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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2942 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

community services, and it maximises opportunities to utilise more effectively Canberra's public transport services.

With every draft variation there is extensive public consultation. I have extended the period for public comment on the draft variation, which is currently out there in the public arena. Because of that additional month the government has provided in its consultation process, PALM has received around 120 submissions-a strong response for any draft variation. All of these submissions will be taken into account by the government and ultimately by the Assembly.

I want to reject some of the issues Mrs Dunne raised. She said we do not want to rush into this process. We are not rushing into this process. As I have outlined, this is a result of a consultation process undertaken by the previous government last year. It is a formal variation to the Territory Plan. There has already had an extended public consultation process by PALM. It will need to be considered by the government. It will need to be referred to the Standing Committee on Planning and Environment for inquiry and report. That committee will conduct its own inquiry into the draft variation and almost inevitably hold public hearings. The matter will then come to this Assembly for any potential veto if members still have concerns about it. This is an extensive process that will take probably close to a year to complete.

The government has also sought to respond to issues that have arisen since the release of draft variation 200. For example, concern has been expressed that not enough allowance has been made for people who have already bought house and land packages in new areas and who did so with expectations about the existing planning framework, which may have changed as a result of DV200. This is something that PALM has already looked at closely, and we will be catering for that in response to the issues that have been raised. So the government is sympathetic and responsive to issues that arise in what is inevitably a complex planning process.

The government feels very strongly that in both economic and planning terms residential redevelopment has not achieved the potential Canberra requires, individually and as integrated elements of Canberra's urban framework. Canberra suburbs need to provide more sustainable opportunities for housing that could add vibrancy to the local shopping centres, maximise the use of public transport, better utilise our urban infrastructure and energy resources and provide an affordable mix of housing options.

The previous government's approach was essentially ad hoc, and it succeeded in creating scattered development that has not served to generate strategic linkages with our transport infrastructure, physical infrastructure and commercial centres.

The garden city variation is designed primarily to overcome this by creating more responsible planning rules for those areas within close walking distance of local centres, group centres and town centres as well as taking account of the circumstances of wider residential areas.

In the Assembly debate last week Mr Tucker raised some concerns about draft variation 200, whilst broadly supporting it. In particular, Ms Tucker raised whether or not the DV200 development boundaries need to be tailored to the particular circumstances of individual suburbs and how precisely neighbourhood planning would work together with

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