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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2147 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The Lansdown review of residential redevelopment released in 1994 examined the issue of the B1 zone and recommended that the B1 zone be reduced in size and that planning guidelines for specific areas be introduced. The Liberal Government did not act on this recommendation but set in place a limited moratorium on three-storey development, since removed, and set up the LAPACs, the local area planning advisory committees, for the area.

The LAPACs were asked to produce awareness guidelines for their area. I have been present at several LAPAC meetings where this process was in place and I have to say that I really do give credit to the people on those LAPACs for the energy and commitment they have put into this really quite overwhelming task. I also give credit to the Government, who are not here to hear it, for once for being reasonably responsive to concerns that have been raised about the processes in the LAPACs. They did bring in independent facilitators to assist in the awareness guidelines. I still think the process was lacking and we need to go a lot further in developing local area plans. Leaving it with the LAPACs is a crude attempt, in a way, by the Government to encourage local area planning. Instead of getting the ACT Planning Authority involved as much as they should, they have asked a group of underresourced and unqualified volunteers to do the job, so it is no surprise that they have struggled to produce these guidelines. This really is a job for the Planning Authority, working with the community. I just gave you credit, Mr Humphries, but you missed it.

Mr Humphries: I did hear it.

MS TUCKER: Oh, did you? Good.

Mr Humphries: I also heard the bagging beforehand.

MS TUCKER: Okay. That is good, so it is balanced. As usual, the Greens are balanced. The ACT Planning Authority is currently reviewing the B1 guidelines, but we are very concerned that the review is not really addressing the existence of the B1 zone and is only tinkering with the detail of the guidelines. The Government needs to do more than this. There needs to be a fully-fledged local area planning process, as we have suggested in our motion.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.47): Mr Speaker, I appreciate Ms Tucker's attempt to provide some balance in her comments, but I have to say that I do not think the motion she has put forward is a balanced motion, and I have to indicate that I am not prepared to support it. I have to say also that I think the problem - - -

Mr Moore: Mr Speaker, I draw attention to the state of the house.

A quorum not being present, and the bells being rung -

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