Page 262 - Week 01 - Thursday, 17 February 2011
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The Committee recommends that the Heritage Council expedite the assessment of the Northbourne Housing Precinct and finalise a conservation management plan for the precinct.
This is obviously a somewhat controversial part of Canberra and a somewhat controversial discussion regarding the development, or redevelopment, of these areas. But undoubtedly the land occupied on Northbourne Avenue by the housing properties is underutilised as it currently stands.
The fact is that the number of dwellings on those blocks at the moment is not at a level that I think would be consistent with a view for that sort of infrastructure and that sort of transport corridor. So I think it is important that the Heritage Council does finalise a conservation management plan as quickly as possible. It is a controversial issue, but I think it is important that it does happen as quickly as possible and I hope that it is not being stalled for political reasons and that it is not delayed any longer because of any adverse media that may be generated one way or the other.
We have to distinguish between conservation and preservation. With conservation, you can actually make changes. You can make reforms. You can do things in order to conserve a reasonable portion. With preservation, you are pretty much locking something up and leaving it as it is, and I fear that is what we are doing at the moment. And, when you simply preserve something for the sake of preservation, you run the risk of it deteriorating and in effect being mothballed, and I do not think anyone is served well by substandard housing. Whether it be the actual tenants, the residents themselves, whether it be the neighbours, whether it be the broader community, whether it be absolutely any stakeholder whatsoever, nobody is served well by poor quality and the very low density housing that we have along the major transport corridor of the city, being Northbourne Avenue. So I do very much support recommendation 15 and hope that will indeed lead to some policy changes which will make that part of the inner north, and indeed that part of Canberra, a little more sustainable from a residential point of view.
There are a few other issues in the report that I want to in part distance myself from, or at least add some additional comments to. On paragraph 4.13 I have stated that I think it is important that we ensure that all future developments have appropriate car parking. I think it would be inappropriate if we were to restrict people’s car parking opportunities simply because we want to force them onto other modes of transport. The way we need to make that modal shift is to encourage people to want to go onto an ACTION bus, encourage people to want to ride their bike, encourage people to want to walk. I do not think we should be doing it by making one option unattractive, making one option worse, therefore forcing people onto other modes of transport.
Paragraph 6.36 of the committee report states that the committee “strongly supports maintaining the existing quantity of public housing and considering any innovation that will lead to more affordable housing”. The focus, I think, has to be on housing affordability. Public housing for many people is a symptom of not being able to get into the private market. It is not always that, but for many people it is. I think that, in order to address many of the issues we have with public housing—the demand for
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