How many more new suburbs do we need in Canberra? Photo: File.
Canberra, we need to talk. We need to deal with our housing and climate crises and come up with a way of living that addresses both.
Cities like ours are facing many challenges. We’re in a climate crisis. A housing crisis. An extinction crisis. We have a growing population who need somewhere to live.
We have a housing market that is driven by profit and causing greater inequality, leaving many in our community unable to find suitable or affordable homes. Governments, including ours, need to start making different choices, or things will only get worse.
The types of houses we build and plan to build in the future need to be part of that new approach.
Many Canberra suburbs were designed with big houses on big blocks. But we know that not all Canberrans want that anymore. We can’t just keep bulldozing our precious natural environment to build suburbs on the outskirts of town. It’s harmful to habitat and it’s terrible town planning.
We know Canberrans want options – townhouses, duplexes and apartments, as well as free-standing homes. We know many Canberrans want to live closer to where they work and play.
We know that many older Canberrans would like to be able to downsize without leaving their suburbs.
And this just makes sense – of course, people want different things. So how do we make that happen? By changing rules about what types of houses we can build across the city and having a thoughtful and appropriate vision for Canberra’s future.
Last week, the ACT Greens passed a motion that would do just that. The motion we put forward to our party membership outlined our vision for the future of our city. A city where people can live in affordable housing that meets their needs, they can easily get to where they need to go and they have access to nature, parks and green spaces.
Under current rules, in many parts of Canberra, you’re only permitted to build one standalone house on a block of land. The ACT Greens motion seeks to change the rules so that more blocks could have up to two houses instead of being restricted to one single house (for those who speak planning language, that means rezoning RZ1 to RZ2).
We have also endorsed changes to current RZ2 and RZ3 properties to allow subdivision and unit titling, as well as to encourage consolidation of blocks to create well-designed, medium-density housing, like three to five-storey apartments with shared green spaces.
In practical terms, changing the zoning rules would provide more and cheaper housing options for people entering the market.
We know that in the current market, many young people can’t afford the big houses Canberra has to offer; many also don’t want or need huge blocks with big gardens to manage and would be very happy with a small backyard or a shared green space.
It would also allow older Canberrans to downsize and move to a small unit or townhouse within their suburb, allowing them to keep their social connections and familiar amenities.
We’d also like to bring more life and convenience to our suburbs and group centres by allowing’ shop-top’ apartments.
The ACT Greens want a city with more carefully designed townhouses and small (three to five-storey) apartment buildings with shared gardens so that people can choose to live in smaller homes but still have access to green space or a veggie patch.
Central to this is also ensuring we keep good solar access for everyone and leave ample room for trees and green spaces to offset the heat island effect and give people direct access to nature.
Having a variety of housing across our current city footprint would allow us to meet the demands of our growing population without building never-ending suburbs on the outskirts of town, creating more traffic congestion as people are forced into cars to get to where they need to go.
The ACT Greens think it’s time to set city limits. Canberra already covers around 372 square kilometres – which is roughly the same north-south spread as greater London and around half the width. But London’s population is almost twenty times greater than ours.
We don’t need more sprawl, which sets us up for expensive infrastructure, poor services and long car commutes. We need more compact, connected and convenient city and suburban living with more options that suit more people.
The ACT Greens’ vision for housing aims to ensure that every Canberran has access to an affordable, comfortable home that suits their needs.
Loading ...
