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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4083 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

that catering to car parking at all is a particularly important issue; but I maintain that it is important that we do expand car parking there, to ensure that those who simply have to use their cars to engage in that kind of shopping and who, at the moment, in some cases, are travelling further than to Manuka - people who live in South Canberra are travelling further than to Manuka - to do their weekly shopping will be catered for. That is an important step.

Mr Speaker, I will not have time to say as much as I would like to about this; but I will, of course, be moving an amendment, which has been circulated in my name. I will make a few other comments. One is about the child-care centre. The issue of the effect on the child-care centre at Manuka has been raised. Some of those comments have been a little bit on the hysterical side, and I believe that most of them are ill-founded. What you have to bear in mind is that the assessment of the impact of traffic on the child-care centre shows that the movement along that boundary, where there will be an access route for the fast food outlet, will actually be less significant and there will be less impact on the child-care centre from cars than from the existing car park. There will be fewer cars; there will be less noise; there will be fewer fumes and emissions.

In addition, of course, we are having a replacement of the double row of Roman pines, and that will significantly improve the buffer that exists at the moment between the child-care centre and the cars on that section 41 site. There was some comment about the overshadowing of the child-care centre and its playground. My advice is that, in fact, what will cause most overshadowing will be the replacement of those lost pines, which the centre has argued for. So, Mr Speaker, there has been much that is inaccurate said about this, and that is one small example of that kind of problem.

There have been claims that the Territory Plan is not being complied with in this development. I reassert the advice I have clearly received and had reaffirmed to me by the Government Solicitor - that the proposal is consistent with the requirements of the Territory Plan. (Extension of time granted) I will not seek extra time to deal with my amendment. I will move that before I sit down.

The proposal is consistent with the requirements of the Territory Plan. Arguments to the contrary made by opponents of the proposal are, I think, mischievous, and they ignore information provided at a number of meetings and briefings. The Territory Plan specifically allows for the range of uses proposed, provided that they are associated with the car parking structure. When you look at this proposal and you see the number of square metres dedicated to car parking and you see the other things which are added onto or superimposed on top of that, you realise that that argument about its not being consistent with the Territory Plan is simply not sustainable.

The height and gross floor area do not match the performance measures of the plan; but the proponent has put forward a proposal which he believes is consistent with the plan's objective of ensuring that the development is of an appropriate scale compatible with surrounding development. The discretion to approve the development in those circumstances clearly exists. As I have indicated, I propose to take that up. The argument about consistency with the expressions of interest process, I believe, is well dealt with in the assessment.

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