Page 3269 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 19 August 2008
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Planning and Environment—Standing Committee—Report 36—Variation to the Territory Plan No. 281—Molonglo and North Weston—Government response.
I seek leave to make a statement in relation to the papers.
Leave granted.
MR BARR: Variation No 281 to the territory plan is the next important step in the implementation of the strategic direction for Canberra’s urban growth, as documented in the Canberra spatial plan. The spatial plan identifies the Molonglo Valley as Canberra’s next major greenfield urban area. Molonglo and north Weston will accommodate a significant part of the future population growth and change in Canberra over the next 30 years and, in doing so, achieve high standards in sustainable design.
The major changes proposed in variation 281 include replacing the current rural and forestry land use policies in east Molonglo and north Weston with primarily urban land use policies such as residential, commercial and urban open space. Variation 281 will be implemented through changes to the territory plan map and the written statement, including the Molonglo and north Weston structure plan, north Weston concept plan, Coombs concept plan and Wright concept plan.
Following further consultation with the community, I directed that the draft variation be revised, and I will outline some of the specific issues that have been incorporated into the variation since the draft variation was released. These are:
• implementation of recommendations from the evaluation of the preliminary assessment draft variation 281, specifically, bushfire management plans, heritage management plan for the Weetangera cemetery and planning of buffer zones;
• implementation of those changes is required to ensure that it is not inconsistent with the proposed changes to the national capital plan;
• implementation of changes to variation 281 and the associated structure plan and concept plans pending the agreement arising from community consultation;
• the variation to the territory plan is altered to remove central Molonglo from being considered as a future urban area;
• through the structure plan for Molonglo and north Weston the variation makes specific reference to the provision of infrastructure and a TZ2 services land use policy for the proposed Molonglo zone substation; and
• through the north Weston, Coombs and Wright concept plans the variation makes suitable provision for refinements shown on the maps in the final variation documentation.
Draft variation 281 and the accompanying preliminary assessment were released for public comment in August 2007 and attracted 158 public submissions. The main
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .