Page 3283 - Week 10 - Thursday, 19 October 2006
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I appreciate that residents in the areas adjacent to the Jardine Street premises still have concerns. But I have to honestly say, as planning minister, I believe we have achieved the appropriate balance. We cannot prohibit uses which, by any stretch of the imagination, are reasonable uses in an area of such intense residential and retail activity. Restaurants and cafes, by their nature, are not the very loud and noisy uses that you would have compared to, say, a bar or a nightclub.
I note Dr Foskey in her comments said, “The government should do something about the Belgian Beer Cafe.” Unless Dr Foskey is suggesting that there is some compulsory acquisition of that property right granted for the owners of the Belgian Beer Cafe, I doubt there is very little the government can do. I do not think Dr Foskey has mounted any cogent argument as to why the government should go back and retrospectively take away an approval granted and reviewed by and upheld by the AAT in relation to that particular premise.
We are able to ensure that further premises such as the Belgian Beer Cafe are unable to have the opportunity to be put in place along that Jardine Street area. And that is what we have done. Restaurants and cafes are permitted. But drink establishments, nightclubs and other more noisy uses are now prohibited. That is a reasonable balance.
Living in an area like Kingston is not like living in a suburb such as Lyons, Chifley, O’Connor or Turner in that it is not a low-rise, single-dwelling neighbourhood with all the characteristics that you would have in a more suburban setting. Kingston is a more urban environment. It is deliberately planned that way. The redevelopment policies put in place by the NCDC in the 1970s and the 1980s encouraged those types of activities. It is deliberately designed to have higher densities. It is deliberately designed to have more people living close together. It is deliberately designed to have more activity. That is what Kingston is about. The uses that come with that and the consequences of that are that you have more noise than you have in a suburban environment.
I accept that some uses are not appropriate in the interface between the retail centre and the residential area. Those are the uses that we have moved to prohibit—bars, nightclubs, other establishments that generate large amounts of noise—but restaurants and cafes are a reasonable use along that interface. For that reason, the government thinks we have achieved the appropriate balance.
I know residents would like the government to go further. I accept that that is their strongly felt view—and I respect that—but I do not agree with it. I do not agree with it because Kingston, as a centre, has a range of diverse uses and should be allowed to continue in a reasonable way, whilst having regard to the most significant impacts that can be had by residents close to the Kingston Group Centre. The government will not be supporting this disallowance motion today.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo) (11.18): The opposition will not be supporting the disallowance motion. I will not go over all of the detail that Mr Corbell covered, but I comment firstly on the effect of this variation, and that is a big part of why we are not supporting it. The effect of the disallowance of this variation would be to allow bars and clubs and other similar activities to go on in this stretch of Kingston. That would obviously be of significant concern to the residents adjacent.
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