Planning & development | News

Canberra growing pains

Written by Alan Kerlin Sunday, 05 August 2007 03:00

Canberra Times reporter Michael Ruffles has a history of following Canberra's growing pains. In this piece, he looks at where the future expansion plans will take Canberra, and impacts on areas like the city and Gungahlin, which is described as "an ever-expanding sea of houses."

The article discusses the government's recent commitment to correcting Gungahlin's lagging infrastructure, as recently articulated by new Planning Minister Andrew Barr in his "Statement of Planning Intent". (link to http://www.gcc.asn.au/content/view/325/264/ )

MP Commits to Gungahlin

Written by John Kelly Tuesday, 31 July 2007 03:00

Bob McMullan - Member for Fraser (ALP) attended our July General Meeting at our request, following his media statements about the need for future office accommodation for Federal Government Departments to be in Gungahlin.

At the meeting, he emphasised his personal commitment to working for the devolution of some government offices to Gungahlin. He spoke of working on his proposition for a strategy whereby special approval would need to be sought for the location of government offices. The model would locate offices not only to Civic, but also to the outer areas, with his own emphasis of an employment node at Gungahlin. This would need the cooperation of the ACT Government to synchronise land release with development needs.

Planning and Development Forum 12 June 2007 - Compact Blocks

Written by Alan Kerlin Monday, 09 July 2007 16:00

The PDF is a quarterly meeting of people from the ACT Planning and Land Authority, community councils, and industry groups like PIA, HIA and RAIA.

A key topic for this PDF was an Interim Territory Plan Guideline for Compact Block Housing for New Estates. With blocks as small as 150 sq m, this is sure to be the subject of some debate.

George Tomlins from the Chief Minister's Office presented findings from the Affordable Housing Task Force (PDF 471KB). He explained that at least $70,000 annual household income is needed to get into the market, leaving a gap in availability of housing for people in $30-68,000 bracket. The taskforce plans to increase supply, revise the land release system, increase the diversity of product, and encourage institutional investment in rental properties. But there is a need to provide around 15% of available land in such a form as to allow people in the $60-120,000 pa bracket to purchase.

The draft Compact Block Housing Guideline (DOC 72KB) is supposed to be a key component of the solution. It's aiming to cater to people in the $60-80,000 annual household income bracket. The government plans to implement it straight away for existing concept plans as an interim device and to then incorporate it as policy in the new Territory Plan.

It's important then that the policy is well formulated, or the Territory Plan will become another planning battleground for the Canberra community.

Therefore, I emphasised the need for very careful constraints on clustering, and for variable setback conditions depending on block orientation to maximise passive solar gain, and hence affordability of operation. After all, the people living in these places are likely to be those who can least afford expensive operational costs.

Discussion on these key points follows:-

Gold Creek Homestead lost to community? Update on meeting with Minister Barr

Written by Alan Kerlin Saturday, 07 July 2007 20:00

In this previous article, we raised serious concerns about the direction being taken by the ACT Government with their published Territory Plan variation (1.82 MB) for the Gold Creek Homestead.

Recapping briefly, the agreement previously reached between the community, ACTPLA and Minister Corbell was (as taken from an ACTPLA email summarising the agreement back in 2006):

'It was on the basis of this that we agreed for the land to be rezoned. That is, that the homestead would be retained, and it and open space around it would remain available as a community facility and managed by a specific-purpose community organisation, and that the proceeds from the development would go towards the costs associated with establishing this facility.'

Our previous correspondence to/from Minister Andrew Barr is in the link above and a summary of the community hopes for the site is here. A presentation on the historical significance of the Gold Creek Homestead site is here.

Kevin Cox, Ian Ruecroft and I met with Minister Barr on 4 July and explained our concerns to him - mainly that the draft variation does not encapsulate this agreement, and in fact it runs quite counter to it.

Planning Minister commits to Gungahlin

Written by Alan Kerlin Thursday, 05 July 2007 20:00

New ACT Minister for Planning Andrew Barr has announced the ACT Government's planning priorities for the next few years.

As Gungahlin residents would know, we have been working to get community concerns about lagging provision of infrastructure onto the ACT Government's agenda. It looks like we have been successful - the Minister's statement includes the following section specifically addressing Gungahlin:

Serving Gungahlin

Gungahlin has provided the lion's share of new housing for the ACT. In supporting young families and others who have moved to the Gungahlin area, the government will deliver improved services.

This will ensure all Gungahlin residents have access to key services such as shops, schools, ovals, public spaces, petrol stations and leisure facilities. The planning system will contribute to this through the coordination of infrastructure provision and sequencing of development.

We welcome this solid commitment to Gungahlin from Minister Barr, and look forward to working cooperatively with him to deliver these goals.

New service station at Nicholls

Written by Alan Kerlin Tuesday, 03 July 2007 23:25

Service stations are very topical in Gungahlin at present, given the inconveniences people are facing with the Woolworths/Caltex service station closed down during remodelling. So news of a development application going in for a new servo will likely be well received.

A DA is with ACTPLA now for a new Caltex service station in Nicholls - corner of Curran Drive and Barton Highway, here.

Gold Creek Homestead lost to community?

Written by Alan Kerlin Tuesday, 19 June 2007 17:00

UPDATE 20 June 2007

Minister Andrew Barr has at last responded to our urgent request for a meeting - just a few days before the period for public submissions closes. Unfortunately the response does not address the GCC's key concern - that the Homestead under the direct and exclusive control of the developer of the adjacent aged care facility would be a community facility in name only, with community access largely lost.

The correspondence follows.

LDA chief's head on the block

Written by Alan Kerlin Thursday, 14 June 2007 17:00

The Canberra Times reports that the LDA Chairman William Kirkby-Jones may be dumped by Chief Minister Jon Stanhope when his term expires at the end of June.

It remains to be seen whether this is a good thing for Gungahlin, but for certain is that the LDA has dropped the ball with community engagement in recent years, and could be said to be artificially pushing up the ACT propoerty market under the guise of "market demand".

Industry slams Territory Plan draft

Written by Alan Kerlin Tuesday, 12 June 2007 17:00

The ACT's planning industry groups united to blast the draft Territory Plan currently being worked on by ACTPLA, and subject of a major submission from us. Their assault calls for the draft Plan to be abandoned altogether.

Having been heavily involved with the Territory Plan draft process since November last year, and also with key industry representatives via ACTPLA's Planning and Development Forum, these claims seem totally out of proportion with the concerns that industry has been raising to date.

'Tiny Town' planning strategies for Town Centre

Written by Ian Ruecroft Monday, 04 June 2007 17:00

It is time to challenge the 'Tiny Town' planning strategies for the Gungahlin Town Centre.

The Gungahlin Town Centre is suitable for a population of 32,000 people. It might even be suitable for a population of 50,000 but it is not suitable a population the size of Belconnen; and Gungahlin is planned to have more people than Belconnen. If you compare the current Gungahlin retail area to Belconnen, it is comparable to just the bottom floor of the Westfield Mall.

Territory Plan Consultation

Written by Alan Kerlin Thursday, 31 May 2007 17:00

UPDATE 1 June 2007

The closing date for submissions to the Territory Plan Reform project has arrived, and our submission is finished.

I am SO glad that is over. It has been all-consuming for two months now. Although the submission itself only went to 24 pages, it required reading and understanding something the size of an average uni text book, plus many meetings and a number of exchanges with the other ACT Community Councils. In one recent meeting, a development industry group representative said they had six people working on their submission!

Waterpoint Decision

Written by Alan Kerlin Monday, 21 May 2007 17:00

ACTPLA have given conditional approval for a major development in Belconnen to be known as Waterpoint.

Between Emu Bank and the Labor Club in the big 'hole in the ground', the development application was for 22-storeys in the main tower, but on land zoned for 18 storeys. Apart from this aspect though, the proposal is for a stylish and very energy and water efficient building.

Forde Broadband

Written by Alan Kerlin Monday, 14 May 2007 17:00

ActewAGL chief John Mackay was singing the praises of the Forde development, and how having cable internet wired throughout this new estate is how they all should be. 'There is no reason why any new suburb should not have this technology,' said Mr Mackay in this article.

So where was your ACT Government telecom company when the ACT Government's development arm the LDA was building Harrison Mr Mackay? The LDA have just put up a sign at the entrance to Wells Station that makes the claim 'Latest Technology'. What a joke! And what is happening in Franklin right now?

But at least Harrison does at least have ADSL - other parts of Gungahlin still are stuck with dial-up! Where was Actew when those areas were being built, given cable internet has been an affordable solution for at least a decade now?

ACT - the planning exemplar for the rest of the nation - NOT.

Gold Creek homestead rezoned

Written by Alan Kerlin Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:00

New Minister for Planning Andrew Barr invited GCC reps to attend a media announcement at the Gold Creek Homestead. The announcement was for a variation to the Territory Plan to rezone the Gold Creek Homestead precinct to Aged Care Facility.

What Minister Barr didn't appear to know was that the announcement he was making was for something quite different from the solution that ACTPLA had negotiated with the Gold Creek Homestead Committee, which includes GCC reps Kevin Cox and Ian Ruecroft.

Read a full account of the problem here.

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