Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1074 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

any given area. Exactly the same planning principles should apply to dual occupancy as apply to any strategy for redevelopment of any part of Canberra. It is a redevelopment strategy and, as I say in my additional comments in the report, should be dealt with by the Government.

When the Government is dealing with the issue of B1 - in other words, areas where we wish to encourage redevelopment - it should also take into account dual occupancies. It may well be that we wish to identify further areas - we may call them B1A or we may call them something entirely different - where there are big blocks and appropriate reasons for redevelopment of this type.

I recognise that there is already a limitation on dual occupancies, in that there must be a certain size block. That part is covered. However, what concerns me and what concerns many people in Canberra is that there is no restriction on the number of dual occupancies that you will eventually find in a suburb. It may well be that social guidelines simply say that in any given area we will allow 10 per cent or 20 per cent of the area to be redeveloped by dual occupancy. These are issues that need to be considered in the public debate. I believe they should be part of the B1 guidelines that we are told are being developed.

Mr Speaker, the fact that I have made additional comments indicates that I fully support the recommendations of the committee. They are unanimous. The additional comments say that I think we should have gone further. They should be taken in that context. I commend this report of the Standing Committee on Planning and Environment to the Assembly.

MS McRAE (4.17): Mr Speaker, when the Government responds to the report, we deserve a little more than the Minister simply saying that he does not know how it is that the papers did not go through his office in time. We need some reassurance about the processes that are used. It is not acceptable that something like this should take so long and be discovered only by mistake, by chance, so much later down the line that this variation now has to be dealt with in a context where the B1 guidelines are being reviewed and we have inadequate information.

The review of the B1 guidelines, I understand, has been slowed because of the care with which the consultation is being undertaken. I applaud consultation, because this issue is of intense concern to quite a few people - a small number, but they are insistent and worried about it. I am confident that the consultation process is being undertaken with great diligence. However, I think it is time it was wound up and we saw the new guidelines.

I dissociate myself entirely from Mr Moore's comments because I find his approach entirely disingenuous. Here we are being asked to pick out every block in the ACT where a dual occupancy may happen at the same time as we have before us in the Assembly legislation which abolishes B1 altogether, which abolishes any further redevelopment on current blocks. Mr Moore may or may not have made his comments in a fit of temper -

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .