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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (28 June) . . Page.. 2167 ..
MR KAINE
(continuing):constant grinding down of the bureaucracy by the development lobby that has forced this to occur or where the pressure comes from, but I do know that there seems to be a totally different attitude today towards the preservation of historic areas like Old Red Hill than there was a few years ago. What the process has been, what the impetus has been or where the impetus has come from, I really cannot say.
It is time for those of us in this place who can influence the outcomes to do an analysis and a review of what has been happening, and decide what it is that we want to preserve and make sure that it is preserved. It should not be left to chance. It should not be left for ad hoc decision-making. If what I have seen in that area over the last two or three years is going to continue, in a very short period of time the Red Hill we knew, and which I thought we were preserving, will have totally disappeared. Those old gardens will have gone. They will have been replaced by a proliferation of residential units of one kind or another. The whole character of that suburb will have changed.
Maybe it is the will of this place that that should be the outcome. If it is, then it should be expressed as the will of this place. We should not just sit and allow it to occur. We should not do nothing and not express an opinion about whether the essential character of suburbs like Red Hill is deserving of preservation or not.
I totally support Mr Corbell's motion. It is time the government took stock of itself and made up its mind what its intention is. If they want to come back and say, "Our intention is that there will be five residential units on every residential block in Red Hill," that can be debated, and the community can have its say, and we could have our say. But I do not think it should be allowed to occur by default. I totally support Mr Corbell's motion.
MS TUCKER
(4.19): For the Greens, the decision on this motion is a balance between maintaining heritage values, encouraging greater urban density where appropriate and considering community views raised in the consultation process. The Greens will always seek to encourage well-planned, well-considered urban planning and sensitive and targeted urban consolidation of existing urban areas over the development of greenfields. The Greens believe that urban consolidation should be part of the well-planned city, but only in full consideration of both the overall pattern of development and residents' concerns, and ensuring that designated heritage areas are protected from redevelopment that would degrade their heritage value.In this case we have very large blocks which are assessed to be a rare example of the garden suburb as envisaged in the 20th century garden city model. The next best example of this type of urban planning can be found only in the United States and represents the 19th century school of landscaping. While we would not support a whole city of large blocks, we can see the case for retaining an example of this planned zone of homes in a park-like setting. Heritage conservation helps to give us a sense of place, reminding us of the ideas and the people who have gone before. Mr Kaine, who has lived here for considerably longer than I have, reflected those ideals in the speech he gave. That is a very valuable perspective.
Heritage, traditionally, is aimed at retaining the special places in our landscapes. There are strong arguments from the majority of the people who live in the precinct, from the perspective of heritage conservation and from the wider community that these very large blocks are essential to the area's heritage value. The Standing Committee on Planning
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