Page 5876 - Week 18 - Wednesday, 11 December 1991
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The variation limits uses to a cinema and additional facilities supporting the cinema. Those facilities will be consistent with the character of Franklin Street and will increase the attractiveness of Manuka as a shopping and entertainment centre. The ACT Planning Authority, in conjunction with the National Capital Planning Authority, will ensure that the concerns expressed by a number of people, including the cathedral, will be taken into account in the design of the building development conditions.
They will require that the cinema complex be designed to a high standard, to reflect its prominent position on an important site - in particular its visual quality when viewed from the corner of Canberra Avenue and Furneaux Street and from St Christopher's Cathedral across the road. The facade of the present building fronting Canberra Avenue is to be remodelled and upgraded.
I agree with the comment from the administrator of the cathedral that the Capitol theatre is an ugly and drab building with no architectural attributes. In this redevelopment the opportunity will be taken to improve on what is there. In addition, external materials, colours, finishes and, particularly, signs and graphics will be subject to special design requirements. They have to gain approval and that will see that there are no graphic film advertisements facing onto the cathedral - so that you would not walk out of the cathedral, perhaps after a funeral, and see a big board promoting Terminator 2 or something of that nature. There will be a sign, obviously, for the Capitol theatre and perhaps, as you see in other theatres, simple signs with a lit background advertising the current show.
Most importantly, ancillary uses to the cinema will be restricted to uses such as shops and restaurants so as to ensure that the existing ambience and amenity of the cathedral and its setting are preserved. There will be a specific exclusion in lease documents so that there will be no nightclubs or discos or amusement centres on that site.
Let me turn now to the question of car parking. I am aware, as I am sure all members are, of a petition with some 4,000 signatures, complaining about inadequate car parking in and around Manuka. That was lodged by the Manuka Business Association. What we need, obviously, is not only the new car parking arrangement, which is only a partial and relatively small attention to the need for parking, but also the proposal that Mr Kaine mentioned for further parking as part of a major construction at the other end of Manuka. Manuka will be serviced by those two car parks. We would hope to get some proposal for further development of the sort that Mr Kaine mentioned some time soon, but it is not perhaps the best time for that.
We have to replace the car parking that will be displaced, those 23 spots outside the cinema at present, and that will be in the nature of a two-level structure up the road. That structure will be dug into the ground. Its level will
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