Page 1273 - Week 05 - Thursday, 25 June 1992
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This brings me to the penultimate reference: Development of metropolitan goals, implementation strategies, and an evaluation and review process. This recognises the need for a visionary statement to be able to meet the demands of a growing and changing society. We need to set out what the population sees as the aims they want to achieve and the ways to bring these about and to take note of how we are progressing in the pursuit of these goals. Without a strategy, we fall into the incremental development mode where decisions are taken in the light of not how they fit into a wider view of our city but how they fit into the current list of pressing needs.
J. Gilchrist said in "Commercial Centres in Canberra, Planning and Implementation":
The art and skill of town planning lies in the ability of town planners to anticipate the demand for activities, to forecast the impact of development, to avoid unnecessary consequences and costs by planning ahead, and to have the courage of their convictions to carry through and implement their plans.
What must drive this conviction is a vision for the future. Ed Wensing, acting in his capacity as a litigator in the famous Canberra Times site case, said in a recent speech to the Royal Australian Planning Institute:
Increasingly, major development applications requiring some form of planning approval are being considered, not on the basis of their wider impacts on metropolitan land use and transport planning objectives, but in the context of their localised and incremental impact on the area immediately surrounding the proposed development. The analysis of incremental changes to traffic and transport systems, air, water and noise pollution and other considerations usually manages to show that the negative effects of increased development are either not significant or can be accommodated by new infrastructure or remedial public works.
Of course, the litigants won the battle in two courts but lost the war when Concrete Constructions surrendered the lease and were given a new lease. I could not agree more with Mr Wensing's interpretation of the current system. If the Government proceeds with its plan to put the pink bits back on the agenda, we will be heading down the road of ad hoc planning.
Canberra is a planned city. This is one of its major attractions. The NCDC and the ACT Planning Authority have both referred to the current draft plan and previous plans as the framework on which the development of Canberra is determined. But a framework can contain many things, and the incremental developments can be decided on fairly limited criteria unless they are driven by a future vision. That is what is important. Our planned city is a great asset to Canberra. It makes our capital different from every other Australian city and enhances the lifestyle of all of us who live here. We have greenfields development occurring in Gungahlin and infill proposals for some other areas, but it is crucial to take into account strategic planning principles as we increase the development of our city.
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