Page 3122 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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smaller, affordable type. I would think these are the ones which, particularly and unfortunately, are one-star. The people who live in them, presumably, are going to be the less well-off people of Canberra and are not going to be in a position to move their house around after it has been built not facing north. So they are going to be condemned to high heating bills and high cooling bills because they did not get an affordable house whose builder did not look at affordable running costs, only affordable construction costs. I think that in the long run this, for many people, will be false economy.
Another area which is being funded through the budget is master planning. There was master planning funded for Kingston and Dickson. This is a bit of an interesting subject. They used to be neighbourhood planning; then they were replaced by the LAPACs; and we have not really had much of a process for involving the community in planning since then. We have had a couple of examples come to the Assembly while I have been here where consultation just has not happened. Hawker shops and Nicholls car park come to mind. We need to do something better than what we are doing in terms of community consultation.
I think the current funding for two master planning exercises in this year is far too small, given the needs of the community. This is why the Greens would like to see neighbourhood planning reinstituted. It is an item in the Greens-Labor agreement and it is one where we truly think, in the long run, we could reduce issues by doing this.
Another area where, hopefully, we will have good community consultation which will lead to reduced issues is the eastern broadacre study, which many people are eagerly awaiting. It is going to affect a lot of people, including, in particular, the residents of Pialligo and Majura Valley, all of whom live on broadacre zoned land. I am aware that the residents of Pialligo have started their own master planning process to kick-start a plan for their village and to retain the values of their area. We will possibly need to have another zone in the territory plan called “village”, but that is probably a conversation for another day when possibly people are awake.
I am moving on to Molonglo, which will be one of the most significant developments that ACTPLA is going to be looking after in the next few years. I understand that there are going to be about 800 to 1,000 blocks released, pending the strategic environmental assessment of the land. My concerns here are a lack of planning towards ensuring a pipeline for non-potable water is available. That is one of my concerns. Mr Savery did state during the hearings that ACTPLA and TAMS support the stormwater plans in west Macgregor but I understand that the third pipeline there was knocked back for a lack of departmental policy and coordination on the issue. I would really like to see ACTPLA, TAMS and ACT Health coordinate better in finding ways that we can start using non-potable water because the ACT does have a problem with its water supply and we need to look at more innovative ways.
I am pleased that in Molonglo ACTPLA is planning to retain the natural watercourses as much as possible, unlike the older areas of Canberra. I note from the budget papers that the ratio of greenfields to town centre land releases still shows that the government appear to be relying on greenfields growth as a key part of their revenue base. And we need to find a better way here. We need to find ways that will not
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