Page 781 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 8 April 2014
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that work was started and then it stopped. There is not a significant pedestrian thoroughfare that you can follow through this city as a tourist and see the things that you might want to see. That leads to the question: what do you want to see in Civic? The answer is that there is probably not a lot there except for a couple of shopping centres.
So it is about developing also the cultural identity of the city and putting it on display. New Acton has achieved it. The government has not been able to. A private developer has achieved it by incorporating appropriate public art. The airport has achieved it. Again, it is a precinct. Appropriate art is involved. There is a sense of arrival; there is a sense of place. I do not get a sense from the City plan: our city centre vision that we actually have from this government a sense of place about how cities function, how you incorporate all the layers, how you get the culture going.
It is sort of happening in Braddon. Braddon traders have kind of got it going. It is kind of hip and homespun. It is about the local meshing with the national so that you actually do get that local character off the back of what is happening as a nation. What is happening in its icons is often reflected in the activity lower in the city. That is what we need in this city. (Time expired.)
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.05): I am not quite sure how to follow on from “hip and homespun”, courtesy of Mr Smyth, but I will do my best. I thank Dr Bourke for raising this issue today. The ACT Greens support the city plan as providing a framework to guide growth, development and urban renewal in the territory. The Greens, of course, have consistently argued that we need a long-term vision for Canberra—an environmentally sustainable vision that sets out a plan for the future of our city that is liveable and well connected, so that we are prepared for the real challenges of climate change, population growth and peak oil. The city plan is part of this planning picture. The need for the city plan has been discussed in this place as recently as October last year; so I intend to keep my comments brief today.
It was clear from community feedback on the plan that Canberrans want to see the centre of our city invigorated, to see the kind of urban renewal which will bring the cultural and economic activity into the centre of town. We know that people want a walkable city with good pedestrian and cycle access, for which the Greens have consistently advocated. Canberrans want a stronger connection between the city and the waterfront. They want to be able to safely and easily walk up to City Hill and they want a city centre that is welcoming, vibrant and full of life.
I would like to affirm the need for government to invest in the public realm throughout the renewal process, to have good quality public open space in key areas such as West Basin, to ensure public access is retained to the waterfront, and to commit to this early on in the planning process to avoid some of the problems that have occurred in other areas, such as Kingston Foreshore, for example, where to some extent the horse was put before the cart, so to speak, and private developments went ahead without due consideration given to issues of public access.
The City Hill precinct is also a key component of the city plan. I do not think there is anyone who would not agree that this area is terribly underutilised. Griffin envisaged
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