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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (14 October) . . Page.. 3137 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

This issue has been around since 1995 when the Federal Golf Club first raised a proposal to build housing on the site. In 1997 the golf club put a proposal to the Government to initiate a variation to the Territory Plan to allow this development to proceed. In October 1997 the then Planning Minister, Mr Humphries, rejected the proposal. It turns out that that was due more to the closeness of the election than to any real concern about the proposal. The following year virtually the same proposal was submitted by the golf club and the Government had no qualms about proceeding with the plan variation that is now before us.

Unfortunately for the Government, community concerns about this proposal have not diminished and all the planning and environmental issues that surround this proposal have not diminished. I have closely examined the issues surrounding this proposal and have had a number of meetings over time with representatives of the golf club and local residents. From this examination I have come to the conclusion that, on balance, this development should not be allowed to proceed, both on planning grounds and in the context of how the ACT's leasehold system is meant to operate.

Mr Corbell's dissenting report on the Urban Services Committee inquiry into this draft plan variation describes very well the concerns that I have had with this development. I would just like to highlight my key concerns. I would also want to express my disappointment that both Mr Hird and Mr Rugendyke have not responded in any detailed way to the concerns raised by Mr Corbell. It is all very well for them to say that they were fair and just in looking at the evidence and agreeing on the direction that the majority of the committee wanted to go, but specific concerns were raised in the dissenting report which I think deserved a response and we have not heard one from the members of the committee who supported the report.

The Greens are opposed to this development because, from a planning perspective, the location is inappropriate for housing. The land was never meant to be a housing area and the development would become an enclave that was relatively remote from services and had poor road access. Mr Smyth said that there were other such areas, as if that were in some way an argument to justify increasing the number of areas of the sort. As Mr Corbell has mentioned already, it is particularly ironic in light of this Government's commitment to greenhouse reduction to put in another group of housing with no public transport.

Planning and Land Management acknowledged in the committee inquiry that they expected a high level of car ownership in the development and that the area would not be serviced by public transport. PALM justified that by stating that many other journeys through this area are done by car and that the people moving to this development would know what to expect. As I have said, it is missing the point. If we are supposed to be moving towards a more ecologically sustainable city, we should not be setting up housing situations within the city where owning a car for transport virtually becomes an obligation.

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