Page 1500 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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I will just talk about a couple of things. Last year I put forward a bill to better increase community engagement in planning. It contained amendments to the Planning and Development Act around third-party appeals and notification rights. The Liberal and the Labor parties both opposed this, and in terms of talking about better community engagement I think both of them should bear in mind that that is their record.
Mr Barr talked about the amendments which he has introduced and we will soon be debating in the PABLAB bill. I think it is probably quite positive the change from the word “consultation” to “notification” because I am in favour of calling a spade a spade, even if it is not a spade that I particularly want to have here, and that is what those changes will be doing. I also foreshadow that my intention is to introduce some additional amendments to that, specifically talking about the notification and consultation issue because it is, as Mr Coe has said, a serious issue for our community.
The biggest issue with this development and all developments in Canberra has got to be ensuring that what we do is sustainable and is looking to the future. We need to look at things like the population changes in Canberra. Our population is growing but not very quickly. At the same time our households are shrinking. So things like this proposed development in Jamison cater in many ways to how Canberra is changing. We now have households, on average, of about 2.5 people instead of the average of around five when I was growing up. So there is a need for more medium density, more apartment developments, and I think that the group centre of Jamison and the surrounding suburbs will in fact be enriched by having this diversity of housing accommodation and I think there will in fact be many local residents who will be very happy to move into this development.
I am tempted to make some comments about the actual development but given, as Mr Barr said, that this is something before ACTPLA at present, I do not think it is appropriate. Possibly I have in fact gone too far, and I should really stress that my comments really were meant about generally the need to change Canberra. I specifically do not wish to make comments on the specific DA given where it is up to in its legal process.
Before I forget to do it, I move the following amendment to Mr Barr’s amendment to Mr Coe’s motion:
(1) Insert new subparagraph (1)(h):
“(h) the need to improve sustainable transport options at and adjacent to the Centre; and”.
(2) Insert new subparagraph (1)(i):
“(i) that, on 25 August 2010, the Legislative Assembly passed a motion on improved planning, calling on the ACT Government to develop ‘a process for meaningful consultation with the Canberra community on planning’ with enhanced master planning processes and report back to the Assembly by the end of June 2011 and looks forward to seeing the report.”.
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