Page 1491 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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community councils that get 225 people to their meetings. In fact, there would not be too many community meetings of this sort anywhere in Canberra that get that kind of turnout.
What that means is that all these people care about their group centre, they care about their community and they are keen to play a role in the development of Canberra. All of these people are, in effect, disengaged from the government’s decision-making processes at the moment. That is why I called the meeting. I called the meeting to give these people an opportunity to have their say about their community so I could then document it and send it onto the government, because without such a document I am very sceptical that they would actually have got an understanding of what the residents of Aranda, Cook and Macquarie primarily are feeling.
Yesterday a report of the meeting was finalised and copies were sent to Mr Stanhope, Mr Barr, Ms Porter, the planning authority, LAPS and also TAMS. The report does not articulate my own views; it articulates the views that were expressed at the meeting. When you have 225 people at a forum, you are going to get some diverse views. I think it was actually David Doyle who said in the meeting last week that seemingly 223 of the 225 people were of the same view. I am not sure exactly what the numbers would have been, but there was an overwhelming sentiment that consultation on this issue was done poorly. All the people were keen to see the parking and traffic issues at Jamison Plaza rectified and they were keen to see the old Jamison Inn site redeveloped at an appropriate scale with appropriate parking. These people by and large are not anti development. They are not anti change. They just want to be a part of the change process. They want to be a part of consultation here in the ACT.
There was concern about public servants using it for all-day parking and then walking down to Belconnen mall. There was concern about the number of disabled spots at Jamison Plaza. They were talking about how hard it is to cross Redfern Street and they were also saying the status of the 2002 master plan and how that fits into the planning process is not clear. This is a matter which we discussed in the Assembly last year. The opposition is very keen to see master plans play a role in the development of our suburbs. Such master plans, if they are actually adhered to and if they are implemented and designed well, can provide the certainty that residents, traders and others users of the facilities need so they can plan well into the future.
Some of the other comments that were raised indicated concern about green space possibly been taken away and about changes to ACTION buses. Someone said that they were not anti development but the proposal may be—
At 6 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.
MR COE: There were concerns about whether the ACT planning system was out of step with other planning processes around Australia. They were interested to know whether it was possible to sell units prior to a DA being approved. There was talk about proposed changes to intersections if any developments were to be approved.
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