Page 168 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 6 March 2007
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good public spaces and good amenity to enjoy, use and feel civic pride in and a sense of identity, with opportunities to have both private pursuits in terms of retail and shopping and public pursuits in terms of civic activities, civic functions and so on.
That is why the government has proposed this mechanism. This mechanism is not to eliminate or to reduce the obligation the public sector has in maintaining and improving public spaces in the city centre. Indeed, this levy would not work if it were simply going to replace public expenditure with private expenditure. But that is not what is being proposed and it is not the basis on which the levy would work. It is certainly not the basis on which the government would receive support from the property sector in the city centre. They would not be supporting this proposal if the government were saying, “We will collect the levy and then we will reduce the expenditure on our own functions in terms of cleaning and so on in the city centre.” That would not work; the levy would fall apart and we would have majority opposition to it.
But we do not have that because the government has said that its commitment will be maintained and continue. We will continue to expend money on capital works improvements in public places and we will continue to spend money on cleaning and maintenance, on our gardens and on all of those sorts of things that are an essential part of the public’s investment in its city centre. But there is a role for the private sector too. This is particularly the case when you highlight the enhanced level of maintenance which, increasingly, many businesses expect in the city centre and for which it is not reasonable to expect the public sector alone to pay for.
Mr Mulcahy: Such as?
MR CORBELL: Good examples of these are particular graffiti management issues. We have had repeated calls from building owners, retailers and the opposition for the government to do more about graffiti, as an example, in the city centre, even if that graffiti is on private property.
Mr Speaker, there should be a sense of civic pride in the city centre and there should be a corporate ownership or collective ownership approach adopted to how the city looks and presents. Property owners are not just individuals. They are part of the city community and they should collectively share a responsibility to look after their part of the city centre and make it look good for everyone and to everyone’s benefit. That is why we have proposed this levy.
For example, through the levy, the body that ultimately will be receiving the grant could make the decision to say, “We want an enhanced level of maintenance that deals with graffiti in this particular spot and that particular spot, because they are really looking very ugly.” We know it is not public land, but we need to do something about it because it just looks damn ugly. We all accept that. It just looks damn ugly. We want to fix it. This is the solution to fixing it. The levy can be used with the agreement of property owners.
Instead of each individual property owner having to engage someone to clean a building, with all the costs associated with one-off activity, they could pool their resources and get graffiti removers, whether it is the government’s graffiti removers
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