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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2150 ..

Ms Tucker: You were not listening to my speech. I acknowledged all that.

MR HUMPHRIES: I know you did. I heard you say that. They have been involved in a process, therefore, of local area planning. Local area planning is what, of course, LAPACs are all about.

Ms Tucker: Awareness guidelines are not necessarily - - -

MR HUMPHRIES: Awareness guidelines and local area planning are two sides of the same coin. They have also been involved in identifying, through that process, appropriate "siting, scale and character of medium-density development for this area" - I am reading from your motion, Ms Tucker - "that takes into account the need to encourage the ecological, social and economic sustainability of the city, and the varied character, environment, services and amenities across the area". In a sense, what I am saying is that the second part of your motion is precisely what is going on at the moment.

Only last night there was a joint meeting with all the LAPACs of North Canberra to hear a presentation on the draft revision of the B1 guidelines. I am not sure whether Ms Tucker made reference to this fact, but the Government is in the process at the moment of revising the B1 guidelines. The touchstone for that revision, naturally enough, will be the people who live there. One vehicle for consultation with the people who live there are the LAPACs representing the people of that area and, of course, directly talking to the people concerned as well. Mr Speaker, at that joint meeting the draft revision was discussed. It was pointed out that the revision was based on the community value statements that are being prepared, the so-called awareness guidelines - another name for the same thing - and that specific comments on the B1 guidelines by the LAPACs were welcome, and indeed had been partly incorporated already into the process. I am told that there was a very useful discussion about those things and, in fact, that there was some broad support for the changes proposed to the B1 guidelines.

Mr Speaker, I think that is a process that is appropriate. It does not hand to the LAPACs or to the community associations, residents groups in those areas, the complete responsibility for revising those guidelines. There is a partnership between the Planning Authority and those sorts of bodies and the Government, and I suppose the Assembly as well because we ultimately have to approve changes to the Territory Plan. I believe that that process is appropriate and worth while, and is appropriate and worth while based on the B1 zone. I would say to Ms Tucker: To the extent that you support that process, your motion is unnecessary; and to the extent that your motion goes beyond that, and it certainly does in part 1 in proposing the abolition of the B1 planning zone, I would say that it is unnecessary and, in fact, is inappropriate.

We clearly have to handle that part of Canberra differently from other parts of the city. Mr Speaker, there is an awareness, I think, by the LAPACs, certainly in the discussions I have had with them, of the need to treat that area of Canberra differently. Indeed, one of the LAPACs said to me in an informal meeting that I had with them that they believe that B1 could be the basis for managing the level of high-density growth that is clearly bearing down on that part of Canberra at the moment. The LAPAC proposed to me, informally, that there be a focus on that kind of development within the B1 zone because they saw it as a way of taking pressure off other parts of the city,

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