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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (14 October) . . Page.. 3114 ..
MR CORBELL (continuing):
Precinct is intended to describe a large, balanced development incorporating a range of commercial, recreational and community facilities. This proposal does not meet such criteria and using the definition as it is being used by PALM in this proposal would mean that a development as large as one building could be described as a precinct!
They are not my words or those of other members of the Assembly but the words of a witness appearing before the Urban Services Committee. What has been the response of our planning authority to these issues? During the first public hearing PALM officers indicated that the development proposal is "an isolated precinct in the sense that it does not have social and other facilities within it". This comment would appear to confirm that the development was a small, isolated residential enclave with characteristics contrary to this fundamental principle of the Territory Plan. Yet, at the Assembly's second public hearing, PALM tabled a paper which indicated:
The location of the land in relation to the wider metropolitan area is highly accessible and achieves efficiencies in terms of distances to be travelled.
This is conflicting advice. To suggest that the precinct, as it is called, is isolated but also highly accessible suggests that principle 3.2 is certainly not being interpreted in any consistent manner. (Extension of time granted)
Mr Speaker, another very important principle which I am sure will be of interest to all members in this place is principle 2.1 of the Territory Plan, which states:
Canberra will continue to develop as a series of discrete towns separated by hills, ridges and buffer areas.
This is what makes Canberra unique. This principle was designed to ensure that the concept of the Y plan and a discrete series of "towns" are maintained and enhanced into the future. Canberra's town centres are defined by their natural topography, with relevant supporting social and physical infrastructure, including employment centres and community services. A town centre's surrounding residential area still provides the key catchment for these services.
The committee heard that the Federal Golf Club development would be viewed as physically part of the Woden township, and the fact that it would be accessed via South Canberra instead of Woden would create an anomaly which was contrary to this important principle of the Territory Plan. This was ignored by the majority of members on the committee. This concern was further underlined by the Burley Griffin LAPAC, which advised that the proposed development's relationship with the Woden Town Centre and the Canberra Hospital was "absurd".
Despite this, PALM have advised that the distances between the proposed development site and nearby retail and other facilities are not incomparable with similar golf course residential developments. This approach fails to acknowledge the physical proximity of the site to the Woden Town Centre and the Canberra Hospital, a proximity which is
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