Page 3292 - Week 11 - Thursday, 12 September 1991
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I will now refer to some specific areas with which I have had some experience. For example, members may recall a degree of controversy in the middle of 1989 when a proposal was put forward to include a tavern in the Isabella Plains local shopping centre, across the road from the Isabella Plains Primary School. At the time I presented to the Assembly a petition on behalf of the residents. The developer had been able to have a slight lease purpose change made to that site to enable him to build a restaurant and had sought to turn that restaurant approval into a tavern.
A tavern in a local neighbourhood centre, across the road from a school, is quite inappropriate, I believe, and not in keeping with the normal planning processes we have seen established in the ACT. Community pressure eventually resulted in the developer changing his plans. A tavern has now been opened in an appropriate location in a group centre which now serves that area. So, that is one of the planning issues related to the location of outlets like this in the ACT.
The day was really won only because of the hard work of the residents. They were able to say that the provision of retail shops and a supermarket, which in this case, as I said, allowed a restaurant, did not include a tavern. As it was, Mr Speaker, the lease had been altered to allow for the restaurant without reference to the community. That was allowed to go ahead without any reference or, if not, it was a very quiet reference, because the community certainly did not know about it. The community, as I understand it, were very lucky to find out about it. The owner of the lease had advertised for someone to operate a tavern in that building and that was the only way the community found out about it.
In another case, Mr Speaker, I received complaints from some residents about the effect on their amenity by traffic going to and from a club nearby, following the extension of a residential area. The problem was in Stirling. It appeared that the extent of the problems relating to lack of amenity to the residents of that area had not been fully taken into account when approval was given for the residential development.
Expensive changes to traffic arrangements seemed necessary to fix up the problem. Attempts were being made by officials to gather information, but the information gathering equipment was being interfered with. We found that the records being sought were inaccurate, so more work had to be done. Mr Connolly grimaces as if he does not understand. Mr Connolly has obviously seen those little rubber tubes that they put across the road to count the vehicles.
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