Planning Minister Simon Corbell has appropriately fulfilled an election promise to restrict dual-occupancy developments in Canberra to 5 per cent, or one block per 20 in any residential section. The restrictions will last until neighbourhood plans are in place. The first ones of these will be in place in the middle of next year.
These is a clear mandate for limiting dual occupancies. That was the overriding intent of the policy that Labor took to the election and Labor got a substantially higher vote than the Liberals who had no such proposals.
The real test for Labor and Mr Corbell, however, is to come – in the creation of the neighbourhood plans and the development that follows them. A delicate balance has to be struck between preserving streetscape and residential amenity and the need for urban renewal and housing choice.
Neighbourhood plans sound like a good idea, but they have some drawbacks. The theory is that people who live in an area get an opportunity to be consulted and to have their input into what sort of land uses and what sort of dwellings will be allowed. Guidelines are drawn up and people who want to develop then know where they are. If they apply to build and their plans fit the guidelines then they will get the green light.
In practice, however, people will not take too much notice of invitations to participate. They are too busy getting on with their lives – going to work, bringing up children and so on. People who want to make money from redevelopment, on the other hand, will take time to put their views. It will be easy to hijack process.
Whatever plans are drawn up, one can expect developers to put as much building on any given site as can possibly be got away with. Rules will be pushed to the edge. That much can be seen with a lot of development now, where the rules do not count below ground level garages as part of the floor area, but do count eaves. The result is a mushrooming of new dual occupancies without eaves and with below ground level garages.
It would be a mistake to set the neighbourhood plans in concrete.
In the end, there is no substitute for a properly resourced planning and building department that imposes high-quality design standards. It requires planners of skill and diligence, and enough of them.
Ordinary residents have neither the skill nor inclination to involve themselves intimately with drawing up detailed planning controls. They rightly expect government to do that for them. That is what government is for. Sure, people should be invited to have some input, but the creation of neighbourhood plans should not be left to a consultation process which is easily hijacked by people who want to make money out of it.
It is clear that present rules are allowing too much development in some areas and over-development on those blocks which are developed. At present multi-occupancy development goes ahead on the happenstance of whether someone wants to develop a particular block. Mr Corbell is on the right track when he talks of restrictions on the percentage of dual occupancies that are allowed in a given area, so that the whole character of a suburb is not changed nor its capacity to support the trees and shrubs that make the garden city destroyed.
If the garden city and the bush capital are to continue, government will have to have the courage to impose the rules to do that and resource the planning department to enforce it while at the same ensuring that high quality design and redevelopment are encouraged.