This week the ACT Government introduced into the Assembly the Gungahlin Development Authority Bill. If the Assembly has any sense it will reject it. The concept of a separate development authority for Gungahlin is entirely flawed. So, incidentally, is the idea of a separate Kingston Foreshore Development Authority.
The motive behind the Gungahlin authority is hard to fathom. Perhaps it is an exercise in political feel-goodism or an attempt to pretend to the people of Gungahlin that something is happening in their township when it manifestly is not. Those sorts of political exercises might be excused, but in this case, the exercise goes to the core of planning the city.
We already have an ACT Planning Authority and a department charged with the task of lease administration. We already have a national planning authority charged with the task of ensuring decisions about land do not trespass on the national interest in Canberra as the nation’s capital. Why the need for a separate Gungahlin Authority?
Aside from the fact that the new authority will create unnecessary duplication, bureaucracy and confusion, there may be an even worse outcome. The Bill introduced by Urban Services Minister Tony De Domenico (and not the planning minister) envisages a body with wide power to grant leases on behalf of the executive and to undertake development in its own right. It will comprise two members from the general community and others with expertise in property development, retail, finance, urban planning and design. In short it will have the power and personnel to side-step existing planning structures such as they are. Moreover, the suggested make-up of the authority suggests that development and property interests are likely to have a majority against small community and residents’ interests. It is likely to mean land, at present own by the public at large, will be handed over to developers too cheaply, with less concern about developing public infrastructure than if the Gungahlin central area were planned and developed by existing structures, flawed as they are. True, the authority will have to comply with the Territory Plan, but there seems little to enforce that.
The trouble is that the Government is far too swayed by a “”can-do”, economic mentality. And it will be easy to get quick development if land is given away cheaply. But the Government will reap long-term disquiet unless it caters for the community more broadly.
In this context, it is a shame the Government is not taking up a critical element of the Stein recommendations to set up a strong, independent, statutory planning authority, properly staffed and resourced with a broad-based board.
As it is the Government seems determined to downgrade the planning element of land-management at every turn (and appears to be persuading the Commonwealth to take the same approach) and treat land use as a short-term money-spinner to the detriment of longer-term objectives, such as residential amenity and community assets.
A strong ACT Planning Authority would be much more capable of creating master plans for Gungahlin and Kingston that would serve the interests of the whole territory than single-site separate authorities. Further, an ACT-wide approach for these areas would result in better co-ordination and integration with development elsewhere and transport throughout the city.
Those who want a fast buck out of plum sites might think differently, but there would still be plenty of room for quality development with adequate profits.