Page 1966 - Week 07 - Thursday, 13 August 2020
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health and community services. I trust that the use of my ability to call in this development application will facilitate the timely delivery of a valuable community facility for those people of Canberra who are most in need.
The Planning and Development Act 2007 provides for specific criteria in relation to the exercise of my call-in powers. I have used my call-in powers in this instance because I consider that the proposal, as detailed in development application 20193662 in conjunction with the infrastructure delivered through the development application 20237196, will provide a substantial public benefit to the Canberra community through the timely development of a community facility that supports people to move directly from homelessness into permanent housing and follows through with the support that they need to stay housed, to improve their connections to health, education and employment, and to live independently with stability.
The development will comprise a mix of one, two and three-bedroom homes to allow for greater flexibility of tenants, including families. To this end, the public benefit will be served in making the facility available to service the local community who are most in need. The urban renewal section, 72 Dickson, will also benefit the public by delivering updated infrastructure to replace ageing assets, remove vacant disused buildings and facilitate the construction of some new buildings and associated landscape on the vacant, government-owned land.
The proposed development will contribute to the achievement of the object of the Territory Plan by providing the people of the ACT with a new contemporary development containing 40 social and affordable homes for people most in need. It will serve a stage of principle of social sustainability through the redevelopment of an existing site with a community-use development that responds to current and emerging social needs, as recently highlighted through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Section 161(2) of the Planning and Development Act 2007 specifies that if I decide an application, I must table a statement in the Legislative Assembly not later than three sitting days after the day of decision. As required by the Planning and Development Act 2007 and for the benefit of members, I table a statement for both development applications, providing a description for the development, details of the land on where the development is proposed to take place, the name of the applicant, details of my decision for the application, reasons for the decision, and the community consultation undertaken by the proponent.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (3.05): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am afraid that I cannot, however, thank the minister for planning. The Greens will continue our historical objection to calling-in powers. Basically, what the call-in is doing, as the minister has explained at some length, is putting the minister in as the decision-maker and taking out the community’s views. This is just not what should happen.
The Assembly a few weeks ago adjourned debate on my planning legislation. My planning legislation, if passed, would include changes so that anything that was called in would become, in effect, a disallowable instrument so that the Assembly still had a role to play if something actually needed to be called in. I did an interview about that
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