Page 1245 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 11 May 2021
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A key objective of the planning system review and reform project, reiterated in the 10th Legislative Assembly parliamentary and governing agreement, is to improve built form and public spaces across the territory. The agreement also identifies the need to incorporate character, context and design as key elements of the system to substantially lift the quality of the design of new developments. As part of the planning system review and reform project, we have already examined some international and national planning systems for best practice examples.
Further, the National Capital Design Review Panel, established by the ACT government in partnership with the National Capital Authority, is driving improved design for major development and redevelopment projects across Canberra. The design review panel will also play an important role in the ongoing development of the Gungahlin town centre, and it will provide advice on best practice mixed-use development for four sites currently for sale.
The Gungahlin town centre still has land zoned for commercial uses. The ACT government has long called for a major federal government agency to join Defence Housing and our ACT public sector employees in the Gungahlin town centre. In particular, I would like to call on the federal government to locate their new national resilience, relief and recovery agency in the Gungahlin town centre. This is a new agency announced just last week and would be a wonderful opportunity for commonwealth public servants to catch the light rail to Gungahlin to work. It is a national agency that should be based in the national capital.
Canberra was planned as a city with a range of different centres that have different roles. Part of Canberra’s design is that not every centre is a complete city in its own right, and there are other parts of Canberra where we will go to find the specific services that we need. This is not unique to Canberra. The Territory Plan is a planning document and does not mandate specific businesses or favour one business type over another. It provides for uses within centres.
I would like to remind members that, while recent focus has been on the town centre, Gungahlin is more than just its town centre. The Gungahlin district’s population is estimated to reach approximately 82,500 people this year, an increase of more than 6,000 residents from 2017. Of course, in a previous life, I was a real estate agent helping people find their first home or their new home in the broader Gungahlin area. It has been wonderful to see more and more Canberrans choose to call this part of our city home.
Several suburbs are still under construction and there is one further suburb, Kenny, to be developed in the coming years. That is 15 residential suburbs, including Mitchell, since the first houses were completed in Palmerston in 1992. Further, government land development in the Gungahlin region over the past decade has been recognised by local and national industry bodies. The developments of Franklin, Throsby, Forde, Harrison, Crace and Bonner have been recognised for their outstanding delivery of master-planned suburbs, residential development, urban design and affordable housing.
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