Page 3284 - Week 10 - Thursday, 19 October 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Dr Foskey said she has moved the disallowance motion so that the government can come back with something different. I am not confident the government would come back with something different, if it were disallowed by some chance anyway, but the end result of Dr Foskey’s disallowance motion would be that you could have more bars and more clubs in that part of Kingston, which would obviously affect the amenity of the residents in the local area.
The proposed variation removes, as permissible land use activities in Kingston part 22, clubs, drink establishments, indoor entertainment facilities and service stations. That is a positive step. Since 1993, we have seen the ability to have bars and clubs in that area. To date, we have only seen one come up. If we did not have this variation, there would be the potential for many more. To that end, it certainly is something that is scaling back the permitted activity there. In our view, it is not scaling back activity in an unreasonable way but is still allowing for some important uses and the kinds of uses that people would expect in an area like Kingston.
This is a broader issue about finding a balance between both concerns. It is not just about Kingston. Even though we are debating Kingston today, we need to have a broader discussion about how we manage the desire for greater activity in our group centres, for increased densification in certain parts of Canberra, with the need to protect residential amenity.
To that end, the opposition will be developing policies with a broader focus that will help seek that balance and will have some broader policy framework for finding that balance between the legitimate desire of Canberrans to see places like the Kingston Group Centre flourish—most Canberrans would want to see that kind of activity and certainly restaurants and the like there—and the rights of residents to enjoy their premises in relative peace and quiet.
To that end, the planning and environment committee certainly took on board the concerns of the residents who appeared before the committee. We took those concerns very seriously, and that is reflected in some of our recommendations. Recommendation 2, in particular, related to waste collection, which was one of the common complaints that we got. We limited that to between the hours of 7.00 am and 7.00 pm. That is certainly a recommendation we put to government and is an important recommendation which limits some of the effect of activity in this precinct.
DV 260 also reflects that noise management plans are needed for restaurants that are in this area. Dr Foskey spoke about drunken behaviour and things like that. There are two things to say on that. One is that the Belgian Beer Cafe is the only bar that is there now and will be the only bar that is allowed on that strip. Certainly I would not support some sort of retrospective effect for premises that have already been approved or some sort of acquisition by the government. That would be a retrograde step. I do not know whether that is what Dr Foskey is advocating, but certainly that is something that is not going to change, regardless of what happens with this variation.
The second thing I would say is that I know that a lot of the residents were concerned about people late at night coming into the car park on that stretch. I do not think anything in this variation, one way or another, or even if this variation went further and banned
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .