Page 2590 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 August 2019
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MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (11.21): The Greens will be supporting this bill and will support the government amendment when it is moved.
I was very pleased to hear Mr Wall say that the opposition supported at least the intent behind the bill, the design idea. The design review panel is a good initiative. All of us hear lots of complaints about the quality of development in Canberra. I am sure every MLA has been earbashed by many people about various buildings. They will be different buildings depending on where we live, but nonetheless the theme is very clear: Canberra people would like higher quality development; they would like development which looks better, which respects the public realm, and which is just better built.
I could go on at some length as to the various problems with Canberra development, but one thing is clear: the design review panel is a good way of lifting design quality. It is not something that is new and radical, except in the ACT. It is something that is done in other jurisdictions. It works there and so it is something that we should try.
This bill is a milestone for the panel. It is enshrining it in legislation. As we are all aware, the panel started as an opt-in trial. If you wanted to, you could get the panel to have a look at your development if it was a particularly big and exciting one. It started without legislation. The bill provides for legal backing for full operation. It becomes a referral entity.
I will talk about Mr Gentleman’s amendment. I am basically totally in agreement with it. After Mr Gentleman’s amendment was circulated and we had a look at it, we thought that there was a problem, because it said that the mandatory pre-application is limited to buildings of five storeys or more in town centres and central areas only. As a member for Murrumbidgee rather than a member for Molonglo, I know that outside town centres and central areas there is a lot of development with buildings that are five storeys or more. Taller buildings are being allowed in what have been traditionally suburban areas.
Without the amendment, the bill misses out areas which are now in a position where they can have five-storey buildings, for example, Weston group centre, Mawson group centre, Curtin group centre, and John Gorton Drive in Molonglo Valley. I point out that Curtin group centre and John Gorton Drive currently have plans for buildings that are five storeys or more than five storeys. Mr Gentleman’s amendment corrects this so that the design review panel can look at anything over five storeys. I thank Mr Gentleman and his office for their constructive approach to solving what has become a minor drafting problem. Thank you very much.
I have one suggestion about something that it appears could not be done within the current framework of the Planning and Development Act. I thought that it would be a good idea for ACTPLA to be able to direct proposals to the new panel at the pre-application stage. After all, five storeys is one threshold, but there could be some other threshold which means that the development, while not so tall, is, for some other reason, deserving of a more serious look by the design review panel. This is something, I gather, that cannot be done in any easy way through the current Planning
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