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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (20 August) . . Page.. 2463 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

have a ground floor area of approximately 950 square metres. The total lettable floor area of the new Griffin Centre is expected to be around 2,870 square metres, an increase of 530 square metres, or over 20 per cent, on existing lettable floor area.

The existing youth centre provides a range of services and activities for younger people. They include education, health, entertainment and counselling and an outdoor half-size basketball court. The existing centre has a gross floor area of 560 square metres. There are offices associated with the centre of some 228 square metres.

The new youth centre and skateboard park are proposed to be located on the corner of Ballumbir Street and a new internal road that is proposed to provide access through the site from Bunda Street to Ballumbir Street. The new youth centre will have a minimum of 612 square metres gross floor area and will be designed in accordance with the user brief.

Funding has been identified for further space to allow the location of a youth health facility in the new centre. The corner site will give the centre some prominence, and the proposed two-storey design will give a greater sense of presence and allow for youth expression.

Presently, a skateboard facility is located in section 84 close to the youth centre. There is a visual and social link to this skateboard facility and the youth centre users. It is proposed that a new skateboard park will also be developed in association with the new youth centre.

I move to the proposed redevelopment of the existing Griffin Centre and youth centre sites. The Territory Plan is varied by this variation to remove the community facility land use policy on block 2 section 84 and to replace it with a commercial B2A Civic Centre land use policy precinct b1 business area.

The concept plan proposes a seven-storey building height. The concept plan indicates that the likely combination of uses proposed for the redevelopment of the existing Griffin Centre and youth centre sites will be for residential, office, retail, commercial accommodation, such as hotel or serviced apartments, and parking.

Over recent years there has been an increase in demand for inner city residential living. Introducing a residential component makes a substantial contribution to the life of the city and can lead to approved community safety outcomes through passive surveillance. I should stress that the government, the minister for housing, Mr Wood, and I are also exploring options for affordable housing outcomes as a part of this development.

The Griffin Centre site is subject to a community facility area specific policy, No 4D. Draft variation No 164 to the Territory Plan, currently released for public comment, deals with community facility land use policies. DVP 164 proposes to delete area specific policy 4D. However, because the outcome of DVP 164 cannot be pre-empted, it is necessary at this point to concurrently amend area specific policy 4D to delete the Griffin Centre in draft variation 189.

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