When A. "Hates History, Hates Gardens" Barr and Jon Stanhope next cosy up to the Snows

WillowJim says he’s never heard any ‘extreme provocation’ from Barr. I’m not quite sure about the idea of ‘extreme’ (I wouldn’t use that word about any of the debate – certainly not from the people he childishly brands with the name ‘nimby’) but I’ve certainly experienced provocation. For example, as a member of a residents’ group that has at every stage and in every medium gone out of its way to make it clear that we are not anti-development or anti-infill, but simply opposed to poor quality, unplanned and developer-driven development that destroys the embedded energy and amenity of existing areas without producing any environmental or affordability benefits, we’ve been repeatedly verballed by Barr.
Firstly, he took a single sentence out of context in a draft statement of intent that we had circulated to him as a courtesy and, without bothering to clarify our intent, rushed onto Facebook and accused us of ‘hating childless couples’ when this was in no way what we had said and as far as could be imagined from our intent.
Secondly, when we invited him to a meeting we organised with local residents to discuss their concerns(in the hope that we could reach some sort of workable compromise), he stacked that meeting with half a dozen or so non-local Young Labor members. Nonetheless, we accepted their presence and were courteous towards them.
At the meeting, a resident expressed concern about the fact that only six-packs of one bedroom units were being built in the area and worried that this would destroy the social diversity of the neigbourhood. They suggested that perhaps regulations should require that any block of units should have units with a variety of numbers of bedrooms. Barr twisted this into an observation that only in China could you tell people how many bedrooms they could have – which bore no relationship to the original comment.
Barr counter-accused us of stacking the meeting, when all we had done was letterbox everyone in the suburb, invite them to coment and invite them to attend (which an unusually large number did).
Finally, I think Barr’s anti-Griffin comments were pointless and stupid. While there are a few die-hards left who’d like to see nothing change, the overwhelming majority of Canberrans who engage with the issue simply recognise that the only sane way to develop a city into something sustainable and livable is to understand what’s already in place and work intelligently with that – prefering renovation and adaptation to bulldozing and cementing, for fairly obvious environmental reasons. For this, we get branded as nimbys.

The original poster has done Barr a service by unintentionally portraying those who oppose his plans as hardcore intransigents.

The irony is that the nimby crowd has gone to great lengths to express their indignation at what they call Barr’s “extremist” and “provocative” comments. I’ve never actually heard extreme provocation from Barr, but I’ve heard plenty from the anti-development voices.

Storm, meet teacup. I’m sure Mr Snow will be more inclusive with his statements in future, now that he knows you’re reading them so attentively.

I see my error and stand corrected. I just thought Snow’s comments relating to pedestrians and vehicular traffic at the departures and arrivals areas at the airport related to to pedestrians and vehicular traffic at the departure and arrivals area at the airport. I just wasn’t insightful enough to appreciate the logic jump that you made.

I still think that your point on the semantics is working pretty darn hard to create a substantive issue. Post away though – I am not one to go out of my way to defend Snow. I’m just a bit bored of people who find something to whinge about no matter what the situation. Incidentally, Snow has heaps of land left before he has to deal with Barr and Stanhope.

Mr Lubberlubber said :

You do realise that ACTPLA and the ACT Government have absolutely no power over anything that Snow does at the Airport. He is answerable only to the Commonwealth and has been giving Stanhope and Barr’s predecessors huge problems due to their inability to control what is happening out there.

This is possibly the worst researched complaint I have ever seen on this site.

Did you read my initial post? Apparently not. I referred to any FUTURE projects the Snows are likely to instigate with the ACT Government, and apply their cavalier, anti-pedestrian approach. Everyone knows about the Snowjob Terry did getting carte blanche to stuff up the airport precinct with no input from the client body.

Please take the time to “research” the thread yourself!

I can’t believe that this is a serious complaint and people have responded with some support to it. The new access roads are a massive improvement, but it’s still not good enough? Pedestrians using the pedestrian crossings at the old terminal stopped the flow of all traffic servicing the terminal. Now, the best path of travel for pedestrians is completely separated from cars. You’d have to be an idiot to be in a place where you had to cross these vehicle access roads and make cars stop.

+1 to vg – have you actually been out there or did you work all this out by dissecting the semantics in the liftout.

I-filed said :

Frustrated said :

You do realise that Terry Snow is a paid up Liberal Party member don’t you.

That is hardly going to stop a developer from getting into the pocket of a corrupt ACT Government while it is in power! Have you heard of NSW Inc?

You do realise that ACTPLA and the ACT Government have absolutely no power over anything that Snow does at the Airport. He is answerable only to the Commonwealth and has been giving Stanhope and Barr’s predecessors huge problems due to their inability to control what is happening out there.

This is possibly the worst researched complaint I have ever seen on this site.

Frustrated said :

You do realise that Terry Snow is a paid up Liberal Party member don’t you.

That is hardly going to stop a developer from getting into the pocket of a corrupt ACT Government while it is in power! Have you heard of NSW Inc?

Frustrated said :

You do realise that Terry Snow is a paid up Liberal Party member don’t you.

Ha – I always thought he was Labor from media coverage.

I don’t go to the airport business park much but I do notice that the zebra crossings have been sand blasted off the roads around the buildings… so if it was bad before, now it’s worse…

Frustrated said :

You do realise that Terry Snow is a paid up Liberal Party member don’t you.

That’s why Little Johnny gave him the airport – services to the Liberal Party.