January’s bushfires questioned the nature of Canberra as a bush capital.
They could cause major changes in the way the city develops even if people realise that they are a one in 100 year event and should be only one factor and not the basis of planning the Canberra of the future.
On a smaller scale, the need to replace 500 houses has brought attention to benefits of quality design and building. Those burnt out will get greater exposure to the value of quality design than the usual one-off renovation or new house because architects, energy-efficiency experts, governments and others have seen a concentration of recipients for their message and they have directed it accordingly.
The rebuilding of the burnt areas will have a lot of publicity, so if done well it will provide a great community education project in the value of banging up houses on the cheap all facing the street irrespective of solar orientation.
On the larger scale, if the burnt pine forests are converted to residential it will alter Canberra’s planning direction for the next decade. North Gungahlin will be put on hold as the Government capitalises on land that is closer in with less infrastructure cost. It will be to the cost of the existing residents of Gungahlin whose town centre will stop growing and who might find that their transport links (Gungahlin Drive and light rail) get a lower priority.
The pine forest behind Eucumbene Drive will be a test for the Griffin ideal of not building on the hills so there is a greater interaction between built areas and nature.
If the pine forests are replaced by suburban development it will give rise to the question as to why a huge amount of vacant land on the south side like the Curtin horse paddocks and the ACT’s part of Jerrabomberra are still rural though closer to the centre of the city than all of Tuggeranong and a lot of Canberra.
If this is coupled with paranoia about open space and walkways in suburbs (induced by the fires) it could result in a fundamental change to the ideals of the planned city, the garden city and the bush capital. Instead of generous open space with street trees and public facilities Canberra could see over-sized houses on postage-stamp blocks with no room for trees.
It might lead to some residential development on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin near Scrivener Dam.
The fires will a catalyst or an excuse for many development ideas. The important thing is to sort out the worthwhile from the exploitative.
Much has been written about the fires showing that Canberra has a soul and is not just the embodiment of the Federal Government. That should not be over-estimated. The fires are just one event of many that might contribute a little to changes of attitude. Attitudes in the rest of Australia about Canberra were already changing – mainly due to the increasing number of visitors; the diversification of the Canberra economy and its integration with the region around it. More Australians were already realising that Canberra is part of the real world.
Indeed, the danger is converse: that people think that Canberra is a very strange city because it is the only city they know to have had a BUSHfire, so let’s reduce the number of city trees to make sure it doesn’t happen again.