Page 2808 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 September 1994
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Those good examples of urban infill may provide us with some clues to how we can ensure that we have a comfortable society and that Canberrans know what is going on around them.
I think that there are a couple of basic concepts on which we would agree. We would agree that we do not want all of Canberra to look like Kingston. Kingston has had a role. It has developed in a specific way. Whilst it is open to some criticism, it provides an important style of housing. At the other extreme, we accept that there is a need for some urban infill. Just where the balance lies is the question. Certainly, there are people who argue that urban infill will not provide any of the benefits that have been explained to us or that were part of the reason why the Minister went into the last election for this house singing the praises of a policy of 50 per cent greenfields and 50 per cent urban infill. However, there are people who seek to have dual occupancies to include the wider family structure. I am certainly aware of one of those being prepared at the moment.
We know that the idea started to go very wrong after the Territory Plan was introduced. It has taken quite some time for the Minister - and for the Government, for that matter - actually to recognise that urban infill is an issue and to deal with it effectively. Finally, I called for a moratorium on urban infill. I said, "It really is going wrong. We need to stop now and assess it". I have called for that moratorium at an appropriate time, when we have an oversupply of housing, so that we can try to determine what is going on and find some solutions, and so that we can try to understand how much development we should have, where it should be and when we should have it. The response that I received was, "We cannot really have a full moratorium". I could not get support for that to carry a motion through the Assembly. I was told, "We would rather compromise and take no further applications for approval during the period of the inquiry".
So we are to have an inquiry. I believe that the Minister genuinely set out to have an independent inquiry. I believe that that has been undermined by the bureaucracy and by the inability to ensure independence in his selection of an appropriate person to carry out the inquiry. To go back one step, I think it is important to show what this means to an individual who is involved in an urban infill issue in Canberra at the moment. Let us take an individual living in Yarralumla where there is a proposal for six units next-door, a dual occupancy behind them and half-a-dozen units across the road. That is not an unusual situation in Yarralumla. A person in that position may well say, "This is the lifestyle that I want", and will develop it. However, another individual may say, "This is not the lifestyle that I want. I seek something different. So I am going to be involved in the issue as well. I will put my house up for sale, perhaps with the one next-door so that it can be redeveloped as well. Because of the redevelopment potential, the land is obviously worth more money. I will be able to go and live somewhere where I do not have to worry about this". But where? That is part of the main problem. There is nowhere else to go. There is nowhere in Canberra that is not open to this problem of urban infill. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, last week I was in Adelaide, and I spent some time driving around. Some of it was to do with the Conservation, Heritage and Environment Committee. I noticed the way in which urban redevelopment policy has hit parts of that city and I realised why people who have seen that and have lived with it would not want to see it proceed in the same way in Canberra.
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