Independent Ted Mack has questioned the use of Better Cities money for North Canberra rather than for “”more serious problems in larger cities”.
In questions on notice tabled in Parliament last week he asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Community Service, Brian Howe, (subs: plse check if it is Howe. it might be someone else since the election. ta) he asked whether Better Cities money was being used for the development of Section 22, Blocks 6-9, Braddon, along Torrens Street; whether architects had described the development as “”an alienating downmarket block of flats”; whether met guidelines on open space, streetscape, siting and design, sunlight and energy efficiency; and whether it should have funding.
He asked whether Bobundra Pty Ltd was associated with the development for its own profit and whether Peter Phillips was a director of Bobundra and whether Mr Phillips was on the staff of a minister in the Hawke Government and chairman of the ACT Electricity and Water.
He asked also whether minister was aware of complaints that the variation of the leases (from single residence to medium density) shown to residents was the same as that approved by the relevant ACT Minister.
ACT Independent MLA Michael Moore has asked the ACT Minister for Environment, Land and Planning, Bill Wood, for an inquiry under the Environment, Land and Planning Act, but Mr Wood has refused. It is understood that Mr Moore is likely to raise the matter in the Assembly this week to see if he can get that decision reversed.
The investment is a joint private-ACT Housing Trust development and is the first under the ACT Government’s 50-50 urban renewal-greenfields plan, under which half of Canberra’s housing will be in-fill and renewal.
Mr Wood has said he has no difficulty with Mr Phillips’s involvement and Mr Phillips has said his part-time position on ACTEW has nothing to do with the development and that he is proud to be associated with a joint private-public urban renewal project.
Mr Wood and the Minister for Urban Services, Terry Connolly, have defended the development saying it was a difficult site and the plans used the site well. However, Mr Connolly has put a stop to joint Housing Trust redevelopments withe the private sector pending an inquiry into an open system of selecting private joint venturers.
Mr Wood says that as it was the first major North Canberra renewal it was bound to cause objections.
At least one neighbour has complained about the inability to formally object to the redevelopment on design and siting grounds after detailed plans are available rather than only at the lease-purpose stage when only general plans are available. That neighbour has since sold to a redeveloper saying it would be difficult to live next door.
The chair of the Assembly’s planning and infrastructure committee, David Lamont, has indicated that he would be sympathetic to allowing design-and-siting objections, provided they could be done cheaply and quickly and did not get bogged down with courts and lawyers.
His committee is looking at the question as it finalises the ACT Territory Plan which is expected to be completed at the end of the year.
The Watson Community Association has also condemned the use of Better Cities money to fund a new sewerage main in North Canberra saying that in effect it would be serving what it calls greenfields sites in North Watson and Gungahlin which would be contrary to the purposes of the program and uneconomic.
The ACT Government defends its in-fill program as a more efficient way to use the city’s infrastructure rather than relying primarily on greenfields sites.