Andrew Barr's Vision

it isn’t a path to affordable inner north living for gen y, it is a path to votes from gen y who think someone is on their side – that’s the jack w interpretation.

“Jack Waterford sees the agenda as getting Gen X and Y to vote for Andrew Barr, as their housing affordability champion.”

Crikey . . . is Custer comma General G C fullstop doing strategy for Labor now?

I think you’re right about the situation for Xs, sepi. But, if what JW has said about it is true, then the Minister needs better advice. What he proposes is not a path to affordable housing for Gen X. Besides, If I wanted my kiddie to grow up in apartment-type living, we may as well move to New York (where we couldn’t afford it either).

It’s stupefying no matter the angle you view it from.

Jack Waterford sees the agenda as getting GEn X and Y to vote for Andrew Barr, as their housing affordability champion.

I think he might get some Gen Ys with this, but most Gen Xs are firmly in the Mortgage/2.4 kids/ cat in the backyard territory. I suppose he is Gen X so he had to go for that age group.

“Density done right produces an outcome hundreds of times better than suburban sprawl as we currently do it.” And “What would you rather see, better parks, schools and public transport in existing areas or 4 lanes of new freeway off to some new suburban dormitory?”

Yes, arescarti, density done right does yield results. But, what I’d rather see (if I was honest and since the Minister evoked Griffin) are four lanes of new freeway off to a new suburban civic centre, with better schools, better parks, better shops and better public transport supporting it. I mean . . . that’s not rocket science, that’s Belgium (or Holland, or France, or Germany). It’s also Griffin’s picture of Belco, Woden, Tuggers, Gunkers. Minister Barr distorts the Griffin legacy to suit a different picture and purpose, which is most regrettable (like I said, the man ain’t no qualified town planner).

And to be fair, silentforce, that’s a bit of a low blow. I understand where it comes from, but . . . you know. Let me chance a view here. I can imagine Andrew the younger being raised in a typical Canberra household (public service parents yada yada). Where it goes off the rails (and this isn’t specific to the Minister, but rather some / most / all political party operatives) is when the political activism starts at uni. What you end up with is quality knowledge untempered by remote or poor or disconnected experience (and by experience I mean first hand experience). Quality Knowledge without quality experience is of significantly lesser value than even rudimentary knowledge gained from poor experience. Our political ‘leaders’ have — since somewhat formative times in more recent eras — developed their world view in a quasi vacuum and with tainted and coloured inputs. They have an incomplete picture of the world. It’s as if it is a certain hue. It’s also the party way.

I don’t imagine the Minister to be selfish, but I recognise the language and the imagery as that of the belligerent Labor operative (and that’s first hand experience speaking). It’s almost purile. Certainly it’s snide. It’s a cheap swipe at those even remotely opposed that makes no effort at building consensus. Its operation actually reinforces cognitive dissonance. And every enunciation thereafter is a veiled escalation. Anyone with reasonable discourse analysis skills (probably students of Foucault) would see right through the words spoken by the Minister and into the true agenda. Bloody sure I have.

if they want us all in units then they really need to provide fantastic community spaces.

a library on the kingston foreshore would have been fantastic.

hey – and at dickson we could have mini-golf, a fun fair and a planetarium….just like weused to have til they got re-zoned for units…..

Well, I read it. He needs a better speech writer.

I find these continual claims that people want to live in flats and townhouses strange. A straw poll of my friends – mostly inner north Gen Y latte drinkers – seems to suggest that they want a quarter acre block close to the city, but due to the seven figure price tag, will move to the outer suburbs, rather than stay in a shitty one-beddy. I would love to see the Government’s research that backs up their claims that people will actually stay in ‘apartments and townhouses’.

I was trying to figure out if Mr Barr practices what he preaches and lives in a flat or townhouse, but according to the statement of registrable interests (http://www.parliament.act.gov.au/members/interests/bar10.pdf), Mr Barr does not own any real estate (I didn’t bother looking at how often this needs to be updated, but he claims to be a first home owner…).

And for those who don’t have the time or inclination to read it, here is Mr Barr’s vision for Canberra in 2030:

Canberra as a city of ideas, a city of reform.
Australia’s most liveable and vibrant modern city.
A city where every person has a home.
And where every household – no matter what its make-up – is valued, respected and included.
A city with a diversified economy built on unlimited growth of intellectual capital.
A city which leads the world in sustainable design and planning.
And a city where the apartment or townhouse is just as accepted as the quarter acre block.

Hey Andrew

Was there a Mr and Mrs Barr? Or were you conceived in a vacuum inside a test tube that happened to be located in Canberra as part of some experiment?

If you had ‘parents’ what plans did they have for their offspring? What sort of environment did they tell you they hoped you would grow into? Did they intentionally raise you to be selfish and infect the rest of the community by stealth or as a ‘sleeper’ for Labor?

The deal with the Griffith Library was that it was going to be closed, and to compensate, a new one would be included in the Kingston foreshore development.

Well, they closed the Library, and then realised they’d make more money by leaving the new library out of the Kingston foreshore.

But who cares? Libraries are for old people and people with children, so why would Barr care?

Barr’s speech is a logically-fallacious, low-brow, anti-intellectual insult to our intelligence, just like everything else the morons in ACT politics produce.

“There might be no tide in Lake Burley Griffin, but we can’t do a King Canute. ”
Huh? Has this idiot made it all the way through three levels of formal education without ever being taught who was King Cnut?
No surprise he’s pitching this arrant nonsense at Canberra’ premier non-University…

sepi said :

Why does poor old Dickson get lumped in with the inner circle of the city. Why not include O’connor, Ainslie, Lyneham etc?

…

Or is it because Dickson is mostly ex-govvie houses, on medium sized blocks, wned by average people. RE-developing O’Connor might be a bit harder to push through. Poor old dickson doesn’t have those streets full of really expensive mansionss owned by influential people who might lobby more effectively against poorly planned development.

Like to see this sent in to free up a bit of space for affordable housing in red Hill, Barton, O’Connor…

I-filed said :

Short-termism.

A long-term approach would recognise that Canberra should keep its unique “garden city” centre and keep development to a little further out – other than perhaps Aranda with its special character. No, this is not just nimbyism. Think of say Paris – the centre of Paris is magical because it’s carefully preserved. You can maintain an illusion that Paris ends at those old city walls, and ignore the high-rise housing if you wish. Ditto old towns in Mexico – ns many other places. And who would call Paris staid and frozen in time?

That’s an interesting call on Paris that I agree with entirely. The centre of Paris is very dense but makes up for it by having beautiful, high quality open spaces and jardins that everyone uses. Couple this with the second most used public transport systems in the world (after the Moscow subway for the trivia buffs), and it is extremely livable and a great place to raise kids as well as be single or childless (gay or not).

I assume that you do not consider that Paris has high rise but that the heights and densities that they have in Paris are quite acceptable. I would suggest that if we had half the heights and densities that Paris has in a place like Dickson (RZ2 and RZ3 anyone?), it will still be far too much for many people – and the majority of posters on this forum. If this kind of density cannot happen in Dickson (a nice walk or a short ride to employment centres) where can it happen? I can’t wait for the trades area of Braddon to get going with the increased density – it will be awesome to walk along there in a few years with a local population supporting the diverse businesses that spill out on to Lonsdale Street.

Spend the money made from the developers on making Haig Park a great space like Glebe Park is becoming. Give us open areas to use that are looked after and provide well for the community rather than heaps of dry grassland areas that are litter strewn and filled with poorly maintained trees and facilities. I would rather have Black Mountain Peninsula, Weston Park, Tidbinbilla, etc, as good as John Knight Memorial Park in Belconnen. Or Kambah Adventure Playground returned to its former glory.

One final note on Paris – everything that has been retained in Paris is of a particularly high quality. The crap stuff gets reworked and the low density stuff is virtually non-existent save for a few outstanding buildings. Less than 200 years ago, Paris looked very different to the way it looked today. It took an aggressive planner in Haussmann, a very forceful approach by Napoleon III and many private developers acting in partnership with the State (extending to State support for finance) to transform Paris into the beautiful city it is today. If you exclude its peripheral gardens, modern Paris is the most dense city in the world – twice as dense as Tokyo, three times inner-London and 2.5 times New York (note that Manhattan is but a mere borough of New York).

Be careful what you wish for. One of the methods used was compulsory acquisition of property (I am not sure that they believed in market value for this) from those who stood in the way of the Haussmann plan. . . .

The real issue is the scale of density (is that an expression?) Anyway, replace one house with, say, a triple or quad occupancy townhouses and hardly anyone would complain. A few two story unit developments that dont take up the whole block and same thing. But replace one house with 8 units stetching across the entire block; or more commonlly 16-20 units across two blocks as a solid wall, and its an issue.

Its easy to say ‘oh, but the land values’. But if you dont want to move, or you dont want to cough up the $30k+ in moving costs (including stamp duty, selling fees etc), or you have a good quality house you have spent a lot of time and money on which now is worth far less (because who wants to live in a good house overlooked by a lot of units) – then it not only affects your amenity but your wealth.

Really the only winners, apart from the developers, are people with crappy investment properties that are hardly worth anything and who get the full benefit of the land value increase. For everyone else, they get less but for higher rates.

I forgave Barr for the schools closure fiasco, cos I figured he was new in the job and just finishing off a mess someone else made. Now I’m not so sure.

On the schools thing – our preschool was on the closure list. Now it is over full and kids in the local suburb can’t get in.

I don’t see how apartments through Dickson will mean better parks and schools. Infil will also not stop Canberra growing outwards. And it is not true that inner suburbs in all cities become freeways.

areaman said :

It’s amazing how much homophobia (implicit or explicit) comes up every time Andre Barr says anything.

I don’t think anyone’s scared of him…

We can try to resist it, or we can embrace change to make Canberra what we want to be

Yeah, like putting 2m high security fences around all the schools which the Minister has been defending recently as the “new world order”. His solution for Hughes residents was to suggest the newly-renovated Eddison Park… somehow near enough is supposed to be good enough?!? Barr is so obviously not a parent with primary school age kids.

I so want Canberra of the future to be like that… NOT! With higher density living and infill etc, public open space is going to be needed more not less.

WillowJim said :

Dickson, Woden, Turner, Reid and Braddon should be mostly medium density (even high density) within 20 years.

Why does poor old Dickson get lumped in with the inner circle of the city. Why not include O’connor, Ainslie, Lyneham etc? You can’t even really walk to the city from Dickson. Not to mention Dickson is riddled with schools and already has a traffic congestion problem – seems an odd choice for wall to wall apartments.

Or is it because Dickson is mostly ex-govvie houses, on medium sized blocks, wned by average people. RE-developing O’Connor might be a bit harder to push through. Poor old dickson doesn’t have those streets full of really expensive mansionss owned by influential people who might lobby more effectively against poorly planned development.

I guess I should have clarified, people have every right to be concerned about the way suburbs are developed, but opposing density for the want of preserving the status quo is stupid when population growth makes preserving the status quo impossible.

Density done right produces an outcome hundreds of times better than suburban sprawl as we currently do it.

I find it funny that some people seem to think that it is densification that will kill the amenity and garden city nature of Canberra.

If new housing is restricted to the suburban fringe, then Canberra will end up like most other Australian capitals with long commutes and congested freeways cutting through formerly scenic inner areas.

If new housing goes in existing areas then not only is accessibility and amenity maintained, but a whole lot of new tax base in these areas can facilitate greater and more focused infrastructure spending.

What would you rather see, better parks, schools and public transport in existing areas or 4 lanes of new freeway off to some new suburban dormitory? Urban densification will be the thing that saves Canberra.

+1 for sepi @ # 12 – it kinda sounds like something a junior clerk might have drafted up in the Real Estate Institute in the vague hope of being rather jolly amusing. Maybe there isn’t always some inherent value in everything just because it has been around a while. But neither is there anything all that inherently valuable in the cheaply built, ugly, cramped little units that are going up all around Civic, Kingston and Woden – with their many bits that leak, crack, fall off and are generally pretty stuffed not too long after you sign the contract. Round here a couple of blocks sold recently for around $400k, and were replaced by eight tiny units, each costing around the same amount – reckon we can all work out where the motivation is. Maybe I am past Barr’s use-by date too, but I wouldn’t mind a bit of Government working to ensure proper planning and building practices, not playing (very badly) the PR flunky for the developers !

I want it to be like the public service town it was in the 70s.

So do it Barr, or bugger off to Sydney.

(Can I say bugger around Barr?)

Barr’s strategic plan to nowhere is destroying what people love about Canberra. Everyone knows Canberra’s best days were before self-government. Any government that aspires to get back to that vision of making Canberra the jewel of Australia will get my vote.

I’d just like to add, that while I am a resi of Tuggers, I totally support the Dickson community’s stance against daft planning and infill. I would hate it to happen to me. If I could, I would move forthwith to somewhere regional (like Canberra USED to be when it was paradise).

Short-termism.

Barr needs developer money as it’s pretty much the government’s only revenue base.

A long-term approach would recognise that Canberra should keep its unique “garden city” centre and keep development to a little further out – other than perhaps Aranda with its special character. No, this is not just nimbyism. Think of say Paris – the centre of Paris is magical because it’s carefully preserved. You can maintain an illusion that Paris ends at those old city walls, and ignore the high-rise housing if you wish. Ditto old towns in Mexico – ns many other places. And who would call Paris staid and frozen in time?

Very careful development along the above lines is the way forward for tourism, creative industries, and Canberra’s long-term economic future.

Unfortunately, too much “democratisation” of housing can lead to blandness and mediocrity. I don’t mind Forrest – I’ll never be able to afford to live in one of those big houses, but I’m happy that they are there and rich people are looking after them. We do need to be cautious of the development of gated communities, where you don’t get to pass by and enjoy people’s superb gardens.

Barr, with his vested interest and desperate need for infill dollars, is not the right person to be making this call on behalf of Canberrans. He is about to wreak a lot of thoughtless damage on this town. We should be listening to the environmentalists, the historians, the landscape planners ahead of Barr on this issue.

Barr is an embarrassment. After the last election, Stanhope and Gallagher made a point of saying that they had learned a lesson from the electorate about the value of community consultation. One of the main reasons was the shambolic closing of schools by Barr.

He has learned nothing about respecting the views of people adversely affected by his decisions, and has learned nothing about the value of having the community on side.

How I wish we didn’t have 4-year elections, so we can turf these losers out before they do more untold damage.

And the Greens are useless at reigning Barr in. (And I’m a Greens/Labor voter – a plague on both their houses.)

I, too, have no stake in this, but I’ve noted that Barr has been badly verballed by some residents, especially the Dickson group. He’s never called for wholesale redevelopment of suburbs.

Dickson, Woden, Turner, Reid and Braddon should be mostly medium density (even high density) within 20 years. Even sooner, given the housing crisis. As much as I enjoy those parts of Turner and Reid that remain the domain of quarter-acre blocks and beautiful old trees, the people who live there are sitting on million-dollar-plus properties that are ineffective uses of important, central land in a fast-growing city.

Bang on, sepi . . . exactly

I didn’t grow up here and, as such, hold no ‘nostalgic notions of climbed trees’. But, I chose to move here some years back (6 now) in large measure because of the amenity of the place. Prior to that, though, I lived in places that were, or had, experienced the sort of urban infill / renewal / gentrification that has been the subject of recent discussion (particularly with resepct to Dickson). I’d suggest to the Minister that it’s a case of ‘careful what you wish for’ (and, after all, the man ain’t no qualified town planner).

What has been irritating to me about the debate is the prevelance of a sub text suggesting that my views (and those similarly disposed) are defective, simply because I choose to live in circumstances that provide my 4 year old son with an amenity or living environment that I would wish for him. Or that I (and others) are luddites because of some questioning and interrogation of the type of development taking place. It also seems to me that those views and efforts have to be swept aside in order to meet the desires of those who currently do not reside in, say, Dickson, but who wish they affordably could do so (with single unit development being the answer). I want, I want, I want. The Minster’s ‘Gen X’ in charteristic cry (not you, sepi).

I’m already sick of the used car yards that used to be the footpaths neighbouring where I live, because the residents of the multi-(single bedroom) unit dwelling next door have their possessions in the garage (no room in the unit, see) and, thus, nowhere for their two vehicles (per unit) to otherwise park. And as for affordability . . . there’s a single bedroom unit next to my abode for sale right now. It’s a year old and a mere snip at around $470,000-00. Then again, once supply exceeds demand and the amenity of the area plummets, that value might be rendered more affordable, ey?

The Minster would be well advised to go take a study tour to places like Cathedral Place in Brisbane, or in its immediate environs. Maybe the old Chair of the Urban Renewal Task Force up there can give him some pointers as well.

It’s not about keeping things in glass bowls or retaining memories. In fact for some, the sucess of this ‘project’ will neccessitate many having to contribute to the continuation of urban sprawl in order to provide a standard of amenity they wish for themselves and their family. I currently rent, so am very vulnerable to the driverless train of development.

In short . . . bugger off, yuppie. I got here first.

We had a great deal of this sort of stupidity in the UK, especially in the mid 60’s to mid 70’s. A lot of valuable heritage was smashed and replaced with concrete ugliness, (think; “Callam offices”) in the name of “moderinsation” and “progress”.

Once it’s gone you cannot get it back.

Barr is an idiot.

Where’s the homophobia??

Property values are not of huge interest if you aren’t planning to sell up.

Being unable to get out your driveway, get a park at the shops, or even drive through the streets at peak hour gridlock are not such bonuses.

Andrew suggests crowded suburbs will get increased public transport – where is it then??

pollyanna said :

Ah, the profound Andrew, leading us into a new era…

>”The Canberra where every shop shut its doors at midday on Saturday?”

Andrew is flat out 44 days a year sweating over new legislation but is happy for the surfs to be there when he needs a latte. What public holidays will the latte serving surfs get this year Andrew, as compared to MLA’s?.

What an ignorant speech, the new Canberra can tax the poor looking for affordable housing to send the honourable Andrew Barr (and probably his partner) to China for a BS marketing trip.

Yes it is a new era Andrew, the age of the self interested arsehole MLA living off developers bounty.

It wasn’t that long ago, I remember coming here in the early mid eighties and not being able to buy anything on a Saturday afternoon. Yes, it was crap.

What a load of cr&p.

I am Gen X and I don’t agree with any of it.

Andrew Barr really seems to hate anyone who is not single or double-income-no-kids.

I don’t know if they have offered him a promotion to go tough on inner north residents, or if the developers have got to him somehow. Or if he doesn’t plan to have kids and thus hates anyone who does.

But he should remember he was elected by the general community, not just the childless, mortgage-free apartment dwellers.

I have never heard anyone in Dickson oppose a unit block because they used to climb a tree 50 years ago. It is more due to losing their sunshine, having crowds of people peering into their backyards, and suddenly finding their tiny streets practically blocked off due to bumper to bumper street parking.

Surely even Andrew doesn’t actually believe this rubbish he is spouting.

If he really wants all of Dickson to become units, he needs to openly rezone the whole lot, and be honest about it, instead of just picking on existing residents.

It’s amazing how much homophobia (implicit or explicit) comes up every time Andre Barr says anything.

back on subject, I don’t agree with a lot of what he says, especially when he was running education, but he’s right here. The fact is that places like Dickson are changing, but some residents what to keep it in a glass bowl, as it was in their memories. They are fine with the increase in property values that come from living in a more cosmopolitan, central area, but want the model of density and settlement to be the same as it was when they bought 30 years ago.

OMG thanks Johnboy .. I will never trust you again

I need to get premuim membership so I can retract

I will be arsed…let’s allow gay marriage and we can all get on with our lives

I would like to go through point by point, but I can’t be arsed.

Ah, so all the bad planning decisions made in Canberra were actually good ones, I am just too caught up in the way it used to be to realise?

Ah, the profound Andrew, leading us into a new era…

>”The Canberra where every shop shut its doors at midday on Saturday?”

Andrew is flat out 44 days a year sweating over new legislation but is happy for the surfs to be there when he needs a latte. What public holidays will the latte serving surfs get this year Andrew, as compared to MLA’s?.

What an ignorant speech, the new Canberra can tax the poor looking for affordable housing to send the honourable Andrew Barr (and probably his partner) to China for a BS marketing trip.

Yes it is a new era Andrew, the age of the self interested arsehole MLA living off developers bounty.

Translation: Just because something gives you a nostalgia trip doesn’t mean the government gives a damn.

It’s an interesting concept cast in that light.

It’s quite common in the environment policy sphere, where highly urbanised communities place significant social values upon places they will never visit (let alone be able to point to them on a map).

I’ve got no particular stake in this debate, but even I have to say: Strawman much?