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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4831 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

My evaluation report recommends that the granting of a lease to the Belconnen Soccer Club be approved, subject to 32 conditions outlined in my evaluation report of the proposal. The main conditions relate to parking and traffic, where I have recommended a review before stage 2 of the development be carried out; relocation of wetlands; maximum capacity; noise, where I have made several recommendations about noise attenuation measures; the types of loudspeakers to be used; the location of windows in the sports hall; siren use; days of operation and so on; and the monitoring of impacts generally. These recommendations were designed to protect residential amenity and environmental quality, at the same time as allowing for a first-class soccer centre and associated facilities to be built.

I wish to thank the Assembly members for their thoughtful contributions to last Thursday's discussion of the proposal and to confirm that all issues raised were taken into account before I made my decision. The evaluation of the PER and attached documents addresses all these issues in detail. I also wish to thank community groups for their involvement in the process. It was a long and difficult process, but I thank them for the time and effort they put into that.

As you would be aware, the process has been a long and arduous one. Due to the thoroughness of the scoping of further work, the high level of professional expertise in the preparation and evaluation of the work and the openness of the process, I am confident that all impacts and concerns relating to the proposal have been more than adequately investigated. On this basis, I share the view of my colleagues Ms McRae and Mr Moore that the proposal should now proceed without any further assessment. I acknowledge that there remain some members of the community who do not wish the proposal to proceed. I can assure these people that the very stringent recommendations I have made in relation to this proposal will protect their amenity as much as possible. I think it is also important to recognise that this has been a learning process for all the parties involved and that the lessons learnt will allow the more efficient processing of such proposals in the future.

Mr Speaker, I turn now to the proposed expansions of the Tuggeranong Hyperdome and Woden Plaza. These reports were lodged with my delegates on 3 October and 31 October, respectively. As both involve significant expansion of retail malls and town centres and each impacts on the viability of the other, I believe that it is appropriate to respond to both projects at the same time so that the community, the proponents and the Assembly can understand the context in which I have made the recommendations on each.

It may be helpful to briefly traverse the history of these proposals. The Hyperdome proposal was lodged in 1995, and I directed further assessment in the form of a public environment report in January 1996. After that process had commenced, an application was lodged for the expansion of Woden Plaza in April 1996, and further assessment was required in May 1996. The PER for Woden Plaza was asked to look at the proposal in the context of the proposed development of the Hyperdome, although the Hyperdome PER was not subject to a similar requirement because of the timing of the direction for further assessment. In total, the two proposals, if approved in full, would involve approximately 38,000 square metres of additional floor space in the two centres - approximately 16,500 for the Hyperdome and almost 22,000 for Woden Plaza.

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