Majura Parkway planning fail

James-T-Kirk said :

Does anybody actually know what is to come of the cricket pitch that has been slowly rotting away near these roadworks?

It’s a bizarre little setup isn’t it. Looks like they’ve temp fenced off the pitch but will be dozing through the rest of the oval including the pavilion.

I hope the ACT Government got some worthwhile revenue out of the Fyshwick DFO – at the time, I thought the decision to go ahead with that one was a mixture of wishful thinking and wilful, “we’ll show you” smartarsery.

Does anybody actually know what is to come of the cricket pitch that has been slowly rotting away near these roadworks?

watto23 said :

I always wonder why everyone hates the snow family so much on here.

I can only speak for myself but I don’t hate the Snow family. Disagreeing on specific issues is a very long way from hate. And I also recognise the good philanthropic work the do too.

watto23 said :

Yes can understand the development issues, and they have to make money at the airport somehow, maybe users could pay more via some other method. Yeah that would spark an outrage, paying more than we do for parking at the airport. Its apparently too expensive for some people now.

Don’t worry, I’m sure they will make their money somehow. Airports by their very nature are a monopoly after all (that’s why that shouldn’t have been privatised in the first place).

watto23 said :

Also the road is partially federally funded. Did the discussions even enter into whether the airport could pay half for the exit ramp. Also what effetc on traffic will not putting an exit ramp have. alright to get all fired up based on your political persuasion or own personl thoughts regarding the snow family, but if not putting an exit ramp, cause traffic issues further down the road for other road users well one could argue the cost of an exit ramp near the shops where alot of traffic will be headed makes perfect sense.

All true… and as I said before “And now we the tax payer are being asked to provide ever more infrastructure to support his un-planned expansions. Great deal for some.” Perhaps the Snows can pay to fix the problems they have created instead of asking the tax payer to do it for them.

watto23 said :

But i’m not one to let political bias or popularist bagging of people to get in my way of looking at issues.

Good for you. Me neither.

watto23 said :

I will agree that Corbell probably stuffed something up here.

Great… what is it that he has stuffed up then? It’s hard to discuss an elusive “something”.

watto23 said :

I always wonder why everyone hates the snow family so much on here.

I don’t hate the Snow family. I just don’t want them using public money to provide a private benefit.

howeph said :

neanderthalsis said :

So Westfield has paid for the road infrastructure that feeds punters into their centres? How about the bus interchange at Belconnen, did Westfield pay for that too? Or the local strip shops pay for the roads and car parks that enable the general public to buy a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk on their way home form work?

They all conformed to the ACT planning. Those areas were specifically designed/planned to be shopping centres – years in advance. The Government planned and budgeted for those developments. The ACT government received the revenue from the land sales/leases – so yes, indirectly, they did pay for the infrastructure.

None of the above, to my knowledge, is true for the airport.

neanderthalsis said :

And don’t forget the airport business park stole rentals and investment from the existing business rental areas such as Civic…

No it didn’t – it out-competed Civic and the rest of the ACT for those businesses in the business park.

neanderthalsis said :

“So remember folks, when Liberals talk about family values, they mean the Snow family’s values.”

One would have thought that decent access to major retail precincts would have been factored in in the original design phase. Having one way in and out of Snowtown would lead to huge bottlenecks on the road as people try to manoeuvre their trailer load of toilet paper out of the Costco carpark.

It would require expensive work later to fix, so best get it sorted before the sods start turning.

There have been ongoing design issues with the road, access to the Majura shooting range has been an ongoing area of contention for some time and has resulted in a number of modifications to the plan.

The Libs pointing out that Corbell is as useless as udders on a bull is not news to anyone that has seen the 5 star cluster f*&ks that his time in the office of Planning Minister gave us. The fact that this time it is in support of a political donor for the Libs is just a bonus.

They are building a Limited Access expressway, a type of road that in the road heirarchy requires very few “conflict poins” or the speed limit has to drop markedly (remember 80kph on GDE?).
Yet still the Snows want multiple access points to service their development, choking the road like their stupid little roundabouts currently do?

Besides, why should we shovel millions of taxpayer dollars into propping up an unplanned retail centre that has caused untold cost and grief for the other (planned) town centres around our city?

Brand Depot bled money for the Snows, and the precinct will suffer again once the new road opens. The difference this time is that the retailers in there are all huge companies rather than local franchise operators, so people will probably have even less sympathy.

I always wonder why everyone hates the snow family so much on here. Yes can understand the development issues, and they have to make money at the airport somehow, maybe users could pay more via some other method. Yeah that would spark an outrage, paying more than we do for parking at the airport. Its apparently too expensive for some people now.

Also the road is partially federally funded. Did the discussions even enter into whether the airport could pay half for the exit ramp. Also what effetc on traffic will not putting an exit ramp have. alright to get all fired up based on your political persuasion or own personl thoughts regarding the snow family, but if not putting an exit ramp, cause traffic issues further down the road for other road users well one could argue the cost of an exit ramp near the shops where alot of traffic will be headed makes perfect sense.

But i’m not one to let political bias or popularist bagging of people to get in my way of looking at issues.

I will agree that Corbell probably stuffed something up here.

chewy14 said :

But if you read the story, there was access provided in the design.

It’s just not the preferred access that the shops wanted.

Well boo hoo, you want your preferred access rather than the planned access, then you can pay for it.

This. At first I was like “there’s no off ramp?” But no, it’s just nothing at the “Northern End”.

Cry more noobs.

neanderthalsis said :

So Westfield has paid for the road infrastructure that feeds punters into their centres? How about the bus interchange at Belconnen, did Westfield pay for that too? Or the local strip shops pay for the roads and car parks that enable the general public to buy a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk on their way home form work?

They all conformed to the ACT planning. Those areas were specifically designed/planned to be shopping centres – years in advance. The Government planned and budgeted for those developments. The ACT government received the revenue from the land sales/leases – so yes, indirectly, they did pay for the infrastructure.

None of the above, to my knowledge, is true for the airport.

neanderthalsis said :

Government funded transport infrastructure should provide adequate linkages to existing services. The fact that the current plan for the Majura parkway redevelopment has only one access point for a large and well frequented retail and business precinct is a glaring inadequacy in the design.

The un-planned development at the airport has effectively holding the ACT Government to ransom: “Uninvited we are here now. There is nothing you can do about it. If you don’t pay lots of money to help us make lots of money, we’ll make traffic congestion a nightmare.”

And don’t forget the airport business park stole rentals and investment from the existing business rental areas such as Civic, and the airport shopping precinct helped to send the planned DFO in Fyshwick into receivership.

Meanwhile Mr Snow gives $8 million to an elite private school… maybe he can pay for his own infrastructure?

neanderthalsis said :

Take Snow and the Libs out of the argument and you still have a planning cockup.

You can’t take Snow out of the argument because you would be “just ignor[ing] the context around issue”. Which you agreed you can’t do.

The current arrangement at the northern end can make for some moderately exciting moments when you realise you’ve gone too far; for those whose instinct is to turn right (not necessarily in a political sense) as soon as possible, it is reassuring to discover there are internal roads connecting the various vast buildings in that precinct.

Love neanderthalsis’ comment about the Costco customers with the trailer-load of toilet paper – so true!

neanderthalsis said :

howeph said :

neanderthalsis said :

So because they didn’t want it they can now pretend it isn’t there?

No, but I am saying that the issue is not a simple as your name calling “Corbell is as useless as udders on a bull” and “… the 5 star cluster f*&ks that his time in the office of Planning Minister gave us” suggests.

You can’t just ignore the context around issues to confirm your political persuasions.

So Westfield has paid for the road infrastructure that feeds punters into their centres? How about the bus interchange at Belconnen, did Westfield pay for that too? Or the local strip shops pay for the roads and car parks that enable the general public to buy a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk on their way home form work?

Government funded transport infrastructure should provide adequate linkages to existing services. The fact that the current plan for the Majura parkway redevelopment has only one access point for a large and well frequented retail and business precinct is a glaring inadequacy in the design. Take Snow and the Libs out of the argument and you still have a planning cockup.

I will agree with you on one line though: you can’t just ignore the context around issues to confirm your political persuasions.

But if you read the story, there was access provided in the design.

It’s just not the preferred access that the shops wanted.

Well boo hoo, you want your preferred access rather than the planned access, then you can pay for it.

howeph said :

neanderthalsis said :

So because they didn’t want it they can now pretend it isn’t there?

No, but I am saying that the issue is not a simple as your name calling “Corbell is as useless as udders on a bull” and “… the 5 star cluster f*&ks that his time in the office of Planning Minister gave us” suggests.

You can’t just ignore the context around issues to confirm your political persuasions.

So Westfield has paid for the road infrastructure that feeds punters into their centres? How about the bus interchange at Belconnen, did Westfield pay for that too? Or the local strip shops pay for the roads and car parks that enable the general public to buy a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk on their way home form work?

Government funded transport infrastructure should provide adequate linkages to existing services. The fact that the current plan for the Majura parkway redevelopment has only one access point for a large and well frequented retail and business precinct is a glaring inadequacy in the design. Take Snow and the Libs out of the argument and you still have a planning cockup.

I will agree with you on one line though: you can’t just ignore the context around issues to confirm your political persuasions.

neanderthalsis said :

So because they didn’t want it they can now pretend it isn’t there?

No, but I am saying that the issue is not a simple as your name calling “Corbell is as useless as udders on a bull” and “… the 5 star cluster f*&ks that his time in the office of Planning Minister gave us” suggests.

You can’t just ignore the context around issues to confirm your political persuasions.

It’s pretty straightforward – the airport is a private development with no revenue from its sale or development going to the ACT Government, so exactly how do you justify dumping a vast amount of public money into servicing that development?

To put the potential cost into context, the overpass roadworks at the Airport had a price tag of around $14m.

Yeah. “businesses at the precinct” really means the owners of the precinct, the Snows and their airport. I mentioned a week or so back that the airport had been lobbying for the parkway to incorporate an exit to feed shoppers into their Majura Park area. Which is their usual cheek, why should the taxpayer stump up to pay for special access for a precinct that was not approved by the government in the first place?

If I was the government, I’d invite the CAG to pay for and build the access.

howeph said :

neanderthalsis said :

One would have thought that decent access to major retail precincts would have been factored in in the original design phase. Having one way in and out of Snowtown would lead to huge bottlenecks on the road as people try to manoeuvre their trailer load of toilet paper out of the Costco carpark.

I think the point Johnboy is making is that the ACT Government didn’t, and wouldn’t, have ever approved the airport shopping and business precincts in the first place.

The land use of of the Canberra airport operates under different regulations to the rest of the ACT, such that the ACT Government had/has? no authority over its use. You can call this a stuff up by the Liberal Howard Government when it privatised the airports.

Mr Snow had the deep pockets to buy the airport (which, because it is a monopoly is a gold mine in its self), but what he was also interested in was the ability to build and develop whatever he likes on the airport land without regard to the normal planning restrictions.

And now we the tax payer are being asked to provide ever more infrastructure to support his un-planned expansions. Great deal for some.

So because they didn’t want it they can now pretend it isn’t there?

neanderthalsis said :

One would have thought that decent access to major retail precincts would have been factored in in the original design phase. Having one way in and out of Snowtown would lead to huge bottlenecks on the road as people try to manoeuvre their trailer load of toilet paper out of the Costco carpark.

I think the point Johnboy is making is that the ACT Government didn’t, and wouldn’t, have ever approved the airport shopping and business precincts in the first place.

The land use of of the Canberra airport operates under different regulations to the rest of the ACT, such that the ACT Government had/has? no authority over its use. You can call this a stuff up by the Liberal Howard Government when it privatised the airports.

Mr Snow had the deep pockets to buy the airport (which, because it is a monopoly is a gold mine in its self), but what he was also interested in was the ability to build and develop whatever he likes on the airport land without regard to the normal planning restrictions.

And now we the tax payer are being asked to provide ever more infrastructure to support his un-planned expansions. Great deal for some.

I always wondered why a ramp from Canerra Ave up to the Monaro was not put in when the road was widened there recently. I know it would have been more expensive, but would have put pay to that silly rat run you have to do through Fyshwick to get onto the road you have just driven under. It’s now a great stretch of road, apart from my missing ramp.

Seems like everytime the ACT Gov does something it’s always left wanting. Not that I think any other mob would do it any better.

“So remember folks, when Liberals talk about family values, they mean the Snow family’s values.”

One would have thought that decent access to major retail precincts would have been factored in in the original design phase. Having one way in and out of Snowtown would lead to huge bottlenecks on the road as people try to manoeuvre their trailer load of toilet paper out of the Costco carpark. It would require expensive work later to fix, so best get it sorted before the sods start turning.

There have been ongoing design issues with the road, access to the Majura shooting range has been an ongoing area of contention for some time and has resulted in a number of modifications to the plan.

The Libs pointing out that Corbell is as useless as udders on a bull is not news to anyone that has seen the 5 star cluster f*&ks that his time in the office of Planning Minister gave us. The fact that this time it is in support of a political donor for the Libs is just a bonus.