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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 3671 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

0.65:1. In the B11 areas, where three-storey development is allowed, the plot ratio is 0.8:1, still below the plot ratio of commercial areas.

I wrote to the Minister for Urban Services about this issue some time ago. The minister confirmed that the Territory Plan does not include a specific design code for commercial areas as it does for residential areas. He justified this on the basis that there is a need for flexibility to encourage mixed use development in commercial areas. This is a fine objective, but the examples we already have in Aranda, Latham and soon, perhaps, Macgregor show that developers are proposing the wholesale change of local centres into housing with perhaps a token shop space left in the corner. These are not what I would regard as mixed use development. They are townhouses and apartments, just as you would find in any medium-density part of Canberra.

The problem is that by not providing clear design and siting guidelines to developers up front, PALM is given too much discretion in what can be approved, thus leading to disputes with objectors down the track and either forcing a long appeal process, as is happening with Aranda, or the minister calling in the application to avoid an appeal, as happened in Latham. To me neither approach is good planning.

Unlike a town centre, local shopping centres are often surrounded by fairly standard single dwellings. The impact of converting a local shopping centre into a new block of apartments, or allowing new apartments next door to a local centre-

MR SPEAKER: Excuse me. Members, could you please keep your voices down. I cannot hear Ms Tucker. She reads such a lot and I feel concerned for her-

MS TUCKER: I don't want to cause a strain, Mr Speaker. You should be quiet. Don't cause the Speaker strain.

MR SPEAKER: I feel concerned about her voice and I would ask you therefore to keep your voices down.

Mr Smyth: Kerrie, you are hard to hear.

MS TUCKER: I'm hard to hear? Well, it's probably because the gentleman on my right is speaking loudly.

MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Ms Tucker. I agree with you.

Mr Wood: You are always hard to hear. So is Dave Rugendyke.

MS TUCKER: Yes, I can see it is a problem for you too. Unlike a town centre, local shopping centres are often surrounded by fairly standard single dwellings. The impact of converting a local shopping centre into a new block of apartments, or allowing new apartments next door to a local centre, is quite different to the impact of allowing such development in the middle of a town centre. Residents who live around a local centre have a legitimate interest in what is allowed to be developed there, and also have a legitimate concern that what is approved is of an appropriate scale relative to their own houses.

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