actually address our housing crisis by committing to a feasibility study in this area.
In this housing crisis, it should be a priority for this Labor-Greens government to not only increase the supply of homes across Canberra but also provide real, genuine and viable options for the types of homes that Canberrans need and want. The 2015 housing choices survey, the Winton report, made it clear that an overwhelming majority of Canberrans want to live in freestanding homes and medium density townhouses. Yet those opposite have dictated that a staggering 70 per cent of new dwellings must and will be high-rise apartment towers, when the Winton report found that fewer than two per cent of Canberrans actually want to live in high-rise apartment towers.
This Labor-Greens government must give Canberrans the freedom and autonomy to live the way that they want, instead of dictating that they live the way that the government want. It is incumbent that it governs for Canberrans, not governs for itself. For some, high-density inner city apartments suit their needs very well, but others need and want more space and other options when it comes to housing. We cannot punish these Canberrans by making these homes more and more expensive, to the point where we are seeing that they are only available to the wealthiest in our community.
In the last sitting period, I brought a motion to this chamber calling on the Labor-Greens government to review and reframe their 70-30 infill policy that is having devastating effects for tens of thousands of Canberrans who desperately want land for detached housing and mid-density options. What was their response?
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