Page 539 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 2019
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and putt is gone. The community council is also concerned that the pool and ice-skating rink are at risk of closure. The owner of the current facility has said that if another ice sports facility is built he will be forced to close the rink and associated pool.
The third group is tertiary education, and this is very sad. Over the last 10 years the CIT has withdrawn from both the Woden and Weston campuses. The only south side CIT campus now is at Tuggeranong, and that has a very limited range of courses. If you look at a map of tertiary education locations in Canberra you will see a clear bias to the north side and the central area. All the major university campuses and three of the major CIT campuses are all north of Red Hill. Having tertiary education available locally provides many benefits for the local community in terms of encouraging younger people to move into the area, in terms of local economic activity and in terms of pedestrian traffic in and around the town centre.
That leads me to the CIT site. Yesterday in question time the Minister for Urban Renewal clarified that the existing buildings need to be demolished partially to remove asbestos. Fair enough. But what then happens to the site, which is zoned for community facilities and has always been a community facility? That is where my daughter went to school. What is going to happen to this site? We still have no idea. The question is: what is being done to turn around this decline?
The good news is that some of this work has already started. In October 2018 Minister Steel, the Minister for Community Services and Facilities and also one of the local members, said in a media release that Woden is the only town centre without a dedicated fit-for-purpose community centre. The media release also announced planning work towards a future community centre. The Greens-ALP parliamentary agreement included a commitment to feasibility studies for two multipurpose indoor sports centres—one in Woden and one in Gungahlin—and I understand this work has also commenced.
So, given this good news, you might ask: “What is the problem?” The issue is that the community is concerned that three separate processes are underway and they do not appear to be linked at all. Minister Steel and one part of the public service are working on the community centre. Good. Minister Berry and another part of the public service are working on indoor sports facilities. Okay. Minister Stephen-Smith and yet another part of the public service are working on the future CIT site.
It is quite likely this will not get the best outcome for either the community or the government. It leaves a whole set of possibilities for falling through the gaps. For example, does part of the CIT site need to be reserved for a future indoor sports facility—especially if the existing pool closes—because an aquatic centre needs a bigger site? Would it be cheaper and more efficient to build a combined community centre with a built-in sports centre? If the community centre is funded first, should the land next to it be reserved for an indoor sports facility, and how much land needs to be set aside? Conversely, looking more widely at community facilities, given the CIT site is quite close to the Canberra Hospital, which is clearly running out of space, would it be the best idea for the ACT as a whole to reserve this site for future health needs?
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