Page 797 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012
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together. I believe that if our recommendations are accepted by the government, we will end up with a better solution than that originally proposed. Whether or not it is the absolute best solution is an unanswerable question, because one of the interesting things about this whole proposal is that we do not look at it from a clean slate; we look at it from what is set in front of us.
We have made a united set of recommendations, thus demonstrating that at least three members of the Assembly representing all three parties have similar views, although of course in discussions our emphasis on different things was not necessarily 100 per cent the same. Nonetheless we have put forward a set of recommendations that we all agree to. So I think this sends a very strong message to the government that they should look at the variation and take on board what we have suggested.
Basically, what we have suggested is a precinct code. The aim of the precinct code would be to protect, as part of the public realm, the parts of that site which it is obvious that the people use. It is very obvious that on two sides of the site, there are very well-worn paths. We have been to the site a few times, and you can see where the people use it. You can see that it is used and loved. Given what our recommendations are, I think I could say it would seem to us that there is a possibility that we could have a development that keeps the parts of the site that the people of Griffith use and love and allows some space for residential development.
I will go briefly through the recommendations. Recommendation 1 that Ms Porter touched upon is that we believe that the way that this could be done would be as part of a precinct code. That would be something that ACTPLA, I would imagine, would develop and would be presenting to the Assembly at the same time as the final draft territory plan variation 307.
The first thing we are talking about is that no part of the building or any development be closer than 35 metres to the existing stormwater easement. We did discuss a bit whether it was a stormwater easement or a creek, because of course clearly once upon a time it was a creek. The idea behind this is twofold. Firstly, it is to reduce the possibility of flooding. We do not want to build things which are only going to get flooded. We are appreciative of the fact that in the ACT you are not legally allowed to build below the one-in-100-year flood mark, but a bill could be brought in so that that position can be moved.
The other reason, though, that we wanted to keep development well away from the stormwater easement was that you can see there is a path along there. It is clear that is where people walk. It is a really nice area. It has got trees on both sides, it has got what used to be a creek and is now a concreted creek. It is clearly a space which is enjoyed by the local residents. And the aim of this is to ensure that that space is part of the public realm and available to the residents in perpetuity.
Moving along, we also said that a new bike path should be constructed there. Basically we are just talking about tidying up the existing dirt path so that it is more useable.
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