Page 3634 - Week 10 - Thursday, 19 September 2019
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it is a small site surrounded by the Molonglo River reserve on all three sides and that is why it is called the tip or the peninsula. If you look at it, that is exactly what it is.
What happens on this site will impact directly on the reserve. For example, many builders do not control their rubbish very well. Any visit to new suburbs will show you building waste blowing all over the place. Rubbish from the peninsula will blow straight down the hill into the reserve and the river.
Second, the Coombs peninsula contains an area of pink-tailed worm-lizard habitat. This lizard is listed as vulnerable both nationally and in the ACT and this habitat should be protected. Third, the peninsula is next to a very narrow part of the reserve. It is less than 200 metres wide at that point. Research shows that narrow reserves like this just do not adequately protect biodiversity. There is too much impact from the surrounding activities and not enough room for fauna to move freely through the corridor.
Fourthly, the site has some beautiful views along the river and I think it would probably be a good spot for recreation. I do not know whether this can be made to work but the government is currently consulting, or arguing, whichever way you want to put it, with a number of local residents about the site for a playground. It is possible that there could be some space on the Coombs peninsula to have some or all of that as a playground without compromising its environmental values. And certainly, any compromise would be vastly less compromising than turning it all into residential, as is planned.
Finally, the number of dwellings which are being planned is very small, only 30. Taking this land off the land release program will make no material difference to the overall rate of land release or to Canberra’s housing supply.
In conclusion, for all these reasons, the Coombs peninsula should be set aside for environmental and possibly recreational purposes. As the committee has recommended, it should be rezoned to hills, ridges and buffer zone and be permanently withdrawn from the land release program.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Report 10
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (11.49): I present:
Planning and Urban Renewal—Standing Committee—Report 10—Draft variation No 355—Calwell Group Centre: Zone Changes and amendments to the Calwell Precinct Map and Code, dated 27 August 2019, together with a copy of the extracts of the relevant minutes of proceedings.
I move:
That the report be noted.
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