Page 2939 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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important. You only have to look at the difference between, say, a New York and a Los Angeles to get the extemes between the low rise urban sprawl of a Los Angeles versus the high rise and density of a New York.
We are not going to go to either extreme but having some higher density development along the transport corridors and at the major centres is a great way of ensuring that we can grow our city, we can grow our population, we can still preserve our amenity. By going higher you can leave space in the city for some of the urban open space that we all want to see and for some of community facilities that we all want to see. We do not want to see wall-to-wall apartments. No-one would want to see that. If you go to some of the cities of the world where that is done badly and all you see is apartment after apartment after apartment with no community facilities and no urban open space, that is not a city any of us would want to live in.
We are far behind. If you look at Northbourne Avenue as an example and the low rise along Northbourne Avenue, I think that is a planning failure. That is something we have long called for to be overhauled so that we can actually see it as a genuine transport corridor where there are a lot of people living close to that transport corridor. Whether that is light rail in the future or whether that is just a far more efficient bus service, if you have got thousands more people living along Northbourne Avenue, you have the capacity, even with a bus service, to have far more services and, therefore, make it convenient. I know that Mrs Dunne in her previous role as shadow planning minister has long argued that the transport corridors and the major centres are where this needs to be done. We are very pleased that there seems to be some shifting from the government on this.
Turning attention to the Greens, this will be an important test for the Greens. I know that with Ms Tucker, who was previously in the Assembly, there was a tendency to sort of do a lot of negotiations around core areas and the like. But there does seem to be this dual, almost split, personality amongst the Greens where they want a sustainable city and a sustainable transport system, and that requires critical mass. But there also does tend to be, certainly sometimes, a bit of a nimby element when it comes to the development of apartment blocks in the inner suburbs. You cannot have it both ways.
You actually need to make some decisions if you are going to have a denser city, if you are going to have a lot more people living around our transport corridors and our major centres. We want to see that and there will always be some people who are annoyed about that and who maybe had their views taken away or whatever it might be. You need to balance those concerns but it is an important test for the Greens. I think in the past they have been concerned to oppose some of these developments, many of which are very positive.
Finally, I reiterate that we are undertaking that community consultation on the broader issue—not just Northbourne, but looking at the broader issue of density in our city and how we can move forward as a community in doing that and what are the best policy settings for doing that.
I think we have seen some disappointments even in recent years in the city. For example, I do not think there is any actual residential as part of the redevelopment of
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