Page 3209 - Week 10 - Thursday, 25 August 2005
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR SPEAKER: I hope that it is, because you are required to remain relevant. In the context of a debate about a planning issue, it is appropriate for you, Dr Foskey, to refer to generic planning issues, I would think, but you need to come back to the issue central to your motion.
DR FOSKEY: Thank you. Variation 237, which I am seeking to disallow today, replaces the entertainment and leisure land use policy with a residential land use policy for those blocks in Deakin on which the Embassy Motel is sited. The key issue here is that, despite contentions to the contrary, this variation will prohibit that existing use from being continued. Furthermore, there is the unresolved issue of the potential height of the future development on this block, something not to be dismissed lightly when you recall that this variation is proponent initiated.
Last year, I attended a meeting organised by Save our Suburbs. Yes, we may have our doubts about the motivation of that group, which was so active prior to the election, but there can be no doubt that the people who attended the meeting in Deakin had real concerns. At this meeting, the proponents stood in front of residents and extolled the virtue of their development. It looked to me as though Mr Corbell stood firmly behind them, while at the same time he was reassuring residents that they would have their opportunity to express their concerns to the inquiry that the planning and environment committee would be obliged to conduct. In the light of his obvious enthusiasm for the development, Deakin residents, understandably, probably were already feeling cynical about their potential to influence the process.
The minister’s tabling statement of last week made the point that the six submissions made in June last year about the draft variation did not oppose the change to allow for residential development. He did not mention, although the variation does, that they raised objections to the proposed height of the proposed development, nor did he acknowledge that a group of Deakin residents got together to represent the people of Deakin and hundreds of Deakin residents signed a petition against the proposed development.
I can recall significant agitation and objections being raised through the media in regard to this proposal. That concern is reflected in the planning and environment committee’s report on its inquiry into the draft variation. Indeed, as the significance of the proposed variation and subsequent development began to be understood, opposition to both the relaxation of the height limit and the change of land use policy has hardened. That is sometimes the way of community involvement, but it is wrong to dismiss growing concern as ill founded. Rather, it often reflects better information.
The concerns which residents, nearby businesses and schools have raised publicly through the media and with the planning and environment committee have been that this proponent-initiated variation is based on a seven-storey residential development; that the argument that the current use of the site as a hotel/motel is unsustainable, as put by the proponent, has not been proven and there is considerable argument available to suggest that such an assumption is unfounded; that the loss of employment and activity at that site will affect the viability of the other entertainment and leisure sites around Deakin; and that the development of a seven-storey residential unit complex may encourage similar development both across the road and in the Deakin centre, raising fears of
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .