Page 2243 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 1 August 2017
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flexible and commercial community uses, such as medical centres and childcare centres, are more likely to be able to respond to market demand and be located on smaller sites.
As at July 2017, Housing ACT held 341 dwellings on community facility zoned land. This includes two developments completed by the public housing renewal task force in Chisholm and Monash. These were completed in June and November 2016 respectively. The task force also has a site on community facility zoned land in Nicholls which is nearing completion. All three of the public housing renewal projects already completed or in progress on community facility zoned land were identified in late 2014 and were part of the earliest stages of the government’s program of renewing and improving the quality of public housing in Canberra.
The motion also sought the government’s agreement to continue its commitment to pre-development-application consultation for all public housing development proposals on community facility zoned land and to continue to improve community engagement processes across the government. I can say that in both of these areas the government is already working hard to make sure the community is informed early and provided with a range of opportunities to engage as we progress our pre-development-application planning and design process.
Feedback from the community continues to inform the design and layout of public housing proposals on community facility zoned land in Monash, Mawson, Chapman, Wright and Holder. The public housing renewal task force has met frequently with residents’ groups from Chapman, Wright, Holder and Mawson. In some cases this has involved close to one meeting a week for a number of months while the issues and possible solutions have been discussed.
The task force has sought extra studies to get the information that the community wants and has provided outcomes of these meetings to the broader community. Representatives of community organisations and community councils have also been involved. My office continues to be involved in ongoing discussions as this matter progresses towards an outcome. The public comments period for development applications on these sites will be extended to five weeks to provide all community members with the opportunity to comment on the revised designs being produced from this process.
As members will also know, money was allocated in this year’s budget to look at bolstering our engagement processes across government. Already this year, the government has developed draft guidelines to set out minimum community engagement requirements for developers. We are looking for feedback from the community until late August on these guidelines as part of our plans to strengthen engagement with the community and allow the community to provide important feedback early on.
As minister, I recognise the value that the community can add to planning and design processes, particularly through their local knowledge and experiences, and I look forward to continuing this engagement. I am pleased to provide this information to the Assembly. I present the following paper:
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