Page 3448 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 17 September 2019
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the entire Canberra community. The bill reflects the vision set out in the 2018 planning strategy, namely, to be a sustainable, competitive and equitable city that respects Canberra’s unique legacy as a city in the landscape and the national capital while being responsive to the future and resilient to change.
One of the themes in the planning strategy is to have a more liveable Canberra, and this framework delivers on this theme by allowing social infrastructure that meets community needs and supports strong communities. There are five key elements to the bill. Firstly, it defines the various community land uses that can be potentially incorporated into a community concessional lease. Secondly, it uses an evidence-based approach to match community needs with available land. Thirdly, it has a competitive two-stage tender process to release each site, including an expression of interest process followed by an invitation to tender. Fourthly, assessment criteria will be used at the expression of interest and tender stages to determine eligible organisations and use. Fifthly, it has mandatory lease provisions for community concessional leases and related ongoing use and compliance measures to ensure that once the land is granted it continues to be used in the manner prescribed in the lease.
I will now elaborate on these key five elements of the bill. As I have indicated, the first of the key provisions sets out community uses that are available for potential incorporation into a community concessional lease. Of course, not all of these uses will be in every community concessional lease. In practical terms these are community uses such as scout halls, men’s sheds, places of worship and other uses that reflect the government’s concessional land charging policy. These community uses are also permitted across a number of zones in the Territory Plan and are not confined to CFZ land.
The bill emphasises the importance of these community uses because this government has and always will recognise the immense social value of the services provided by the organisations who would not otherwise be able to purchase land at full market price or whose contribution is considered socially valuable.
The second key element relates to matching available land with community need. The government will look at information such as community consultation, planning studies, population and demographic data along with government priorities to determine community need. The government will then look at available community land and identify appropriate sites for particular types of use. For instance, if the evidence gathered by the government tells us that the community would benefit from a cultural facility in a particular district, the government can assess whether there is vacant land suitable for this use in the district and then declare a particular site as having a cultural facility as its required use. The government is keen to ensure that the community gets the most from community land. This means that applicants should consider whether the facility could be used for additional uses, such as community meeting rooms or a recreation hall.
The third and fourth key elements of the bill are intertwined and relate to the process of organisations submitting their proposal for grants of identified concessional
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