Page 5375 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 3 December 1991

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The road system should be hierarchical and incorporate urban design themes, while providing for efficient and effective public transport access.

The whole problem with defined land is that, turning over to page 3, we see that a total of six suburbs have been termed "defined land"; this whole area is being assessed as defined land. Some arterial roads have been identified, and it says, "Indicative distributor road alignment". "Indicative", to me, means that it could be changed - that it is there, but it is indicative and it is not set in concrete. That is exactly what it says.

So, what we have here, in fact, is that this whole area can be developed in accordance with certain general principles. The point to remember is that, once this document has gone through and has not been disallowed, under the process that we are currently applying, when the new Territory Plan comes into force, that is the last time that the community will have any chance to appeal.

The community will not be able to check and assess whether, in fact, these general planning principles that have been outlined in this Gungahlin variation have, in fact, been followed. That is the whole issue and concern. Those planning principles are very, very general, Mr Wood. I would suggest to you, Mr Wood, that this whole concept may in fact end up, as my colleague Mr Collaery suggested, causing more problems than it is worth, because there will be people seeking, through the appeals processes and through the Assembly process, to have a greater say in the final development.

If we go a little bit further on this variation that has been approved, we come to page 9, which deals with the suburb of Harrison - a very important suburb, of course, because of the person that it was named after.

Mr Wood: What page are you on?

MR JENSEN: I am talking about the actual variation, Mr Wood, that was signed by Ms Follett on 26 November. Unfortunately, you forgot to put your date on it, but never mind. The suburb of Harrison was named after a very well-known planner in the ACT who was very involved in the development of Canberra and with the NCDC. We see very clearly on that variation that there are a few indicative roads. There is a line that says, "Formal linear tree planting". It is just an indicative line; it just says where it could be. Might I suggest to you that also that particular document shows no information in relation to terrain or topography. There is some general reference to the existing tree groups. It says, "Existing tree groups to be retained".


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