Page 3178 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 18 August 2009
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I will go through, basically, my dissenting report and start off firstly by touching very briefly on history. The site that we are talking about was originally developed in the 1970s and consisted of 264 units. Basically they were bedsitters. It was known as Burnie Court. It was owned by ACT Housing, which decided to demolish the complex in 2001 due to management issues.
A master plan for the site was prepared in 2001 and this plan, in fact, allowed for 274 dwellings, with a maximum height of three storeys, because that was in accordance with the height restrictions under the territory plan at the time. Most of these units had good solar access. They were north facing.
Part of the block was offered for sale in 2003, with the development conditions as set out in the master plan. The block, however, was passed in at auction because it did not meet the reserve price, which was really surprising, given the favourable economic conditions at the time, in 2003.
Subsequently, the block boundaries were changed; the master plan was no longer a condition; and in 2005 a joint venture entity was established consisting of Hindmarsh Living and the Commissioner for Housing. That was established for the development of the site.
As Ms Porter has mentioned, at present the site has on it 24 three-storey public housing retirement units at the southern end and six blocks of nearly finished, single-storey retirement units, which have been developed by the joint venture. These single-storey units cover two-thirds of the site, and this is why I have been concerned about and why my press release talked about the need for real densification of the site. To cover two-thirds of such a good site with single-storey development is—it is hard to find the word—crazy, bizarre, silly, given that it is such a good site in such a prime location in Woden.
The committee asked why we had so much single-storey development on the site and we were told that it was because that was what the market demanded for retirement building. Goodwin Village has been successful with its multistorey development in Ainslie. In fact, I am told that most of the units in the 20-storey Sky Plaza in Woden town centre are, in fact, occupied by over-55-year-olds.
The site previously had 240 public housing units. It now only has 24, 10 per cent of the previous number, although I note there will be 12 units owned by Community Housing. One of our concerns is that developments like this are leading to public housing units moving to less desirable locations. While this is not something which we can deal with in the territory plan, it is one of our concerns.
Ms Porter also talked about the public consultation on this site. I agree this has been one of the sites where there has been probably more rather than less public consultation. There have been a lot of comments. I would like to quote what the Woden Valley Community Council said in its submission:
To find out at this late stage, and only through the release of the Draft Variation, that the proposal has changed from medium density maximum 3 storey (with a
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