Page 2044 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 August 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
They have developed a website with significant information resources for community use. They have doorknocked, they have held information stands at the local shops and, as we saw earlier, they have collected an impressive 4,181 signatures from all around Canberra on that petition. They also attended the one-day open that the ACT government conducted, which I have already spoken about.
I have to say that Mr Rattenbury did attend one of the community consultations but, apart from that, he did not come back for any others, nor was he there on that first open day. And it will be interesting to see today, during debate on this motion, what Mr Rattenbury, through you, Madam Speaker, says. Initially when Mr Rattenbury and his Greens came into the Assembly, they were counting themselves as third-party insurance for the community. Mr Rattenbury, you have the test in front of you today to show whether, indeed, you are third-party insurance for the community or whether you are just third-party insurance for whatever this government puts up.
If we take a look at the LDA’s own brochure, it lists a commendable number of entities in the project team: urban planners, landscape architects, transport consultants, economists, analysts, property development companies and environmental assessors. It suggests it has conducted a broad process of community consultation from April 2010 to February 2011 on a preferred draft master plan. And according to the LDA’s own brochure, the draft planning strategy was finalised from December 2010 to February 2011.
We know that LDA consulted widely with the community during that period through key stakeholder interviews, community consultation workshops, a community feedback session, a project newsletter published at regular intervals, a project website, telephone surveys and six meetings of the project reference group which included members of the local community and wider Canberra interests in design, health and planning. The community were of the understanding that development would proceed with 900 to 1,100 dwellings, no eight-storey development, a commercial area of approximately 25,000 square metres, adaptive reuse of four kilns and some parkland. That was in 2011.
The government are now trying to suggest, through the LDA, that after a lapse of some three years they are simply resuming the consultation and planning. Their time line shows that is just a minor gap in communication of some three years. After a gap of three years, inner south residents and the wider community are being asked again to consider merely a later draft of an earlier plan, a draft that is significantly different to the earlier plan. It deletes much of what was previously included, such as housing heights. It only provides for a make-safe status for the brickworks instead of adaptive reuse and, in response to suggestions for a smaller footprint, they accede but increase the density.
This has not been a variation; this is a complete rewrite. We know that the government could claim that heritage factors interrupted the process but that does not excuse the lack of communication in the intervening period, the abandonment of protection for the brickworks and the serious misinformation in highlighting a smaller footprint while adding another 500 dwellings to the reduced size.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video