14 April 2009

Dirty tricks against Giralang Shops Development

| aidan
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In the last fortnight pamhplets have been mailed to every house in Giralang. The pamphlet opposes the Woolworths development at the derelict shop site and is attributed to “Combined Residents Action Group”. Sound familiar? It seems that it was intended to deceive Giralang residents into believing it came from the Giralang Residents Action Group (GRAG). It succeeded. Some Giralang residents believed GRAG now opposed the development.

As a result GRAG produced their own flyer, refuting many of these false claims, and hand delivered it to as many houses as possible in Giralang.

The original pamphlet text reads (and looks) like this:

—- start quote —-

    SAY NO TO WOOLWORTHS AT GIRALANG
  1. WOOLWORTHS ARE PROPOSING A LARGE TWO LEVEL SHOPPING CENTRE AT YOUR LOCAL SHOPS.
  2. DO YOU WANT APPROXIMATELY 20,000 CARS DRIVING THROUGH GIRALANG EACH WEEK?
  3. DO YOU WANT SEMI TRAILERS DRIVING THROUGH YOUR STREETS EARLY IN THE MORNING SEVEN DAYS A WEEK?
  4. THE WOOLWORTHS PROPOSED LOADING FACILITIES ARE NEXT TO THE GIRALANG PRIMARY SCHOOL WHICH COULD RESULT IN CHILDREN BEING INJURED

YOUR HOME VALUES WILL FALL!!

SAY NO TO WOOLWORTHS COMING TO GIRALANG SHOPS!!

KEEP GIRALANG SHOPS A LOCAL SHOPPING CENTRE WITH AN IGA CONVENIENCE SUPERMARKET & SPECIALTY STORES.

LODGE YOUR OBJECTIONS TO D.A. #200914054 VIA EMAIL TO:
ACTPLA: app.sec@act.gov.au

OR ALTERNATIVELY SEND TO:
APPLICATIONS SECRETERIAT
PO BOX 365
MITCHELL ACT 2911

APPLICATIONS MUST BE LODGED BY 14 APRIL 2009

OBJECTIONS TO D.A. #200914054 CAN BE MADE ON THE BASIS THAT THE PROPOSAL DOES NOT COMPLY WITH CZ4 LOCAL CENTRE ZONE NOR TERRITORY PLAN OBJECTIVES AND THE IMPACT OF TRAFFIC ON CANOPUS CRESCENT AND CHUCULBA CRESCENT, WHICH ARE MINOR COLLECTOR ROADS, WILL BE EXCESSIVE.

COMBINED RESIDENTS ACTION GROUP

—- end quote —-

Who is behind this Combined Residents Action Group? Someone with the resources to individually mail a pamphlet to all the houses in Giralang. I’ll leave it up to the fertile imaginations of the RiotACT commentators to come up with some ideas .. lets just say you don’t have to be SUPA smart to figure it out.

The claims the pamphlet makes are mostly spurious:

  • The proposed development will be the same height as the current one (it is two level because the site will be excavated and underground parking will be constructed)
  • According to the DA lodged with ACTPLA, nothing like 20,000 cars will be driving through Giralang each week. They have taken the figure of an extra 140 vehicles per hour at evening peak time and multiplied it by 24 hours and 7 days.
  • Woolworths have informed GRAG that there will typically be 3 semi-trailers arriving at the site per week. All during the day.
  • The loading facilities are physically separated from the school by a large brick wall. The trucks will go into the loading area forwards and only reverse once they are inside the loading dock. There is a picture of how it will work in the application documents.

I reckon it is ordinary putting out dishonest rubbish like this, and attempting to make it seem like it came from GRAG is pretty low.

If you are a Giralang Resident or interested party (live nearby or bring your kids to play soccer at the ovals and might use the shops) then today is your last day to lodge your opinion with ACTPLA. You would have to hand-deliver it, or email them (app.sec@act.gov.au).

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Nemo said :

I fail to see why Giralang needs shops – SupaBarn is within walking distance.

Depends where you live in Giralang. From a quick check on google maps there is about 2/3 of Giralang that is more than 1.5km from Kaleen Supabarn. You’re looking at least a 40min walk, more like 1hr when hauling groceries, for the round trip. Convenient? Ummm … no. For people like me who drop their kids and pick them up from Giralang Primary it is very convenient to have the shops open to buy stuff at the same time.

niftydog said :

Yup, that stunk-up my letter box too.

I thought GRAG was dead and buried until I saw the Chronicle this morning. If I had known they were still around I would have loved to have voiced my opinion to them. What they were spruiking as the consensus among Giralang residents didn’t seem to correlate with what I have been hearing.

The GRAG people asked for comment when the Woolies proposal was first mooted (before the DA was lodged) and got very few responses.

They set up a display with the details of the proposed Woolies development down at the school when the last election was on. They have been pretty fair minded and open I reckon. Good on them for doing something rather than just whining on the net.

I guess you can email them or call Ross Calvert and tell him what you think. They at least put their contact details on the flyer they distributed unlike the anonymous mob “Combined Residents Action Group”.

dvaey said :

# Woolworths have informed GRAG that there will typically be 3 semi-trailers arriving at the site per week. All during the day.

I live near the Kambah Woolworths, which is rather small in comparison to other Woolworths in the region. Id be very surprised if they only get 3 trucks a day (easily 3 a week). How many Woolworths trucks do you see driving around the city, I assure you theres more than 3 per week here.

The GRAG people were told this by Woollies. I guess they might have lied. Don’t know why they would though.

# Woolworths have informed GRAG that there will typically be 3 semi-trailers arriving at the site per week. All during the day.

I live near the Kambah Woolworths, which is rather small in comparison to other Woolworths in the region. Id be very surprised if they only get 3 trucks a day (easily 3 a week). How many Woolworths trucks do you see driving around the city, I assure you theres more than 3 per week here.

Nemo said :

I fail to see why Giralang needs shops – SupaBarn is within walking distance.

Competition!
But then Supabarn are always confused about competition. They don’t want a Woolworths opening because it stifles competition, so obviously opening a new one near their Kaleen store will definately be bad. Anyway whether or not they are behind the pamphlets is a guess.

You can’t forget the Canberra is the capital city of NIMBY. Someone needs something to complain about. Though the likelyhood that the trucks making deliveries in daylight hours only is small, they normally make deliveries up to about 9pm. Hardly worth whinging about, but i’m sure someone will.

Having local shops can only raise house prices because people actually like to have local shops. Popping in for stuff for dinner quickly is much easier at a smaller centre – and far more pleasant.

you can’t expect people to WALK in this day and age 😮

I fail to see why Giralang needs shops – SupaBarn is within walking distance.

Yup, that stunk-up my letter box too.

I thought GRAG was dead and buried until I saw the Chronicle this morning. If I had known they were still around I would have loved to have voiced my opinion to them. What they were spruiking as the consensus among Giralang residents didn’t seem to correlate with what I have been hearing.

OMG SO MANY ANGRY CAPS AAAAAAARRRRGH1 SAVE THE CHILDRENS1!

Obviously it’s dodgy if the response pamphlets are from another market player but not signed that way. Still even though they’re posted, perhaps GRAG have been doing their own chook raffles.

But really, I have to say totally ZOMG OH NOES at the the OTT pamphlet from the original people’s front of Judea/Judean people’s front…

I’m pissed off about the shops closing because I used to actually use them. We didn’t do our main shop at the IGA (you couldn’t have! they had a poor range and frequently old stock close to or past the use by date) but would often pop in for extras we’d run out of or forgotten, or a six-pack/bottle of wine.

My wife had her hair cut once at the hairdressers before they were kicked out. We often used services at the newsagents (despite them being quite grumpy), e.g. postal, photocopying/faxes. We’d go to the bakery almost every weekend …

There will not be an IGA + local shops at Giralang. The lease-holders don’t want to reopen and the Govt. can’t (won’t) force them to. Woollies at least has the prospect of creating some business by bringing punters in from outside the suburb (hence some increase in traffic) and so keeping the shops viable.

If you want a solution to the impasse, email ACTPLA and state that you live in GIralang and support the proposal. Your submission will make a difference.

I live int the units opposite the shops.
I don’t care one way or the other. I used to go to the old shops when they were there – But no one else would.
The only people you would see in there would be grabbing milk/bread/cigarettes/etc.
No one would buy more than one thing from there at a time. They would do their main shopping at Supabarn.
If they put another IGA in there. Then people would do the same thing in my opinion.
And then in 5 years time it would close down because it didn’t make any money.

Then people would complain that there are no shops there.

Lets be entirely honest here. The main reason that people are upset by the shops they never used not being there – is because it makes the value of their house increase to say that there are local shops.

I dunno if I would say that Supabarn are the people sending these out. I have heard normal civilians say they don’t wont it there.

Either way. I wish that they would just do something and then I wouldn’t have to listen to either side complain all the time.

Also the COMBINED RESIDENTS ACTION GROUP should call themselves COMBINED RESIDENTS ACTION PARTY for acronymy goodness.

So 20000 equals to three cars a minute on average entering Giralang (based on a 6am to 10pm trading hours 7 days a week). Furthermore is that extra to the existing residents of Giralang, or inclusive, because I’d hazzard a guess that of those 20,000 cars, a good number of them would be going to Giralang regardless of wollies there or not.

I’d also like to know how they determined that children would be injured. It’s almost like saying this rock keeps tigers away, because do you see any tigers. Assuming wollies follows standard OH&S procedures I don’t see how children could be injured. (Beyond what is likely to happen regardless of the status of wollies)

Also why would house values fall? If anything close to shops is something that can raise house values.

I’m not on anyones side, just I personally hate seeing sh*t like this pamphlet to push a point of view.

There must be a compelling reason to drive through Giralang – 20,000 drivers can’t be wrong. Is it a short cut to somewhere else?

Just wait! We might form a sub-committee to deal with it! That’ll show `em …

I’m guessing it does have to be Supabarn. As Coles do their truck loading at 7am (at Westfield Woden & a few others anyway). But I would love to see why 20,000 people would be driving through Giralang. Mostly only Giralang & maybe future Lawson residents will use it anyway, with maybe the odd Kaleen resident.

Pommy bastard11:09 am 14 Apr 09

“Flyer wars”, bless!

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