Page 2160 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 22 June 2005
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precinct: owner occupiers, renters, people who require affordable housing and a range of other demographic groups. That is still the government’s objective.
The agreement that the territory has entered into with the Australian National University, who have engaged Baulderstone Hornibrook to develop the City West precinct outlined in the agreement the territory and the ANU have entered into, will be the mechanism through which we will strive to ensure a broad range of housing types, including affordable housing. The ANU’s process will be to develop sites in a sequential way in City West and, as part of the development assessment process for each of those sites, the planning authority will be seeking to ensure that the objectives of the City West master plan are met, including the objectives of affordable housing.
Obviously, there is a range of development types possible in the City West precinct. Those include student accommodation, commercial development, residential development, cultural uses and so on. As each individual development proposal comes forward, the planning authority and the government will be seeking and exploring every opportunity to have a mix of affordable housing made available as part of a development proposal, if that is at all feasible. This will involve detailed negotiation with the Australian National University to achieve that.
It is probably worth making the point, of course, that student housing is a particular housing type in demand in the ACT and I am pleased that the government is in a position to be able to respond to that through the City West master plan and the agreement we have with the Australian National University. The provision of student accommodation in City West is important. It is the first proposal that the ANU are progressing in the precinct and it will see many students living close to the city and closer to the services and facilities that the city has available and bringing life and activity to what is currently a fairly large area of car parks separating the ANU from City West. So our objectives are starting to be met, but more work is to be done and that will be done incrementally as each development proposal from the ANU comes forward.
It is also worth making the point that my colleague Mr Hargreaves will also be providing a report to the Assembly on the provision of affordable housing in the territory. The government continues to remain focused on this important issue and we pursue every avenue we can to ensure that greater levels of affordable housing are made available to the Canberra community.
DR FOSKEY: I have a supplementary question. Can the minister provide evidence of other existing developments in Canberra where a broad social mix of affordable housing has been delivered and the funding and development strategies that were used to deliver it?
MR CORBELL: I am not responsible for housing policy. That is a matter for my colleague Mr Hargreaves.
Fire management unit
MRS DUNNE: My question is to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Urban Services. Minister, as you would know, recommendations 31 and 32 of the McLeod report recommended that public land managers like urban services should
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