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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (20 June) . . Page.. 2233 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

Lyneham, Ainslie, Dickson, Braddon and, south of the lake, suburbs like Yarralumla, Griffith and Deakin.

Dual occupancy can result in loss of tree cover, loss of an established treescape, and less private open space for the occupants of the dual occupancy development. It also has significant impact on the overall character of the suburb if it is not well planned.

I imagine that in this debate the government is going to stand up and say they are hoping to address some of these issues through the implementation of a new ACT code for residential development, or ACTCode 2. But ACTCode 2, from my reading of it, does not appear to do enough in this direction. Let me highlight a few points. ACTCode 2 proposes a plot ratio level of 35 per cent for dual occupancy development.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, 35 per cent may sound reasonable, but you have to look at what is not included in the 35 per cent plot ratio. You have to look at the fact that driveways, carports, and other hardstanding areas, non-porous surfaces, are not included in that plot ratio control for dual occupancy development. The plot ratio control relates solely to the dwelling and any associated garage which is under the roof line or is fully enclosed. So there is significant potential for a very large amount of hardstanding to be included in any plot ratio in any dual occupancy development.

That level of hardstanding has a number of implications. First of all, it does result in a loss of vegetation, a loss of tree cover, and a loss of capacity for the re-establishment of vegetation cover in that dual occupancy area. Secondly, it increases the level of stormwater runoff that flows into our stormwater system as opposed to that which is naturally taken up by normal ground surfaces. Those sorts of impacts are incremental, but they start to have a more significant impact not only on the micro-climate of our suburbs but also on the capacity of our stormwater systems when we see dual occupancy development occurring in a higgledy-piggledy shotgun way. So I would argue that there are very serious concerns relating to that sort of dual occupancy development.

The second part of my motion today calls on the ACT government to allow dual occupancies to be referred to local area planning advisory committees for their comment. My motion goes on to say that this is consistent with the approach adopted for all other notifiable development applications. Let me elaborate on those couple of points.

The government itself lauds its commitment to what it claims is effective community consultation on planning issues. It argues that the establishment of local area planning advisory committees is a key element of receiving community feedback and concern and input on planning issues in their local area. To that end, the government does encourage publicly notifiable development applications to be referred by the development proponent to the local area planning advisory committee for their comment. This is a voluntary process, and it is not part of the formal statutory approval mechanism.

But there is a contradiction here, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, because of all the publicly notifiable development applications which are referred to LAPACs, or encouraged to be referred to LAPACs, such as multi-unit development, commercial development or retail development in a suburb, dual occupancy development is not encouraged for referral to local area planning advisory committees. In fact, it is explicitly not in the terms of reference of LAPACs.

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