Page 2733 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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protestations to the contrary, the Goodwin Homes expansion in Ainslie was not well managed and was not well publicised. The public consultation was woefully inadequate. If you honestly disagree with my contention that the development was not well notified, then come for a walk through Ainslie with me and we will do a vox pop of random residents and see what they think of the process. ACTPLA only notified households directly abutting the block on which the development was occurring. Even properties that were going to be impacted by the shadow cast by the development were not considered to be affected by the development to the extent necessary to trigger the compulsory notification provisions of the planning laws.
The minister has responded to criticism on this issue by retreating to a defence based on strict legal obligations, but such a defence is disingenuous and mean-spirited. The legislative obligation to consult is extremely narrowly drafted. I do not believe that it is meant to be exclusive. Rather, it sets a base level below which it would void the decision because of failure to consider relevant considerations such as the views of those with legitimate expectations that their interests will not be adversely impacted without their views being heard. Ask yourself: if your house or favourite park, for that matter, were going to be overshadowed by a proposed development, would you not want to have an opportunity to comment on it? Of course you would.
Ms MacDonald said the other day that she, like many others, would not even have noticed the 3G towers going up until they actually went up. There are people who do not see the notices put on lampposts and even sometimes in their letterbox, especially if it is mixed up with a lot of junk mail. So we need post-fact consultation.
It has often been said that ACTPLA is only now rebuilding from a loss of quality urban planners and that too many resources were lost following self-government and then through the 1990s. I have also become aware that recently retired ACTPLA planners are popping up around town with successful development applications that push the scope of what has been considered acceptable in the past. The recent development in Red Hill was an example. Residents object or appeal developments are often viewed as self-centred, vexatious and/or disruptive. They seem to have been written out of planning reform.
I question whether there are enough social planners or cultural planners or, more to the point, whether social and cultural planning has enough status in the planning regime, particularly when other issues such as community organisations, Legislative Assembly committees and specialist advisory groups such as the Planning and Land Council have been stripped away. More and more it is becoming the world according to the minister and ACTPLA. I believe we would have better long-term outcomes if there were room for more inputs, even though in some cases some parts of the process would slow down.
I have spoken quite often of the kind of city that Canberra might be in another 20 or 30 years and made reference to a shift back towards a neighbourhood model for planning, which is enjoying a resurgence in other places. In other debates I have reminded the Assembly of some of the more innovative public transport options that have developed in cities similar in size and density to Canberra.
This is a budget supposedly about making hard choices. But in terms of planning, those hard choices are really about developing an integrated public transport plan and looking to ensure that local development supports neighbourhood centres. This budget fails to
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