Page 1267 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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a court of law is the appropriate place for their consideration. So the Government must establish interim arrangements to enable decisions to be made. This must be done quickly so that business initiatives currently being taken do not fail to materialise. It is important for the future economic health of the ACT community that this be done quickly.
The second matter for Government attention is, if anything, of more importance than the first because it goes right to the heart of the problem. Indeed, if this aspect had been addressed earlier, there would be no problem with the Canberra Times site today. I refer to the need for comprehensive plans for Canberra in its entirety and for Canberra's city centre in particular. I believe the plans should be sufficiently forward-looking to carry us through to the year 2010; that is, 20 years from now.
The Government therefore has also an urgent duty to improve and to clarify the planning process and to remove the appeals process from the costly and time-consuming jurisdiction of the courts. Ideally, the Government should set up a suitably qualified tribunal to consider lease purpose variations, one that is open, accessible to all and responsive to this community's needs.
Until now, the development of Civic has been somewhat piecemeal and, as a result, has brought conflict between residents, developers, retailers and workers. What is needed is a clear, understandable statement of what is proposed for Civic centre so that conflict is minimised and planning decisions are reached with some confidence that they will not be overturned. Unless we have a comprehensive plan, investors and developers will have no confidence in growth in Civic and, without that confidence, both the construction industry and retail outlets will be the poorer.
Very simply, Civic development or redevelopment projects cannot be looked at on an individual case basis. If we do so, and the Government fails to remove planning decisions from the courts, are we to see a repeat performance of the Canberra Times site decision in other Civic properties with a potential for redevelopment every time one comes up?
There is clear evidence that several potential redevelopment proposals involving lease purpose changes are now in abeyance pending resolution of the future intentions of the Government. This means no jobs, no betterment tax, no continuing investment, no increasing revenue base. It has been estimated that these projects could have a total cost of the order of $200m.
Unfortunately, we cannot expect to sort out all of the complexities of our planning problems overnight. The roles of the National Capital Planning Authority and the Territory Planning Authority, particularly in the areas where their responsibilities overlap, will require much
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