Page 111 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 February 2018

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approaches that bring together delivery of community facilities, affordable housing, street life, parks, transport upgrades and planning rules;

(c) urban renewal that is not done well can result in conflict between developers and the community, dormitory centres with low quality of life and missed opportunities on sustainability, affordable housing and active transport;

(d) while the city and inner areas are booming, Woden, Tuggeranong and Belconnen Town Centres are suffering from a lack of focus;

(e) the Government established the City Renewal Authority to bring better urban renewal to the city and Northbound Avenue corridor;

(f) Woden, Tuggeranong and Belconnen Town Centres and the Kingston Arts Precinct are currently managed by the Suburban Land Agency, which is set up to build new suburbs and is not designed to deliver broader urban renewal; and

(g) Light Rail Stage 2 will have broader impacts on the Woden Town Centre and surrounds; and

(2) calls on the ACT Government to declare the following areas to be Urban Renewal Precincts for the purposes of section 35 of the City Renewal Authority and Suburban Land Agency Act by the end of June 2018:

(a) Woden Town Centre and surrounds;

(b) Belconnen Town Centre and surrounds;

(d) Kingston Arts Precinct.

I want to start off by talking first about our three older town centres—Woden, Belconnen and Tuggeranong. Each of these town centres was designed in a different era for the needs of the community decades ago. These needs have changed. Some of the planning ideas built into the town centres, while they seemed like good ideas at the time, have turned out not to be brilliant ideas.

I will start with Woden, the first town centre after the Griffin plan. In our office we have on the wall an image from the 1960s NCDC plan for Woden town centre. It shows a large number of tall office buildings and a shopping mall surrounded by a literal sea of car parks. In the middle is the Woden square. That plan was successfully delivered, but it means that Woden and Weston Creek residents are missing out on a central community facility and recreation precinct, and on-street life—places designed for shopping, walking and cycling.

Tuggeranong town centre was built slightly differently, around a grid of streets, but with the clear intention that people would move from one site to another by driving from Bunnings to the mall, for example. I do not think planners ever thought people were going to walk again, but these are not the expectations and needs of the current community.

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