The scene is the Erindale Centre in Tuggeranong last Thursday night. About 100 people are playing competition squash and volleyball.
In the room normally used by the squash people for a few drinks and supper after a hard game, seven people sit on plastic chairs listening to someone talk. Seven people. It could be a class in esoteric Japanese silk painting, or a class in Galbraithian economics. It is not. In fact it is a public meeting and information night about appeal rights under the new Territory Plan.
It is hard to get people interested. It was the same during the consultation process before the plan became law last November. People are not interested unless it directly affects them. Then they get very active. They suddenly wake up to find their neighbourhood is being changed.
This is happening in Canberra now, five months after the plan became law. People are putting in development proposals under the new plan and neighbours are getting worried.
On one hand, the ACT Government says consultation was exhaustive. The Minister for Environment, Land and Planning, Bill Wood, says there were a thousand submissions and planners did their best to incorporate community views. A letterbox drop said people’s neighbourhoods would be affected and invited them to get involved.
Community groups, however, are arguing that the consultation leading up to the creation of the plan did not tell people in plain English what was really to happen. If it had been made clear, there would have been an outcry. They argue that a plain-English version last year would have said something like: “”The ACT Government wants to change planning rules. Under the new rules people will be allowed to build a two-storey four-bedroom house in their back garden, divide the block and sell it in two bits. Also, in areas 100 metres either side on Northbourne Avenue people will be able to amalgamate several blocks and build three-storey units, so that a block of three-storey units could be built next to your house. What do you think?”
They argue that the consultation process got bogged down in jargon like “”third-party appeal rights”; dual occupancy; B1 zones and so on without plain-English explanations.
To some extent Bill Wood agrees with this. He said this week that dual occupancy (two houses on one block and split the title) and B1 (amalgamate near Northbourne Avenue) issues got hidden in the argument about the plan’s pink bits. The pink bits were marked on the plan as areas which had no definite use and required investigation.
The pink bits were, indeed, a major issue in the lead up to the creation of the draft Territory Plan and its final revamp into the Territory Plan. The pink bits were vacant land in odd lots through the city. People thought the vacant land would be built on and were upset. This upset overwhelmed the other issue of dual occupancy and units development.
The pink-bits argument has been about in-fill and the dual-occupany and units is about renewal. Together they are the linchpins of the ACT Government’s policy of catering for population growth with 50 per cent greenfields and 50 per cent in-fill/renewal.
Leaving aside the question of whether Canberra or Australia needs any more population growth, the fact is Federal Government policies dictate it to the Territory which then must do something about it.
Population has fallen in the inner areas and shops, schools, electricity, water, sewerage, roads and public transport are not being used as efficiently. It seems better to tap into existing infrastructure than having to create new infrastructure on the fringe.
The question is: is the ACT doing it the best way possible?
Bill Wood argues that, though it is early days, the absence of a rush of planning appeals indicates that the new plan is going well. In fact there have been only three.
The residents’ group argue that there is groundswell of anger about what is happening to neighbourhoods, and in particular what is happening to the place next door.
Opposition Leader Kate Carnell says many people are coming in complaining about dual occupancy, knocked down trees, and neighbourhood changes.
“”The dual occupany guidelines have to be revised,” she said. “”People thought it meant granny flats, not developer sub-division. Consultation with planning has to be on-going. You can never expect to get it right first time.”
The president of the Conservation Council of Canberra, Jacqui Rees, says nineteen resident-action groups chaired by the council had formed the Save Our City Coalition.
Most ACT politicians “”think it is a few loudmouths, but it is not”, she said. “”They do not recognise the depth of distress. They have not tapped it. That’s why they are coming to us. It’s going to be a major election issue.”
There are now several hotspots. The in-fill hotspot is the Tuggeranong Homestead site. Two other in-fill hotspots have cooled slightly recently. Duffy-Holder has been postponed for 10 years because the effect lights will have on Mount Stromlo research and North Watson is now a fait accompli. The community group in Watson argued the economics of the development, but the Government is convinced of Access Economics’ report on the area. There is no real environmental, heritage or scientific impediment to development, like the other sites. It is more like North Lyneham: sheep paddock today, suburb tomorrow. Tuggeranong Homestead, however, is exciting more attention.
The renewal hotspots are Old Red Hill, Yarralumla and to a lesser extent North Canberra.
Old Red Hill is the heritage area of 1.5 to two-acre blocks which were planned by Walter Burley Griffin for residences for key government officials and others. The Red Hill residences are worried that a proposal to bulldoze a house in Wickham Crescent and put up 14 townhouses will be the thin end of the wedge, that the heritage value will be destroyed and the suburb will end up like Kingston.
They say the area meets 11 heritage criteria, but the government-appointed ACT Heritage Council is ignoring its own criteria.
The Yarralumla hotspot is one likely to break out in little bits all over Canberra as more people apply for dual occupancy and divide titles. The argument here is that people moved in to an environment of single residences with gardens only to find incongruous dwellings springing up in gardens or places being bulldozed and replaced with two townhouses.
The North Canberra B1 hotspot has been taken off the heat a little by Bill Wood with changes to betterment taxes that make development less attractive in the short term. At present units are replacing houses close to the city. However, once units replace houses in pockets in further out suburbs, like Dickson, people will start getting concerned. They moved into a single-residence suburb and now they have units next door.
The plan allows these things and they are law. However, there is still some distance to go. Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee of the Assembly is still revising development guidelines and the precise future of Tuggeranong homestead is yet to be worked out.
The 31-hectare homestead site bounded by Johnson and Ashley Drives and Tuggeranong Creek, has been divided by the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee into four bits: one for 150 houses along Johnson Drive, one for 100 houses in the north-west corner, an entertainment-leisure-accommodation zone which includes the homestead and half the total land and an area of urban open space.
Bill Wood said the Government was allowing residential on the site to generate funds to ensure the homestead was restored.
The Conservation Council wants the whole site preserved, because it is the place where Charles Bean wrote the Gallipoli volumes of the History of the Great War.
“”This is the place where the Anzac legend was created,” Jacqui Rees said. “”It should not be destroyed by housing. Recessions come and go; heritage should stay.”
She envisages a fully restored Tuggeranong Homestead as a Bean centre, which could be opened on April 25, 2015. That sounds a long way off, but Bean himself drove from the homestead to the present War Memorial site in 1920 to chose a place for the memorial, and it was not finished till last year – 74 years later.
The Federal Government should get involved because the site is one of major national heritage, she says.
The PDI committee, however, has said it is attracted to the sort of development outlined by Permaculture of the ACT (PACT) for the site, but that any development plan must include restoration of the homestead.
Mike D. Smith, convener PACT, says his group is waiting for the ACT Planning Authority’s document calling for detailed submissions on what to do with the site.
His group of about 100 members was to do a development along permaculture lines _ bringing as little as possible on to the site and taking as little as possible off it.
Residences would be made from mud brick or rammed earth. The site would contain food-bearing trees and vines throughout. Stormwater run-off would be used on-site. Sewage would be composted and grey water treated and used for irrigation.
PACT would build with a developer and sell a maximum of 250 residences. It would be done with a body-corporate style title with strict covenants on residential leases.
The money from the residences and money gained from growing food and ecotourism would enable the restoration and maintenance of the homestead.
“”The residences would attractive for everyday people, not strange or alienating,” Mr Smith said. “”We would have a working 1850s farm.”
PACT started in Tasmania 12 yrs ago and is going worldwide. It is loosely structured, but would have to be incorporated to get this site.
“”It would be an internationally recognised resource and information centre and a centre for education,” he said. “”It would be a high profile, best-practice site.”
People wanting further information could call him on 2690243.Jacqui Rees says permaculture is inappropriate.
“”It has nothing to do with Bean and the Anzac Heritage. The permaculture experiment should be tried on another site.”
She is worried about the financing and what would happen if the permaculture people did not generate enough to restore the homestead.
“”The finances should be thoroughly looked at,” she said. “”It if North Watson was vetted by Access Economics, so should permaculture.”
She is also sceptical that is an easy way to get housing on the site.
“”Turning Tuggeranong Homestead into a cabbage patch to try to attract the green vote will fail,” she said.
The Minder of Tuggeranong Homestead are also sceptical of permaculture.
The chair of MOTH, Lyn Forceville, says there are quite a lot of questions as to how they will finance it.
“”We have always been opposed to housing on the site, but it looks like it is inevitable now. The Government should look at non-housing solutions. Housing seems to be their prescription for all ills.”
Bill Wood acknowledges the heritage of the site and the importance of the links with Bean. He guarantees the homestead will be preserved and restored using the money gained from the housing.
“”Precisely how that is done will require looking at the submissions that follow the PDI report,” he said.