Page 3815 - Week 10 - Thursday, 27 August 2009
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One reason for that is tree height. One mature tree can provide cooling equal to about five three-kilowatt air conditioners. A good mature tree is going to be around that sort of height, the five to six-storey height, so clever landscaping can really help a medium density development by intercepting a lot of the solar radiation through the leaf canopy. It can mean that the visual impact is considerably reduced because people are seeing at least a partially natural environment, not a purely built environment.
There are many ways that we can make buildings of all shapes and sizes liveable, desirable and energy efficient. The important thing is to see those in our development in Canberra. Unfortunately, we are not doing enough of that. I do not think we should approve buildings which could lead to depressing concrete box-like nightmares that we see in other cities. Canberra does not need to be like that and should not need to be like that.
The plan is to put the bulk of the residential units, in particular, the 10-storey element facing a six-lane highway—the intersection with traffic lights at a six-lane highway. This is poor planning practice because of the traffic noise and the fumes and the impact on human health. This almost certainly means that the residents will rely on fixed air conditioning; they will have to have their windows closed because of the noise and fumes issues. It would be really nice if the building was the same height as a mature tree. This would make it a much more liveable environment.
In summary, the Greens and I support increased densification of Canberra in the right spaces. This is one of the right spaces. However, we do not think the 10-storey element is either essential to it or positive to it. We support the community in their opposition to it.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (12.09): We will not be supporting Ms Le Couteur’s motion today, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I do note the comments that Ms Le Couteur has made in her additional comments to the committee and here today as well.
She has made some legitimate criticisms—for example, not taking the opportunity on a site like this to have greater density than there was before. We do need to look at how we take these opportunities, particularly around town centres and along transport corridors, to encourage more people to live in these areas. I have previously made similar criticisms of the government.
There are one and two-storey townhouses at the Tuggeranong town centre. I see that as a major wasted opportunity. We see opportunities along Northbourne Avenue. These are the areas where we should see some serious density happening, and the Woden town centre and close vicinity is certainly an area where we believe there should be more Canberrans living so that we can enliven our town centres, have more people walking to work and more people bussing to work. This would potentially underpin a better public transport system in the future, possibly even light rail some time down the track.
What we are faced with here and what is being put to us by the Greens is that because they did not get it right—and I accept the criticism that they did not get it all right—
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