Page 14 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 13 February 2018
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voice of the community, which does not want to see Woden becoming merely a dormitory area.
Recommendation 23 aimed to be part of the solution by identifying one or more entertainment precincts in Woden town centre, suitable for night-time use, that are protected from noise-sensitive land uses. We noted that areas for this were not as abundant as they had been in the past.
Recommendations 24, 25, 26 and 28 deal with specific issues for the Phillip pool and the ice-skating rink as well as the proposed supermarket which is part of the Woden Green development, and a proposal from a private company, Junstamp, which involved considerable changes in community facilities. In recommendation 27, the committee supported adding “produce market” as an allowable land use for the Woden town square and the pedestrian spine. This, we thought, was a very innovative idea to potentially increase the life in Woden, particularly over the weekend.
Finally, with recommendation 29, the committee recommended that the ACT government amend the draft variation as soon as practicable to recognise the light rail route and possible stops; to protect bus, cycle, walking and park-and-ride connections to light rail; and to update these elements through a project-specific draft variation as soon as light rail stage 2 is in a position to do this. We hope that this will be sooner rather than later.
As before, I am speaking as a local member for Murrumbidgee, which covers Woden town centre. I want to talk a bit more about the bigger picture of Woden town centre’s current state, and its future. The problems with Woden town centre have been very well publicised, particularly over the course of the community consultation, first with the master plan and then with the draft Territory Plan variation, so I will just give a short summary. There are abandoned buildings and empty office space—a lot of empty office space. There has been the closure of community facilities and recreation facilities. Most recently, the CIT has closed, and we have no idea what will happen to that.
Woden was the first non-Griffin designed town centre, and it was designed and built for a previous era. Because of this, it has old buildings and infrastructure which need replacement and upgrading. It lacks a public main street, and the town square is dying. Woden basically has been built around a mall, which means that there is not a public life, and the offices which used to surround Woden town square have basically been abandoned for offices elsewhere. The combination of the mall and the lack of offices means the town square is dying. Also, unfortunately, the mall has turned its back on the square and there is no longer a coffee shop to be seen or patronised on the square. The commonwealth government is taking its employment elsewhere: elsewhere in Canberra and elsewhere in the country.
Woden is poorly designed for walking and cycling and has a lot of very dark, isolated areas. It lacks an entertainment area with bars and live music. The town centre needs a positive vision for renewal. This low point is a time of great opportunity, as the future of the centre for the next 50 years can be set now. I would like to see this Territory Plan variation be part of setting a positive future for Woden.
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