Page 2683 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 12 August 2015
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ideas that at face value had merit. There is an opportunity to have a more open discussion with the key stakeholders on possible alternative options to address the key issue, which is to provide a home for the Canberra Services Club, and ideas on how the community might be engaged to assist in solving this set of issues.
I am not convinced of the need for the Manuka occasional childcare centre to move in the first place, which led to the proposed loss of the school land and is now leading to concerns from some residents of Griffith as another alternative site for Mocca is sought. I believe that Mocca is currently ideally situated in its current location close to retail, commercial and employment opportunities, and transport.
That said, having spent time talking to the community involved in Mocca, I also know that there are opportunities for Mocca, if it were to move under the right circumstances, to have a new building that would last for another 50 years—to perhaps create a new economic model for Mocca that will in fact improve their sustainability. But there are a whole lot of “ifs” in that equation and some really careful work needs to be done to make sure that if Mocca does move it is done in a way that is advantageous to Mocca and actually strengthens that very valued community organisation in the long run. So there is still some important work to be done there.
Returning to the catalyst to this issue, we do need to find a home for the Canberra Services Club. Several options to address this issue without needing to involve Mocca have been suggested to me, including rebuilding the Services Club on its current site. I have heard the Chief Minister’s comments on this and I understand it to be the case that there are questions about the financial viability of the Canberra Services Club. One can imagine that being the case given that their previous building was a fibro shed, on the whole. I cannot imagine that its insurance value was particularly fabulous, and to build a building to today’s modern standards would presumably be rather more expensive.
However, I also understand that there are prospects of a hotel being built on the site. It would be worth considering, if there is to be a hotel on that site, whether the Services Club might be incorporated into a new development. One could easily imagine a club being incorporated on the first floor in some way, as part of having normal bar facilities, as one often does in a multistorey hotel, for example.
Another idea was to identify a site for the Services Club on an appropriately zoned site somewhere else in the inner south—for example, a site in the sports and entertainment precinct next to the Harmonie German Club on Jerrabomberra Avenue in Narrabundah. This club is an important live music venue. I recently visited the club and they raised concerns with me that the spare block of land next door to them could be zoned to allow residential development, which clearly would then have a very detrimental impact on them because of the inevitable noise complaints that would come when people move in and then say, “Hang on, we don’t like the noise coming from next door.” So having a club next door to the Harmonie German Club would in fact be very compatible. Certainly members of the club indicated to me that they would welcome another club as a neighbour.
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