Page 1160 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 7 May 2014
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There is a transport and movement study to develop options to reduce through-traffic in the city centre. That is one of the problems with our city centre. It is cut in half by a six-lane freeway. That presents real challenges and problems—for the unity of the city, for the liveability and walkability of the city, and for life on the street in the city centre.
There is an urban design framework to guide high quality buildings and capital works across the city, particularly gateway sites around City Hill and the iconic Sydney and Melbourne buildings. Projects like capital metro, which I will come to shortly, also give us a great opportunity to galvanise and drive change in precincts like the Sydney and Melbourne buildings area.
There is an economic development analysis to underpin development, redevelopment and reuse options in the city centre.
There is the big redevelopment of the Allawah, Bega and Currong flats, to provide more homes, more accommodation, close to the heart of the city centre—close to great public spaces like Glebe Park, close to jobs, close to services like theatres and cinemas, close to cultural facilities and restaurants. And there are big projects like city to the lake to better connect the city to its best address, Lake Burley Griffin, and to provide potentially for new facilities, such as convention and aquatic facilities, Canberra Theatre Centre facilities and potentially a new city stadium.
This highlights the long-term planning this government is putting in place to drive and accommodate growth, with more people and more housing, and ask how we do that in a sustainable manner and in a manner that creates a better city for everyone.
The government is also strongly focused on transport and integrating transport with land use planning. Transport for Canberra integrates land use planning with transport planning, with the objective of creating a more compact city where we see more cycling, more walking, more public transport and better service delivery so that people do not have to be locked into a two, three or even four-car household. This is costly for households.
We hear those opposite criticise the government about not being focused on cost of living. One of the biggest savings that you could make for households is to reduce their reliance on the private motor vehicle. The up-front costs, the fuel costs, the registration costs and the maintenance costs all of those things are a big impost on families. If we can reduce the number of cars that families need to have, if there are better alternatives so that not every journey has to be undertaken by car, that saves households money. It also saves the environment, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and it means that potentially more people are on the street, creating a more active, more vibrant street life in the type of city centre that I think everyone here aspires to.
I turn to the issue of sustainability. The Chief Minister’s amendment highlights that the government has a strong program to create a more sustainable city. I have talked about that in the context of land use and transport planning, but this government is also showing leadership on the issue of climate change adaptation and mitigation. Our policies have the support of over 80 per cent of households surveyed.
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