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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (14 October) . . Page.. 3129 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

PALM are the planning experts, Mr Speaker. The plan states that residential development will continue to be arranged in distinct suburbs and urban precincts, each containing appropriate commercial, community and recreation facilities. It states further that Canberra will continue to develop a series of discrete towns separated by hills, ridges and buffers.

Mr Speaker, I had a list of all of the enclaves, but I seem to have misplaced it. Mr Corbell spoke of enclaves developing. There are dozens of them around Canberra already, Mr Speaker. Clearly, the best example is Urambi Village on the other side of Kambah. Urambi Village is served by one road. It is a discrete, distinct little area that has no other services, Mr Speaker. It would not be at all unlike what is being proposed for the Federal golf course. There are numerous areas of this nature scattered around Canberra. For instance, there is an underpass into Fidge Street in Calwell, which is up on the side of Tuggeranong Hill. Again, there is a discrete, small enclave of housing. There are dozens of them throughout the area. So let us not be told that this would be something different and something unique; it would not be.

We have to be sure that the people who go into the development do so with full knowledge of what they are buying. The people who buy into these developments, as shown by the Harcourt Hill and Murrumbidgee estates, buy into them to be next to a golf course. That is the service they want, that is the facility they want and that is what they will get.

There has been talk about traffic problems. The distance to services from this area compares favourably with other golf course developments - such as the Belconnen golf course, approved by Labor, and Gleneagles - indeed, with some distances in the adjoining suburbs of Garran and Hughes. Mr Speaker, there is no public transport in some of the parts of Garran and Hughes, for instance, that adjoin the golf club; so the people there are not serviced by public transport, as would the area inside the golf club not be serviced by public transport. Mr Speaker, the important principle is encouraging transport efficiencies and using existing services. The development of land in existing urban areas is a form of urban consolidation. It means that we make better use of the land that we have and it means that people can travel shorter distances, therefore having less impact on the environment.

Use of the club land for housing is regarded as a form of development more sustainable ecologically than putting more houses further out past, say, Banks or Conder. Why would we continue going out when we can consolidate? In addition, the proposal provides housing choice in terms of its amenity to the golf course, nature reserve and picturesque location, and that is what some of those who are against this development are saying that the people who would like to live there should not have.

It is not considered that the proposal is high density. In planning, the term "high density" is relative and it always depends on the context. The proposed golf course development would have a maximum plot ratio of 0.35 and that figure is the commonly

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