Page 4062 - Week 15 - Thursday, 17 December 1992
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LAND (PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT) ACT - VARIATION TO
THE TERRITORY PLAN
Motion for Disallowance
MS SZUTY (10.47): I move:
That the proposed variation to the Territory Plan presented on 8 December 1992 relating to West Belconnen be disallowed.
Madam Speaker, I move disallowance to give the members of this chamber a final chance to listen to the views of people most affected by the proposed West Belconnen development. I know that planning for this development has been in train for several years, and I know that the area proposed to be developed has been reduced. However, these two facts do not in themselves mean that the development has to proceed, particularly in the form proposed. If we accept a proposal once an area has been targeted for a particular development, then we may as well give up examining the proposals asking for the best possible development and the most appropriate development.
The National Capital Planning Authority has been insistent that its plans for Acton Peninsula are just part of the brainstorming process for future development, but does this mean that by leaving the ideas generated in the public arena for the next few years development of West Basin should be seen as a fait accompli? It seems that defending a development, particularly one that has generated as much concern as West Belconnen, on the basis that it has been around for years means that we get development by erosion of opposition, not development that is appropriate and well planned.
Madam Speaker, the final environmental impact statement reads more like an assessment of how to enable development and not as an assessment on the environmental and heritage aspects of certain land in the ACT. In fact, the draft environmental impact statement actually held more data on these issues affecting the area proposed for development. However, while great slabs of data were reproduced from the draft report for the final report, it was not considered necessary in the final environmental impact statement to restate the data in light of the changed proposal following the deletion of sections A1, A2 and D. Madam Speaker, this has devalued the impact of development on the area's natural and historical features.
I wish now to turn to look at the issue of costs. Section 6.1 of the final environmental impact statement, which by the way is numbered both 5.1 and 6.1, deals with development costs, and at section 6.2 we discover a figure of a potential income of $17m. Infrastructure works were expected to fall in the range of $4m to $6m, but what has been included in that amount? The capital works program for 1992-93 has already approved an amount of $4.4m for West Belconnen infrastructure works - a figure that must have been available to the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning while this final environmental impact statement was being prepared.
And what of the extra costs that need to be included to make this a viable proposition? The removal of around 18,000 square metres of old sewage sludge from the former Belconnen sewage treatment works will not be inexpensive. The fitting of charcoal scrubbers to the air vents will also be an additional cost for this development, as will the monitoring of air quality, as recommended at page 65 of the final EIS.
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