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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 6 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1524 ..

Question resolved in the affirmative.

MRS DUNNE: I move:

That the report be noted.

The report of the Planning and Environment Committee on draft variation 174 to the Territory Plan-the Hungarian-Australian Club in Narrabundah and associated community facilities land-is a very important report which has been keenly awaited. The proposals for the draft variation had created a considerable amount of anxiety and discussion in the community.

This report, or the process of looking into this draft variation, was a task inherited by the Standing Committee on Planning and Environment from the committee of the previous Assembly. That committee had held two days of hearings, and conducted considerable investigations. From reading the Hansard, Mr Speaker, it is clear that this issue created some passion in the community. I would like to look sequentially at the recommendations of the committee.

The draft variation covers two discrete pieces of land which are adjacent to one another. The main section is section 124, blocks 1 and 2, Narrabundah, which is currently zoned entertainment, accommodation and leisure. There are two smaller adjoining blocks-blocks 14 and 15 of section 124-which are characterised as community facilities. The proposal of the draft variation was to convert all four blocks to residential use.

The committee firstly was very concerned at the inclusion of the small blocks-blocks 14 and 15-of section 124 into this draft variation. The most polite thing we could say about the proposal by PALM land allocation to have this area looked at for inclusion as residential was that it was for mere tidiness. The committee considered it at some length. Considering that there are only 3.3 hectares of land available for community facilities in central Canberra, we felt that the inclusion of that land as residential could not be justified.

The larger blocks, occupied by the Hungarian-Australian Club and its bowling greens at blocks 2 and 3 of section 124, are currently zoned as arts, entertainment and leisure. That allows a vast array of land uses including aquatic recreation facility, car parking, caravan parking, camping ground, hotel/motel, guest house, clubs, drink establishment or restaurant, drive-in facility, shop, TAB, craft shop, tourist or zoological facility, outdoor or indoor recreation facility, indoor entertainment facility, transport facility, parkland, or place of assembly.

The main argument put forward to the committee for the change of land use from entertainment, accommodation and leisure was that the current lessees considered their establishment unviable. This is an issue that we constantly came back to, so the committee set about asking itself the fundamental question: can the land use be justified? We noted that the Hungarian-Australian Club said they could not make a go of it. However, given the wide variety of other uses available under the classification of entertainment, accommodation and leisure, we came to the conclusion that, on the basis that the Hungarian-Australian Club was not making a go of it, such a change was not justifiable.

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