A Federal Parliamentary committee stomped yesterday on ACT plans for a new six-storey magistrates court near City Hill and swept aside a grand plan to have other six-storey buildings around City Hill.
The Federal Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Capital brought down its report yesterday on the hill _ one of the corners of the Parliamentary Triangle.
It drew an immediate and angry response from ACT authorities.
The debunked plan included a new magistrates-court building. That will now have to go back to the drawing board and be redesigned within the old three-storey limit, if the committee’s recommendation is accepted by the Minister, Brian Howe, and the Parliament. The committee has a record of getting its view accepted.
The ACT Attorney-General, Terry Connolly, said if the Commonwealth was willing to pay the extra cost, that would be fine, but “”the Commonwealth cannot have it both ways. It cannot impose financially stringency on us and then expect us to pay more for its planning requirements.”
The ACT Chief Magistrate, Ron Cahill, said he could not get involved in planning issues; that was a matter for government, but “”I am extremely disappointed and absolutely frustrated” at the committee’s decision.
Ultimately, the Federal Parliament has authority over national areas in Canberra, including City Hill.
The committee said any plan to irretrievably affect City Hill was premature. It said it did not want to limit future options “”when the only immediate decision to be made concerns a building which could be built in the same area within existing guidelines”.
Mr Connolly said the three-storey option would raise the cost from $17.5 million to between $30 million and $40 million. It would require a building either side of the Supreme Court to get the space.
The chair of the committee, Bob Chynoweth, rejected the doubling of costs. He said: “”They should go back and sharpen their pencils.”
Mr Connolly, “”The ACT cannot afford more than $17.5 million. It would not go the way of other states and go into debt.”
He was speaking from the Northern Territory Government offices which overlook at $120 million new NT parliamentary building and a $50 million new court complex. He is in Darwin for an Attorneys-General meeting.
The deputy chair of the committee, Senator Margaret Reid, said six-storey buildings around Vernon Circle would be over-powering. City Hill, one of the points of the Parliamentary Triangle, would be lost.
“”It is better to keep existing restrictions until the impact of Gungahlin traffic and the relationship between the hill and Acton Peninsula and Commonwealth Park were worked out,” she said. “”There is a risk in making decisions about a small, though important, area without looking at the broader picture.”
The president of the Canberra Conservation Council, Jacqueline Rees, said, “”At last someone has had the courage to urge caution and speak out against the gung-ho, cowboy mentality. . . The rest of the nation does not want its capital treated as a lump of real-estate.”
She criticised ACT authorities for wasting money on a six-storey court plan without first getting federal approval. If an acceptable plan had been put up in the first place the court would half-built by now.
The committee recommended that the National Capital Territory Authority prepare a revised plan be prepared in light of comments and suggestions made during its hearings and taking account of the Canberra in the Year 2020 study and the Future Public Transport Options for Canberra study as well as heritage values of the hill.
The hill has cypress (pencil) pines and black locust trees.
The NCPA’s plan had four sets of lights and two new intersections at Vernon Circle. It had proposed extending Constitution Avenue and Edinburgh Avenue through to new intersections with Vernon Circle.
That had been part of a bigger vision to make Constitution Avenue wider so it could be the major traffic bearer to the airport and be a commercial avenue. Parkes Way would then be narrowed so that Commonwealth Park and the lake could be more integrated with the city, instead of being cut off by what is essentially a freeway to the airport.
Vernon Circle would be a city street, not a busy arterial.
The committee’s report puts a spanner in the spokes of that plan because Constitution Avenue, under its recommendations, cannot be joined to the city hub.
The committee said the NCPA should look at pedestrian access to City Hill, including links with Acton Peninsula and Commonwealth Park.
The committee recognised the need for a new magistrates court building, but said it could be built within the three-storey limit.
Mr Cahill disputed that. There was not the space even if a three-storey building were put up either side of the Supreme Court. The six-storey building would have enabled shared library and custody arrangements. It was the best value-for-money design he had seen for a court building. ACT authorities and his staff had been working on it for 12 months.
“”I sat in three places today,” he said. “”We sit in seven or eight courts in four or five locations every day. The longer this goes on the more it costs the 100,000 people who use these courts each year.”
Mr Chynoweth said ACT authorities might not like the recommendations, but he was sure the people of the ACT would. They did not want the city to become another Sydney or Melbourne. The issue was wider than just the magistrates-court building.