Page 15 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 13 February 2018

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The ACT Greens’ vision for Woden is for the town centre to be a hub of jobs, services, recreation and entertainment, with more community and recreational facilities, rather than less, and to be an entertainment precinct where people can go of an evening, and certainly on weekends, for restaurants, bars and live music. There should be some housing, including affordable housing, but the town centre should not just be a dormitory centre for the city: the housing needs be affordable so that young people, service workers and anyone who is earning in the lower half, not the upper half, of income in Canberra can still afford to live in Woden.

There needs to be much better active transport and transport-orientated development. There are going to be people living right next to the bus interchange and the eventual light rail stop. What is happening at present is that we are building a multistorey car park right next to the Woden square. That is appalling. The new buildings need to be designed for the challenges of the next 50 years, and to be highly energy efficient, preferably with zero emissions.

How can we get there? We need to do better. Urban renewal which is not well done will result in conflict between developers and the community, a dormitory centre with low quality of life and missed opportunities for bringing life to the centre, sustainability and affordable housing.

I note in terms of conflict in the community that there is a new development plan for the Woden Tradies site. That was a source of considerable conflict a few years ago, and I fear it may become a source of conflict again or has become a low level source of conflict. I hope that these can be resolved before the DA is finally put in.

Woden town centre needs a comprehensive urban renewal strategy that pulls together community and recreation facilities, the renewal of public areas, planning rule changes, major projects like light rail or tertiary education in south Canberra, or more community facilities. There are a lot of things which could be and should be built in the Woden area.

The master plan developed by the government in 2015 was a good start and had community support, but implementation has been and is lacking. It is very disappointing that a 26-storey building has been approved in Bowes Street, whereas the master plan agreed by the community said it should have been 12 storeys. Woden has already shown that, by themselves, very tall buildings do not lead to vibrant, attractive centres. They can create dark, unpleasant streets with no life. We have the Lovett Tower, now called the MLC tower. We know this. The planning system needs to be used more cleverly. Very tall buildings should only be allowed as an incentive to provide real community benefits like community facilities, an entertainment precinct or affordable housing for workers.

There has been a real decline in community, education and recreational facilities which needs to be reversed. There should be real ambition. For example, why is the proposed new University of New South Wales campus to be in the city when the south side basically no longer has tertiary education?


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