Page 1268 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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patient negotiation before an acceptable arrangement is reached. Similarly, the setting up of a planning board, as was admitted by Mr Peter Berry of the BWIU only yesterday, will take some months if the consultative process to which this Government is committed is to be allowed to function. Yet we have potential development projects valued at $200m currently on hold. So what are we going to do about it?
It has been suggested that the Government fast-track approvals for these projects. Now, "fast-track" is not a word I like nor, I suggest, is it a procedure acceptable to the ACT community. Fast-tracking suggests cutting corners, paying less attention to detail and perhaps not doing a thorough job. That is not what we want, but neither do we want $200m worth of projects delayed unnecessarily.
The Government has had ample warning of this problem. It is a month since the Canberra Times site decision was handed down and at least a fortnight since the construction industry and the construction unions first raised the alarm as to the disastrous effects of existing planning difficulties. And it is not just existing developments under threat. We need to look further ahead than even these current redevelopment proposals.
What, for example, will be the fate of the Olympic Bowl site in Allara Street or perhaps the Queen Elizabeth Home for Mothers and Babies behind the ACT Health Department building? You see, it is not only the developers who suffer from the lack of a comprehensive city plan; it is also the owners of the current leases and in the final analysis it is the community.
Where does the anti-development lobby stand, for example, on the Queen Elizabeth Home? If it were thought desirable that the home should move - and this has been considered from time to time - the sale of such a prime piece of real estate would more than cover the relocation costs; that is, providing the developer who purchased the site could be assured of getting his money back. If, however, redevelopment approval were refused, or refusal were even considered to be highly likely, then I suggest to you there would be no sale. The home would stay where it is, denied the opportunity to relocate, and a more profitable use of the site would be denied.
Of course, there is an alternative. The Government could relocate the home, although in these times of financial stringency that seems unlikely. We would then be faced with a financially irresponsible situation of a prime Civic site sitting vacant, a cost and waste that I doubt the ACT community would welcome. So there is a cost to existing lessees as well as to potential lessees arising from the current unsatisfactory procedures and the lack of any comprehensive plan.
There is also a cost to the wider community. I have used the Queen Elizabeth Home as an example, but the argument is
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