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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (28 June) . . Page.. 2168 ..

MS TUCKER

and Urban Services was not convinced by these arguments and recommended limited dual occupancies. The committee argued that two houses per block represented a middle path between the viewpoints of those favouring one unit per existing block, mainly residents and heritage people, and those favouring multiunit development of the area, mainly real estate agents, also some residents.

The dissenting report highlighted the expert heritage assessment in arguing for a limit of one house per block. This motion is an attempt to ask the Assembly to consider the issues and requests that we come up with a different plan from that proposed by the Planning and Urban Services Committee. While there is sometimes a need to negotiate heritage values with residents concerned, and balance them with overall planning objectives, in this case it seems clear that a numerical compromise approach is not appropriate. It does not take into account the very real and meaningful subtleties that have come out of the discussion about sense of place and so on that has been articulated here and in the other forum where this has been debated. A numerical compromise is not appropriate or sensitive to those issues.

Strong arguments were put to the PALM investigation and the standing committee that in practice dual occupancy developments would compromise the heritage values by carving up frontages, building additional driveways and breaking up established gardens and old orchards. Since this area is relatively small, such development will have a small impact on the overall urban density pattern of the territory. A brief glance at the plan shows that this precinct has been laid out as a separate precinct from the beginning. The vision of the garden suburb has survived so far.

This issue is not entirely straightforward, as I have said, and we do have some concerns. Overall, the issue of heritage protection is the most significant from the social planning perspective. We do have some concerns about the elite nature of the area and who is able to live there, but I do not believe that is a reason to take away heritage protection. There are other ways in which you could address equity issues. If we had a government and a parliament that were committed to integration of social groups through the city, then there would be ways in which you could do that. Some of the houses could be purchased by government for more community use in some way. The gardens could only be a benefit to that. There are other ways in which the equity issues could be addressed if that was the will of future parliaments.

In conclusion, I support this motion of Mr Corbell's. I think it is an important motion. We have a tendency in this city at the moment to have develop-led elite planning. We know that developers and the business lobby have a lot of clout. As a member, I get a lot of representations from members of the community who are very distressed at what they see happening to particular areas of our city-Mr Kaine has expressed that concern very well-particularly those areas which we see being denuded. There is a good letter in the paper today from a person expressing great concern because they have seen a block stripped and a very large house built but not for residents of the surrounding area. This is a genuine issue for many people in our community. I commend this motion to other members.

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