Page 5074 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 26 October 2011
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We do understand that ACTPLA tries to validate the suggested impacts in the assessment submitted with the DA, but this information is always kept as commercial-in-confidence. There is little or no transparency in this process—certainly no open government—and thus the public and affected businesses are unable to scrutinise the assumptions therein. This leaves other affected businesses unable to object or appeal with the full range of information available.
One of the issues not dealt with in any meaningful way in the statement is the fact that the Canberra Centre has the majority of short stay parking spaces in city east, meaning that customers and pedestrian traffic to the city are largely funnelled through the Canberra Centre one way or another. This is simply just not addressed in the study, but it should be more independently addressed in future studies. There are other ways of assessing business impacts through various modelling options used in other jurisdictions and other countries and I believe that these should be further investigated by the government.
I note that the government is currently undergoing a review of its commercial zones codes in the territory plan. This is a very important process for businesses in the ACT. It is an opportunity to ensure that the retail hierarchy is working and to adjust codes as necessary. A key part of the retail hierarchy is ensuring that Civic is the centrepiece of Canberra’s commercial zones.
The ACT has very high per capita retail GFA compared to other cities and, if you take the retail GFA at the airport into account, this is a real problem for ACT retailers. The number of empty shops and lost jobs from businesses going broke seem to indicate that we already have an adequate supply of retail space in Civic without a Canberra Centre extension.
I understand that the government does maintain figures on current retail space in the ACT, but these figures are only published every five years. In the meanwhile, businesses wanting to start up new outlets or expand existing ones or even commit to extending their tenancy cannot be sure how much retail space already exists in different areas, which makes it very hard for them to put their financial plans together. In the spirit of open government, my motion therefore calls on the government to calculate, maintain and regularly publish an inventory of current retail space in the ACT, including the Canberra airport.
I have called for a master plan for Civic to be developed and I know that the government will say that they already have one—I assume they will. However, I think that what they are thinking about is just a TAMS work action plan, largely improving paving, which includes some substantial changes but without any real strategies or incentives to facilitate private investment in areas we want. The only proper existing master plans for Civic are those for city west and for the QIC precinct and not for the whole of Civic. That is what we need.
Another opportunity for the government to review the impact of the Canberra Centre’s development is at the point when they apply to ACTPLA for an extension of the allowed development period. This, of course, can also be applied to all developers
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