Page 2151 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 2020
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here and in New South Wales, where property developer donations have also been banned. I am sure that here we have a common aim of trying to stop inappropriate influence by property developers.
Amendments 16 to 19 are about not-for-profit property developers. Because of the way the Labor Party wrote the legislation, if your organisation was not for profit, you could not be classed as a property developer.
I am a member for Murrumbidgee. I have been around the Woden town centre area for literally decades. In comments I am going to make here, I am not trying to cast aspersions on the particular not-for-profits I will mention; I am just trying to prove the point that being a not-for-profit does not stop you being potentially a substantial property developer.
One of the major planning issues recently for Woden has been the development on what is commonly referred to as the Tradies site because it was owned by the Tradies. During the time it was owned by the Tradies, there was considerable disquiet about the size of the building that was going to be built there, and some people felt that that building was being favourably treated. Other parts of Woden are equally obvious. The Southern Cross Club has at various stages owned a lot of the land in the Woden town centre, to the extent where it was able to resume the road that used to go from the main ambulance station in Phillip over to the main part of the Woden town centre. Now that piece of land has the Southern Cross Club’s fitness club there.
I am not saying that these developments were inappropriate. All I am trying to say is that many not-for-profits can be property developers. This is particularly so in the context of how property development is happening in the ACT. In many ways, the most contentious developments are developments that happen on land which used to be community facilities land and, for various reasons, the clubs that own that land do not want it to be a sports field or find that their club is going bust or whatever.
MR PARTON: And you are not against the clubs?
MS LE COUTEUR: I am not against the clubs. Thank you, Mr Parton. The club finds itself in a situation where it does not wish to continue doing on that land what it did before. What almost invariably happens is that the local community does not want to see the new development on that land. Without exception, it will be a higher density development than the development that was there before. These are very contentious developments and the decision to deconcessionalise land is a decision which has to be made by the government. The previous bill, my planning legislation, would have at least made deconcessionalisation something that could be disallowed by the Assembly; that is not the situation now. It is a decision which, hopefully, is not politically influenced, but as it is a decision of the minister, it could be.
It would be in everyone’s best interest to extend the definition of property developers so that it did not include not-for-profit entities where they are in all other regards a property developer.
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