Page 3895 - Week 12 - Thursday, 23 November 2006
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new community design, traditional neighbourhood development, neotraditional neighbourhood development, transit oriented development and the creative city.
A feature of neighbourhood design is that it has to have a discernible activity centre, whether it is a plaza, a square or a park—a place where people can encounter each other, either intentionally or accidentally. It has got to have quality public spaces, footpaths, streetscapes and easily accessible public buildings. It has to have shops, a library, schools and resource centres. It has got to have people living in the centre to keep it alive. It has got to have all the necessary retail outlets. It has to have a variety of dwelling types.
Every medium and high density development must have a community space, be energy and water efficient, be designed to make cycling and walking safe, should have a primary school less than 1.6 kilometres from most homes to reduce unsustainable travel and to allow children to walk to school and should have a community building which can serve as a meeting place. It also should have community policing, job creation schemes and a degree of community governance over matters connected to sustainability, community safety and physical evolution.
Projects that the government can model, assist and initiate include ecovillages, community housing and co-housing. Recycling services exist. We know people are interested in those. But there are other community building activities, for instance, community gardens, community composting—because recycling needs to go that extra step to include our green wastes—community tree planting and care. It was found in America that suburbs with trees actually are carbon sinks that sequester carbon. They give off carbon in winter and actually take it in in summer, when they have foliage.
Imagine if communities were given a ration of carbon, as individuals might be as time goes on. Nobody can avoid the fact that climate change requires action. Imagine if communities had to work out themselves how to reduce their carbon footprint. That would lead to car pooling, more tree planting and lots of other measures to reduce carbon emissions. They might share washing machines and share the bills, because bills would be higher. We might have mini libraries and resource centres so that people can work at home. There would be fewer obese adolescents. It has been found that adolescents living in close-knit households are less likely to be obese because neighbourhoods are safer to play in.
We have one initiative happening in the ACT. A group called Concerned Residents of West Kambah are working in their bioregion. They have got money from Healthpact because their initiative is recognised as a health measure and they want to participate in the social and ecological development of their sub region. There are people who want to do these things. There are residents organisations that could assist and be resourced to help to build sustainability in their suburbs.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (5.07): I must say I was perplexed as to what Dr Foskey meant with her MPI—“the vital role played by local schools and neighbourhood centres in environmental sustainability and community development and cohesion”—and after her having spoken for 15 minutes I am still perplexed.
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