GCC President Alan Kerlin appeared on ABC's television current affairs program Stateline on 10 July.

He was responding to a call from the Royal Australian Institute of Architects to halt all greenfield development in Canberra, in favour of just infill development. Alan defends the right of residents to choose a housing type that suits their circumstances, to have a yard for children or to grow a bit of fresh food.

Alan explains in a but more depth than was able to be shown on Stateline:

It is not a black or white either or argument, as the RAIA people are making out.
Griffith Uni’s Professor Brendan Gleeson summed it up well at one of ACTPLA’s Sustainable Futures workshops a couple of months ago:

“It’s a rather self-defeating exercise to try to asphalt your way out of congestion.”
“We’ve talked ourselves out of the idea that we can provide public transport to areas of low density, and it’s simply not true.”

A study by Energy Australia in 2005 put the sword to the myth that people living in detached housing are bigger greenhouse offenders than those in high-rise - and it directly contradicts the claims made by RAIA.

And this is backed up by ACF figures showing just 12% of average household emissions are due to construction, and 10% due to transport. Suburbia is not the bogey man that people are making out.

There are broader social and environmental aspects to this issue than just greenhouse too. People have a right to choose to have a yard for their kids to play in or to grow some food in, just as much as people have a right to choose to have no yard if that suits their lifestyle.

The RAIA is proposing a halt to all detached dwelling development. Instead they should be defending peoples’ right to choose, and calling on the ACT Government to ensure demand is met and exceeded, and greater choice is made available.

We also need to put the sword to this myth that “the market” is demanding smaller blocks. Ever shrinking blocks are all the ACT Government is making available to Canberra - either through their own development arm, or through the concept plans and development plans they are mandating on private developers.

The ACT Government kept land supply on a drip-feed for years, driving up prices to fill their coffers. There is still so much unmet demand, that people are being forced to take what they can get. If you were to ask buyers of these 300 and 400 square metre blocks if they would have preferred a bigger block with a yard, I’d guarantee most would say yes.

And that’s what Gungahlin residents are telling us in GCC. They are sick of the ever shrinking blocks we are being forced into, and they are sick of being treated like some social experiment.

The debate has also recently been covered in The Canberra Times.