Page 3280 - Week 10 - Thursday, 19 October 2006
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often overlooked in the planning of this city. They are planned out, so to speak. We are seeing an inconsistency here that I am really hoping to see explained or dealt with.
People moving into such an environment in the city context should know what they are in for. They should make sure that their homes are soundproofed sufficiently for the context. They may move there because they like that liveliness. What is happening in this part of Kingston is quite different.
I am using this speech as an opportunity to call on the government to implement the recommendations of the planning and environment committee, which call for a provision limiting commercial deliveries and waste collection—both these activities usually involve large trucks and inevitably mean a lot of noise—to between the hours of 7 am and 7 pm in section 22. I know that members would not be impressed and would do something about it if industrial waste trucks started rolling up within metres of their bedroom windows or their children’s bedroom window before 7 am and after 7 pm. I cannot imagine they would consider it reasonable if it was happening to them.
In that context I should remind the Assembly that the existing core commercial area of Kingston includes a dedicated service access laneway. Businesses can be serviced outside business hours with minimum disruption to the residential amenity, and that is how it works. The contractors who service the existing shops on the western side of Jardine Street are presumably going to be the same people who supply businesses on the eastern side, and they will want to deliver products or collect waste at the same time on both sides of the street. You would not run a business any other way. The problem is that on one side the trucks are driven and parked behind a buffer of buildings a distance from residences and on the other side they pull up within metres of bedroom windows.
No noise abatement plan, which is the solution proposed by this variation, can address these problems unless the plan includes the use of electric trucks staffed by mute workers who wear moccasins and perhaps line their waste collection trucks with thick carpeting to muffle the sound of industrial waste skips being emptied into them and with their traffic reversing noise—that beep, beep, beep—illegally turned off. Does the minister or Neil Savery imagine that bartenders in Jardine Street are going to turn their tipsy or drunken patrons out on a spree that they should try to keep the noise down because it is very late and people are sleeping next door?
The most unfortunate thing about this variation and the response of government to the concerns that have been raised is the way it has cast the residents as complainers. In dealing with any issues that arise from what will be inappropriate development, there will not be real protection through the planning regime but simply more opportunities for residents to complain. To give a good example, while good planning can deal with antisocial activity that comes with drinking by ensuring that it is not facilitated in inappropriate locations, for example, ACTPLA has simply specified nose abatement plans that can be enforced only in response to ongoing complaints.
Finally, ACTPLA in all its responses to the concerns raised in the consultation period has never truly addressed the mixed shopping needs of local residents. So much for extra walkability if it is only bars and restaurants that you can walk to and stagger home from. I suspect that it suits the government and ACTPLA to demonise residents. In this case I believe the arguments of business held sway because that is the way the government
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