Page 2848 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 17 August 2005
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• a review of the parking policies and the development of a car parking strategy for the city which, for the first time, will identify strategic placement of car parking in the city;
• the preparation of a single planning document that will include and integrate all the planning policies for the city; so, rather than having to rely on six or seven different documents to understand what you need to do to proceed with development in our city centre, they will be grouped together into a single, ready-referenced document;
• an audit of public safety in this city, which will inform the location of public facilities and public information such as bus signage;
• the very successful Canberra central events program, which includes the very successful Christmas in the city and New Year’s Eve activities and fireworks;
• the development of a design manual for Canberra central;
• the development of a street furniture design standard for the city;
• the adoption and the implementation of the City West master plan, with the preparation of designs to develop Childers Street—over $6 million available in the budget to proceed with that work this financial year—as a key destination point to the arts within the city; and
• a commitment in the budget to a comprehensive signage program for Canberra central, which will be rolled out in coming months.
A pivotal action focused on raising public debate and commensurate with the important work of the National Capital Authority’s Griffin legacy project was released in March this year—a planning document called City Hill: a concept for the future. This document was designed to engender debate and it achieved that purpose. Since the release of this document, there have been other schemes put forward, including the living city proposal put forward by Mr Snow. There has been considerable public debate in the Canberra Times and in other media. A number of other proposals have also come forward. Irrespective of the schemes and the merits or otherwise of them, I think all of these projects have sought to engage the public in the debate and engender ownership of the issues. This has meant we have achieved a very positive atmosphere for future consideration.
Dr Foskey raises the need for greater public debate on a range of issues. In particular, she raises issues around the City West master plan and the implementation of that plan. It is probably worth pointing out that this plan was the subject of an extremely extensive and intuitive public consultation process. Variation 236 to the territory plan, which was tabled in the Assembly in the last sitting, is the implementation of that master plan work in terms of the statutory planning framework. It received only three submissions. For me, this demonstrates a high degree of participation in the development of the plan and a high degree of acceptance of the outcomes that plan seeks to achieve.
Since then, of course, there has been further work and further consultation in preparing the concept plan for the design of Childers Street. As I have already mentioned, the government committed $6 million in the last budget to the refurbishment of Childers Street, including artwork, civil engineering, street furniture and a range of other measures to create this street as a vibrant centre for community activity in the city.
The government has always acknowledged that any plans for the city and City Hill will only be successful if they are relevant and valued by the broader community. Of course
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