Page 3166 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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traffic problems. The Greens clearly support high quality sustainable urban densification. It is a way of making the city more vibrant, more sustainable and making our transport system work better. But not all of the development that we are seeing would appear to be high quality.
I think that what we need is much more of a community conversation about urban densification. This will be even more required if, as I understand the draft territory plan variation proposes, blocks as small as 700 square metres can now have dual occupancies instead of the current 800. A lot more blocks will potentially become dual occupancies. We need to start looking at the balance between housing, gardens and open space. We need to look at transport and parking needs, which are changing as we become a denser city in a climate change and post peak oil environment. We need to look at affordability as homelessness and the demand for public housing increase in Canberra. We need to look at resilience in the face of a rapidly changing environment.
One concern that the Greens have raised regularly is that the government is nowhere near achieving the aim of 50:50 greenfield-infill development. When we asked, during the estimates hearing, how this is being improved, Mr Barr simply said that the answers are in the spatial plan. I think the major problem we have here is that there seems to be quite a difference between what is intended in the spatial plan and what actually happens on the ground.
I guess part of the problem is where land has already been sold. We are in a capital situation and the government only has limited control of what happens once it has been sold. Part of the problem is, of course, that greenfields are where the government gets a lot of land sales revenue from. It is easier, from a public community consultation point of view, for developers to build on greenfield sites. We have asked the government to look at levers and incentives for urban infill and to look at those as part of the goals of the spatial plan.
As I have just said, what we drastically need is more community engagement and education on urban density issues. The pressures on our suburbs are increasing and people who have lived in one place for a long period of time, or even in some cases for a short period of time, are watching their neighbourhood change before their eyes. When I say “suburbs”, a few years ago I would have just been talking about Turner and Braddon, but it is happening everywhere now. It is happening from Chifley to Latham, from Narrabundah to Hawker and from Wanniassa to Dickson. We desperately need better community discussion on this. We need to have the community at least have some level of understanding and acceptance because otherwise it will continue to be a source of considerable angst in the suburbs. (Second speaking period taken.)
This infill is happening not just on existing house blocks. It is happening on golf courses, bowling greens and local shopping centres. I am not trying to say for one minute that this is all bad. Some of it is very, very good. Some of this change is what we need to make Canberra a more sustainable and vibrant place, and a better place to live in. But the local communities need to be taken along with it. People want to feel that they are living in a liveable neighbourhood and that they have some say in what happens.
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