A design competition for Canberra’s fifth town, Jerrabomberra, was announced yesterday.
The Minister for Environment, Land and Planning, Bill Wood, said the ACT Government and the National Capital Planning Authority would jointly sponsor the project which would bring forward ideas for the new town.
The chief executive of the National Capital Planning Authority, Gary Prattley, said prizes totalling $50,000 would be offered to successful entrants.
“”The competition is investigative in nature and precedes any decision to develop the Jerrabomberra area,” he said.
“”Jerrabomberra is being considered as the next major urban setting in the national capital and is very well located to inner Canberra and major industrial employment areas and proposed development in . . . Queanbeyan.”
Detailed documents and maps would be available next month. The competition would close on June 30.
“”While this is a competition for concepts, there may be the possibility of proceeding with a second-stage competition for a detailed plan,” he said.
Mr Wood said, “”We shouldn’t be constrained by conventional approaches to planning and development and we are commencing on a process of community consultation before being committed to any particular process or outcome.”
If Jerrabomberra goes ahead it will be Canberra’s fifth township outside the original area designed by Walter Burley Griffin: the others being Woden, Belconnen, Tuggeranong and Gungahlin.
Jerrabomberra, however, straddles the ACT-NSW border. In the case of Belconnen cross-border development was frowned upon because the ACT planners thought NSW standards might not be good enough, so the houses stopped a kilometre short of it. There was also concern about land speculation or of people holding vacant blocks for long periods.
In the case of Jerrabomberra, close co-operation with Queanbeyan City Council to ensure a uniform approach. And in more recent years developments over the NSW border have been of equal or higher standard than those in the ACT.
Jerrabomberra Creek runs through the area, giving an opportunity for a lake, like those in the other town centres.
Jerrabomberra will be able to draw on some present infrastructure, such as the nearby Narrabundah school.
Mr Wood would not put a precise population projection on the area, but said it would be in the tens of thousands rather than the single thousands.
Mr Prattley said new settlement areas needed to be identified now so that land could come on stream at the right time.
The competition had been adopted by the OECD (Organisation of Economic Co-Operation and Development) Ecological Cities Pilot Project.
It would develop concepts which would “”integrate ecologically sustainable development ideas into the Jerrabomberra setting”.
Mr Wood said he wanted wide professional and public consultation to ensure more livable environments.
“”Canberra can lead the world in this regard,” he said.
The first public meetings would be held in the next few weeks.
If Jerrabomberra goes ahead it would be a fundamental change to the Y Plan which has dominated Canberra planning since the late 1960s. This will give rise to some major planning issues.
The aims of the Y Plan were to avoid a circular mass of city; to allow green belts between townships with one or two connecting transport corridors and to prevent Canberra from spilling over the border. Jerrabomberra does not have a natural barrier between it and the city to the north, though there is a line of hills between it and Woden and there is no geographical reason why it cannot blend into Queanbeyan.