ABC online is reporting that a moratorium has been placed on Molonglo development for the next 20 years to allow comprehensive natural resource studies on vulnerable species living in the valley.
About 9,000 homes are eventually expected to be built there.
Planning Minister Andrew Barr says the moratorium will not have any impact on land supply because the development is not due to start for another 20 years.
It will be a sad day when that beautiful valley is dotted with houses like another Dunlop
…and we wonder why we have a supply problem! Release the damn land!
Yet again another way to make land in the ACT more expensive.
More than 50% of the ACT governments revenue comes from land/property and related taxes – so it’s fair to assume that this is where the majority of the money for all these studies and everything else is ultimately coming from.
Just bump up the price some more.
I am confused now.
Is this land that is being released in 20 years the same place where the govt is demolishing a small thriving arboretum that th residents love, and also a small old house that a couple live in, who are being kicked out to make way for the developers? Someone near Weston Creek?
Or is it somewhere else?
This is wonderful news, and for once the govt should be congratulated for applying for common sense. The reason for the moratorium is because a number of endangered species live in the area, including the little eagle and brown treecreeper. This development should never have proceeded as far as it has these issues were well known and documented.
No problemo spoonbill, I see why you think this is important. Be aware, however, that in having this opinion you forgoe the right to ever be cranky about local housing prices, since your attitude is keeping land prices a lot higher than they need to be.
I seriously doubt that land prices in that valley would be in the affordable bracket anyway which wouldn’t bring down the land prices in Wanniassa or Charnwood – maybe in Red Hill.
Moratorium is such a morose word ….
What the hell is a Brown Treecreeper? That sounds like a bloody snake. If it’s a snake, then they need to napalm the entire area immediately.
Read the news article closely. The moratorium is on development in CENTRAL Molonglo, which is indeed not due to start for 15-20 years anyway. SOUTH Molonglo is by far the largest part of the entire new town area, stretching from Cotter Rd up to Coppins Crossing, with 15,000 homes slated. And development of this area is definitely not covered by a moratorium – it will start this year. Already they are drilling test holes for geological sampling just west and south of the RSPCA on the north of Cotter Rd. This is where they will be spending over 10 million (see the budget) on a lake and infrastructure. The first suburb, called Coombs, will begin west of here, right near that old house which they shamefully plan to demolish. Also they will be putting housing in North Weston uphill from the AFP facility, but I believe they are having second thoughts about destoying the arboretum there. A lot of the so-called arboretum consists of dead eucalypts next to the Parkway, but the more exotic trees are doing well and must be preserved.
1920s – It will be a sad day when that beautiful valley is dotted with houses like another Duntroon
1940s – It will be a sad day when that beautiful valley is dotted with houses like another Fairbairn
1950s – It will be a sad day when that beautiful valley is dotted with houses like another Narrabundah
1960s – It will be a sad day when that beautiful valley is dotted with houses like another Woden
1960s – It will be a sad day when that beautiful valley is dotted with houses like another Belconnen
1970s – It will be a sad day when that beautiful valley is dotted with houses like another Tuggeranong
1990s – It will be a sad day when that beautiful valley is dotted with houses like another Gungahlin
2000s – It will be a sad day when that beautiful valley is dotted with houses like another Forde
2010s – It will be a sad day when that beautiful valley is dotted with houses like another Molonglo and North Weston
Except astro, all those places mentioned were god forsaken windswept limestone plains
The Coppins crossing part will be built on as soon as they get around to it as the rural leasees on that land have already had their 999 years leases cut back to 99 years, and then to one year.
Maybe we need to buy some land off NSW, say, North of Gungahlin, or whatever is out there now.
The stupid fu*king little eagles and brown treecreepers can find somewhere else to live once the bulldozers arrive.
Where are people going to live now. A 20 year wait – what tools.
Crikey, you are the tool. Know anything about ecology? Eliminate species and you break down food webs which in turn destroys entire ecosystems. Guess what? No ecosystem, no humanity. But no, let’s just develop without considering the consequences because what the world definitely needs is more McMansions!
No, what the world needs is more housing for people.
I am sure RuffnReady has a nice house and enjoys the benefits of city life – but everyone else can line up behind the little eagles and brown treecreepers.
To be frank, the Molongolo valley is a wasteland, as the cocky on the land isn’t looking after it.
I presume this is in response to the lease arrangements, but he wasn’t doing that great a job (barely managing) before the lease changed.
I see there are 2 things that need to occur before any development begins:
1. Coppins Crossing becomes 2 lane all the way, and the bridge is fixed up
2. Water sufficiency measures are implemented and the valley partially filled – this will also add to the ultimate aesthetic and value.
There is no water, no sewage, no telephones, no power, or any other infrastructure other than a high pressure gas line already in the area – these should also be constructed before any development begins.
Oh, and if we get another fire event, its probably going to be a very hot suburb.
What I’d like to see is the cocky put some effort into the property, plant a shedload of trees etc, to raise the natural heritage value of the place. It’ll certainly make it a LOT harder for the ACT Government to wrestle it off him, if it actually had farming value.
Reptile loving green blooded freaks!!!
Save for a few lofty green hills, all land within the general area identified as “Canberra” should be open to development. Enough of this green-left anti-development nonsense. On the one hand, you lot amuse yourselves with quirky comments on Canberra’s boring tag, and on the other you put up an argument opposing every new development. This town NEEDS TO GROW!!!
(If you want to accuse me of generalising, that’s fine, I’m new so you are ALL implicated – as I learn your personalities I will be less critical of riot-ACT bloggers in general and save my criticism for those who deserve it)
That’s a kind of different way for a newbie to dive on into pond riotact.
Mouthface, around here the rule is all the regulars dump crap on the newbies but then gradually get to appreciate your point of view (or not).
Dunno about this idea of flaming any and everybody with your first post. Don’t think that’s the RA way…
RuffnReady said :
You are truly a tool! Is it possible to come up with an original thought or are you just mindlessly repeating some claptrap someone once told you to say in order to appear appropriately correct enough to score a BJ at Uni?
Hi Gungahlin Al…
You may well be right… but I’m starting off as a heel (WWE terminlogy) in order to get some attention and then I may turn good guy (just building my brand)
Gungahlin Al said :
I liked it, but its a pity about the second posting.
The dream of a firecracker newbie has become a moist fart of delirium.
Ant: brown treecreeper is a little bird. Part of the various little non-descript sensitive woodland birds our ecologist used to call LBJs – little brown jobs.
The hop up and down trees eating little bugs. They help repel dieback of eucalypts caused by sap-sucking insects called physllids or lerps.
Problem is that rampant growth of numbers of the very aggressively territorial Noisy Miner leads to LBJs being driven out of large areas, leaving the trees without their natural protectors.
Presence of the LBJs indicates more healthy ecosystem with mid-storey structure (and therefore less Miners) and hence something worth protection.
Some very good work done here by David Freudenberger in CSIRO on such “focal species”.
Sorry, I’ll shuddup now…
Gungahlin Al said :
I generally don’t mind your involvement here Al, except for the occasional moment when you’re trying to divert my taxpayer funds or Government attention to this hastily-cobbled-together project you call “Gungahlin”.
Cheers Skid. Just doing what I was elected to do.
“The dream of a firecracker newbie has become a moist fart of delirium”
LOL
Watching the Gungahlin representatives clamour for roads / schools / pools / offices / etc is kind of like watching a turtle on it’s back struggling to right itself. You feel like you should help, but it’s too fascinating just watching…
VYBerlinaV8. I take your point but that does not make this development, or houses for the people at any cost it, right. This country has a shameful history of extinction and especially in this modern era we have no right to do drive any species to extinction. Mouthface, if that makes me a green blooded freak I will wear the badge with pride – just why does this town need to grow? Like many people I like Canberra as it is. If I wanted to live in a metropolis, I could have chosen Sydney. But I didn’t. As for you the enlightened comments by crikey, I hope it was in gest.
Gungahlin Al said :
so, not a snake. You’re sure? I wonder if I have any brown treecreeper birds, I’ve been furiously planting trees for years and I knew they were getting to useful size when a sugar glider appeared on my sliding door one night. There’s lots of weird little birds but the bird book isn’t much use at working out what htey are. Or maybe the kookaburras et them.
Snakes are cool…
Save the snakes baby…
Mael,
the guy on the land at coppins has been on one year leases for yonks. He has had no reason to replant or put in vegetation corridors or whatever as he has known for many, many years that the government will be kicking him off at some time in the future.
Why put in tens of thousands of dollars of rehab work when it will ultimately get bulldozed for a suburb?
And you know exactly how expensive rehabilitation/ revegetation works are.
Watching the Gungahlin representatives clamour for roads / schools / pools / offices / etc is kind of like watching a turtle on it’s back struggling to right itself. You feel like you should help, but it’s too fascinating just watching
That is one of the funniest things I have ever read on RA.
Thumper said :
You don’t see any problem with noting that he has been there for yonks, yet hasn’t done anything to remediate his land ?
We’re back to our old conversations – have you thought, even for a micron, about lowering the amount of stock you have rather than putting your hand out to the Gumnut for money ?
Have you thought, that by allowing your stock to eat not only the tertiary layer of the groundcover, but the rootbase as well, that you have increased the rehabilitation time for that paddock by decades, rather than months ?
I agree, he has no reason now to replant, because it is expensive. What I have said previously though, was that he should have been doing it a long time ago. If he were to make the investment now, there is still a high chance that he could be kicked off the land, however it would be a darned sight better than leaving it to wasteland like it is now.
I laughed too Thumper.
And then I noticed “roads / schools / pools / offices / etc”
Meaning the message is getting through – Caf knows exactly the things we’ve been pursuing. And that’s half the battle.
Gungahlin could have been interchanged with any other organisation and it still would have been funny