Crace is going live in May 09.

Yep.

Future ghetto.

Reference the name Crace,

The suburb of Mitchell was first called Crace under the Whitlam Labour Government.

When Malcolm Fraser came to power the name was changed to Mitchell.

From Canberrahistory.org.au:

Edward Kendall Crace took control of ‘Gungahlin’ and eventually bought it and Davis’s Ginninderra estate. Crace added a substantial new wing to the building in 1882 and in subsequent years added a number of outbuildings, including staff quarters in 1888. Crace developed the ‘Gungahlin’ property and bred merino sheep and Devon cattle.

Very good point 2604. To back up your point further, just drive down Anthony Rolf in Gungahlin for a perfect example. Most of the roofs only have about 20cm of space between them!

Indeed so much of it comes down to the selection of the rooms you *need* as opposed to believe the *market* demands.
Reining that in results in yard preserved.

Block size isn’t so much the issue in the newer suburbs, as plot ratio (ie the proportion of the block taken up by a dwelling’s “footprint”). Ratios of 40-50 per cent plus don’t allow for any meaningful planting of shading trees, leaving houses completely exposed to the full summer sun. They also encourage people to build bigger and more energy hungry housing, with much space devoted to areas (three living areas plus an outdoors area, four bathrooms, etc) that are seldom used but need to be heated and cooled all the same. A properly designed dwelling gives everyone enough space without having to be huge.

I would be happy living in a neighbourhood full of 450 square metre blocks if the plot ratio was capped at 25-30 per cent, forcing houses upwards instead of outwards and enabling people to establish some greenery.

I don’t really want to live in a suburb named after this guy. He was “almost” in a battle….

http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A130580b.htm

LOL

A musical bent?

^^ By which I mean ‘hammond’ organs, before you go getting the wrong idea…

stonedwookie said :

you cant live in me thats where i keep my organs

Organs?! So YOU’RE the one keeping the young kids from congregating in the carparks and shopping malls.

Ewok will just have to do, then.

you cant live in me thats where i keep my organs

Granny said :

I want to live in Wookie.

: )

If the leafy boutique suburb of Ewok is available I will be first in.

I wish the UV on my property would stop going up! I really don’t believe it adds that much value to the sale – and it certainly suck having to pay a 22% increase in rates this year!

tylersmayhem said :

tyler: that’s $300K for house and land – not just the block.

Gee, thank God for that.

especially when my UV value on my block is now $205k…. bought it at $67k, house attached for $145k total. and I could split it into 2 blocks and still be bigger than the ones in crace… discraceful.

tyler: that’s $300K for house and land – not just the block.

Gee, thank God for that.

Skid

It could be worse – Its 15 minutes closer to the GDE traffic jam than Amaroo.

Crace is a good location if you can avoid the highway road noise.

Can we just call it “Hell without the elderly”?

As a not-yet-entering-the-buying-market person, if its empty land going for $666/m^2, why are people paying so much more in Crace than elsewhere?
Forde had blocks with houses changing hands at $415/m^2 in March.

Paying $300k for a small block, half the size but twice as far from Civic (As where i used to live), to live in a still developing cookie-cutter society seems like a soccer-mum version of Stepford Hell.

tyler: that’s $300K for house and land – not just the block.

You can check out the overall Crace subdivision concept plan on the GCC website.

Without getting into block sizes (a sore point in Gungahlin be assured), you can see that the concept plan is a vast improvement over the original ACTPLA plan – particularly from a passive solar design perspective.

I had a quite good yard size on a 550 block in the inner north.

But the house was small, and close to the front of the block, and it was a duplex, so no land wasted on one side. Also no garage so minimal land wasted for driveway etc. And the house was small, so nothing like gungahlin real estate.

But perhaps they should consider duplexes. Better to be connected on one side and have decent gap between properties on the other than to have a scant metre on either side and be looking into everyone else’s loungeroom windows.

Hang on, let me get this right…$300K for a 450 square meter block = affordable. Just when I though housing prices in Canberra couldn’t get any more ridiculous!

I’m pretty sure our block is smaller than that, and it is the largest on our street.

Jazz said :

450 m2. that seems like a very small block to me. Can you even fit a house on that and still get inside the building envelope?

Nope. All access to the properties will be through the neighbouring windows.

Just make sure you pick neighbours who won’t ask you to wash up on the way through … 😛

L

450 m2. that seems like a very small block to me. Can you even fit a house on that and still get inside the building envelope?

I want to live in Wookie.

: )

After suburbs named Harrison & Forde, I was expecting maybe one of the new ones might be “Indiana” or “Solo”

What a crass name for a suburb.

Cood cracious!!

*smirk*

Crace is the new Offal.

Hingo, you’ve got a good point there – the Crace exchange in Mitchell is massively overloaded. It was originally designed for Mitchell, and now struggles with all of Gungahlin. But Telstra refused to upgrade the exchange because why spend money on infrastructure when you need to inflate your bottom line for share floats?
The Watson development area suffers the same problems – too far from the exchange (Civic) to get any decent broadband connection.

The dis-crace-ful telephone exchange that keeps me from getting broadband. Yes, thats right Mr Standope.

I cracefully smirk at your post.

You’re a dis-crace.

I’m opening a book on when any of our local publications trot out a ‘Crace under fire’ or ‘Crace under pressure’ headline, possibly on the flimsiest of pretences. ‘Amazing Crace’. Or if there’s a waterway therein, ‘By the Crace of Cod’.