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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (20 June) . . Page.. 2232 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

why you are going to see more and more people at different levels of government, not only in Australia, but also in other developed countries, such as Canada, saying, "Hang on, this is looking very dangerous." It will be disappointing if we do not have that acknowledgment and a preparedness by the government of this Assembly to take on this work.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Dual occupancy development

MR CORBELL (8.33): I move:

I am pleased to rise this evening to speak to this motion. This motion highlights an issue of growing concern for many residents across Canberra, but particularly, I have to admit, in my electorate of Molonglo. The older, more established areas of the city are in Molonglo, and it is in Molonglo where we have seen the bulk of redevelopment activity and revitalisation activity occurring. I receive many letters, phone calls and other comments, and I am sure other members have experienced similar representations, from residents concerned not about dual occupancy development per se, usually, but about the inappropriate nature of some of the development activity that is occurring at the moment.

I want to stress from the outset that this is not a motion about the evil of dual occupancy development per se. It is not about saying dual occupancy development, as a type of redevelopment activity, is completely unacceptable. There are numerous good examples of effective dual occupancy redevelopment in our city, but there are far more poor ones. In moving this motion this evening, I want first to highlight the level of community concern about inappropriate dual occupancy development.

Let me elaborate on that a bit. Dual occupancy development, by its very nature, involves the placing of two dwellings on one block. In doing so there is the capacity to create extremely crowded blocks-blocks with poor provision of private open space, blocks with poor provision for green areas, and almost certainly the loss of at least some established vegetation, if not all established vegetation, on the block.

That sort of impact as a one-off on just one block in one street probably does not have a particularly significant impact on the overall character or amenity of a suburb or neighbourhood. It certainly has an impact for those residents who live immediately adjacent, but it does not have the same sort of wide-ranging impact on the whole suburb. But when you see dual occupancy development occurring in a piecemeal and shotgun way throughout a suburb you start to have a slow, creeping and incremental impact on the overall character of the suburb. We have seen this in suburbs such as O'Connor,

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