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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2151 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

off North Canberra particularly, that were experiencing unwelcome levels of attention by people who wanted to engage in that kind of high-density development. Mr Speaker, we have different views about that. That may or may not be a good thing, but the point is that these were ideas that they were putting on the table for my attention and for the Planning Authority's attention, and for the interest of their own constituents, so to speak. It is an appropriate process and it is based on B1. It is based on the B1 zone.

I do not want to go back and tell them that the Assembly has instructed me and the Planning Authority to abolish the B1 planning zone, which was part of the process of extensive community consultation to be placed in the Territory Plan in the first place, in favour of local area planning, which they are already doing, based on some different geographical definition. That is unnecessary and it sends, I think, a signal to those people in the community that, whereas they are working on certain rules, suddenly everything has changed; the Assembly has stepped in and changed the guidelines for this kind of approach and they should not continue with that. It creates great uncertainty.

I appreciate that there is considerable community concern about things happening in B1. It has been expressed in this place. Mr Moore, I know, had concerns about levels of office development within B1. Those are issues we have to face up to. But that does not mean that we need to abolish the concept of B1. B1 is a planning designation which we need because, clearly, that part of Canberra is different from others. I would urge members of the Assembly not to be sucked into thinking that we solve the problems of North Canberra's planning issues simply by removing the designation of B1.

MS McRAE (12.02): Mr Humphries, you have convinced me. We will not be supporting this motion. We do not think it is necessary. We believe that the B1 zone was well discussed at the time that it was first promoted. We believe that the LAPACs are keeping a close eye on it. We believe that that area of Canberra does need to be treated differently, and we believe that the process that is put down, firstly, by the Territory Plan, by the consultative processes now in hand and by the further refinements that you are foreshadowing, is serving the best interests of Canberra. We will not support this motion.

MR MOORE (12.03): It gives me pleasure to rise to speak in support of this motion. Mr Speaker, some of the issues Mr Humphries raised are certainly worth thoughtful appraisal. The thrust of his argument was: "Yes, we should support the B1 area, keep that in place while we consider what is wrong with it and what are the problems, and then modify the area to ensure that we meet the needs of the area in terms of its redevelopment". Mr Speaker, I have argued in this Assembly for a long time, and also supported arguments when the Territory Plan was being developed, that the real difficulty we were facing was a lack of strategy for the area that specifically set out how much development, where it will occur and when it will occur.

In one sense the B1 zone fulfils one of those issues, and that is where the development occurs. Unfortunately, we seem to lack the sort of direction that is needed within that B1 zone. We need much more control over how much development and when it occurs. Mr Humphries referred to the issue that I have raised a number of times in the Assembly recently about the amount of office space that is being proposed or developed within the B1 area. That highlights the issue that I am talking about. At the moment there is

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