It would be a lost opportunity if a space for the courts could not be found near City Hill, the chief executive of the National Capital Planning Authority, Lyndsay Neilson, said yesterday.
The space between London Circuit and Vernon Circle should be the home of civic and community functions.
“”They are the land uses for that area, rather than solely commercial ones,” he said.
Mr Neilson was commenting on the report by the Federal Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Capital which earlier this week rejected an NCPA master plan for City Hill which included six storey buildings, the extension of Constitution and Edinburgh Avenues to intersections with Vernon Circle. The committee’s recommendation has effectively spiked ACT Government plans for a $17.5 million six-storey magistrates court on the southern side of the present Supreme Court.
Mr Neilson said the authority’s now had to look at the committee’s recommendations and look again at its own planning principles for City Hill. It would be a priority at the authority’s next meeting in July.
The authority agreed with the committee that it should look at City Hill after a report on the public transport options for Canberra comes down, probably early next month.
Committee and authority sources say they were both rushed into considering options for City Hill by ACT demands for a new magistrates court. The authority has taken the view since its inception that, unlike its predecessor the National Capital Development Commission, it would not look at buildings in isolation. By neither would it shy from making decisions on proposals put to it just because it was not ready to consider that area of Canberra.
Mr Neilson said the authority would look at the committee’s recommendations and the needs of the ACT for a magistrates court with some urgency.