Another Plan for Civic, Oh Yes, Another

Terry Snow develped the airport. Who is winning there – he is. WE pay a taxi levy of 2.00 for passing through, busses are not allowed to go there (or it has been made very difficult for them), you have to park to pick people up from the airport (and pay). Nothing in the airport has been built for the public benefit, it is all a money spinner for the owner. No wonder they can’t wait to get their hands on more chunks of Canberra. You can bet there will be hidden costs to the public in this plan.

Actually not all that much:
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Although that may be out of date as I belive the car park nearest the canberra center has been replaced with the big office building for the ATO. leaving little or no above ground parking.

Or more above-ground carpaks that look not unlike gaols, with their vertical bars (I’m referring to the Canberra Centre here). Sadly, I think that’s exactly what we’ll be getting in section 84.

Ditto, last thing we need is another massive, butt ugly mall.

Nicely worded areaman, the skill of a good planning minister is in getting private industry and corporations to pay for all that.

So far the expertise I’ve seen is sadly lacking.

Quoting the closure of one school, while convenient for your argument, hardly compares with the closure of several.

Building unnecessary government buildings, to use your quotes, is like putting lipstick on a pig.

If they’re that desperate for housing, there’s two buildings on either side of the war memorial that have been largely vacant for a while now. I suggest they may like to look there.

My understanding of the situation is they’d give themselves free parking there as well.

both relevant arguments I have to admit I agree with bonfire about the anti hippydrome style complex

My Second paragraph should have the word “currently” in between “there” and “seems”.

First west belco education, the school had an enrolment of 140, but was built for ten times that. It cost a huge amount just to maintain the building, but no one was going there. After a certain point it’s not worth trying to fiddle around the edges, but rather to start from a clean base. Now I don’t know what that point is, but I’m sure the Department of Education looked into it and determined that it was more efficient to build a new state of the art school rather than (to use the venacular of the southern US) putting lipstick on a pig.

In relation to the Civic redeployment, while there seems to be a fair bit of retail activity there if you look at the proposals for the city redevelopment it actually about making Civic a better place to spend time in, not just money. It’s about improving public facilities, creating much needed infrastructure (like a five star hotel and a new conference centre, more office and residential space) and connecting the two halves into a functional, unified civic centre. The thing that you’re not talking about (maybe because you don’t know) is that all these plans aren’t just cost neutral they actually make money for the government, while still giving new facilities and spaces to the public.

You claim that I should be against these plans because they are using my welfare money, but they don’t, they give more money which could be spent on “welfare” (though I don’t agree with one time capital gains being spent on ongoing expenses). Some ambit claim that it’ll cost more money from the territory government shipping people to shop there is not only ridiculously poorly thought and with out any supporting evidence out it shows a critical lack of any understanding of the plans, as they don’t have much of an increase in retail space.

i always thought that a nice square like teh marquis de pombal square in lisbon, with a nice statue or two (actual statues, not arts graduate welded by feminists out of ek holden subframe statues)a fountain and some cafes would suit canberra. they could be fronted by buildings with an identical facade to the melbourne and sydney buildings.

and fuck right off any hyperdome temple of avarice monstrosity. i detest those places.

The plan certainly looks photogenic and progressive. I’m always a big fan of development for this fine city that will bring some more life into the place.

There are, however, two issues that I can see with Mr Snow’s vision:

1. A key element is removing traffic from Vernon Circle. Where will it go? I thought one of the competing plans called for traffic to be tunneled under City Hill, but I see no mention of a thoroughfare here.

2. All of the nice piccies show Canberrans casually strolling along the grand boulevards on sunny days, wearing comfortable, casual clothes. Unfortunately we aren’t blessed with perpetual Spring and Autumn, so I can see those boulevards becoming blistering hot on the 35C+ days, and desolate windy wastelands during the extended and bitter winter.

Also, where’s the monorail? It’s gotta have a monorail!