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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2944 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

complaints. So we are specifically responding to that concern, which is often the basis of complaint.

Ms Tucker also raised design policy. Draft variation 200 gives tangible effect to good design by incorporating the high-quality sustainable design guidelines as statutory requirements for all residential redevelopment under the Territory Plan. Under DV200 good design will be mandatory, and that will apply no matter where the development takes place. That is a significant step forward for the city.

The relevant section of DV200 is 3.5 (b), which states that residential redevelopment can occur only where the applicant has successfully completed the pre-application process as set out in "Designing for High Quality and Sustainability" or it successor documents. So that is the response from the government to making high-quality sustainable design guidelines mandatory for any redevelopment activity.

Ms Tucker also raised housing affordability. This is an important issue for debate, particularly in relation to DV200. The government is concerned about housing affordability and has established a housing affordability task force to look at this very issue and at the range of initiatives the government can employ to achieve greater affordability in housing. My colleague Mr Wood is the minister responsible for that, but we have been collaborating on that process, because there are a range of planning issues which are also relevant to this matter.

We do not pretend that by itself DV200 will provide affordable housing any more than the previous government's planning policies. We are seeking to apply other measures, as I have outlined, in relation to the housing affordability task force. All the evidence about inner city housing shows that it attracts higher prices. The claim that DV200 will limit what would otherwise be opportunities to buy dual occupancies in the inner city as a way of providing affordable housing is simply false.

You only have to look at the price of many dual occupancies in established inner areas of Canberra to see that dual occupancies do not provide affordable housing. If you are talking about prices of $300,000 or $400,000 for dual occupancy dwellings, you are not talking about affordable housing. Affordable housing requires complementary policies, and the affordable housing strategy is the mechanism to address that.

I have talked about some of the practical effects of the garden city variation-the protection of residential privacy and amenity, the increased requirement for high-quality sustainable design, and the protection of the open leafy character of Canberra suburbs.

In addition, there is the principle underlying DV200 which will apply, so long as this government is in government, to long-range planning, and that is the principle that ownership of neighbourhood amenity is shared in common and wherever possible should be maintained or enhanced for future generations. (Extension of time granted.)

Mrs Dunne claimed that the government is yet to come up with a definition of sustainability which she finds convincing. I would like to draw her attention to page 3 of the government's discussion paper "Towards a sustainable ACT". I think this is a very good starting point for this discussion. The discussion paper reads:

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