Page 2901 - Week 13 - Thursday, 23 November 1989
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I congratulate the Government on the transport objectives on page 5. These objectives would apply whatever system of urban planning had been adopted. The strategy develops further. Under the heading, "Civic, the Initial Priority", there we see:
. promoting employment opportunities outside the Civic area by positive measures to attract development to other town centres -
This is good -
. establishing mechanisms for developers and leaseholders to contribute to transport costs.
To me these ideas seem admirable. We seem to be heading in the right direction. That was pointed to quite eloquently by Philip Hobbs in the Canberra Times on 16 November this year. We might be able to get Civic back in balance with the rest of Canberra. Balance is what this is about.
What, though, is this next piece of nonsense? It says:
. encouraging sufficient valuable inner city land to be available for economic development - recognising this will discourage location of commuter parks on valuable commercial sites.
Is this the hidden agenda, or has it just slipped in? What about the social value of land? Those sites are valuable as office blocks, which create peak-hour traffic, parking and transport demands. This seemingly innocent little dot point is one of the causes of our problems, not a strategy to resolve them. One day, when Civic is in balance with the rest of Canberra, there will be a different story. Not only that, but at that stage the land will be much more valuable to the whole community. For the time being, that dot point should be scrubbed from this strategy; it should be eliminated altogether.
So to the next chapter, entitled "What is the strategy?". By and large, it is necessary to have a series of measures which must be implemented to resolve the problems of speculation and development driven planning. These suggestions will need to be implemented, but we must recognise the cause of the problems and heed the warnings of the 1984 metropolitan policy plan which have now been recognised and reinforced by the NCPA in its most recent draft policy, volume 2.
The next section is on car parking, the first symptom which I recognised. This was the first indication that I had, over half a decade ago, that Canberra's planning was off the rails. It says:
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