Call to action! If you think the Lake War Memorials are a shocker ... this is worse!

HenryBG said :

I think Reid/Campbell is an ideal centrally-located area to be building more medium-density housing.

Couldn’t agree more – and building those flats focused on Constitution Ave frontage, and stepping back carefully from Anzac Parade so that the buildings that abut the row of trees (not a valid screen) are not the tallest, but starting low and building up back from the road, would achieve both urban infill AND respect the heritage-values-laden Vista.

I think Reid/Campbell is an ideal centrally-located area to be building more medium-density housing.

Obviously it will be shoddy crap, but that’s builders in Australia for you – nothing new there.

The planning people in this town need to have a long, hard, look at themselves. There have been so few decent developments in recent years, and many, many follies that just do not accord with the ambience of this city.

But will it be a slum?

SELLING FAST – BLETCHLEY PARK MANSION
• Provides more housing choice, penthouse to ground floor. Secure Premises
• Landmark Development that introduces vertical interest and creates a vibrant atmosphere. Hang gliding possibilities from the roof
• Architect designed from open source software adapted by draftsman. Award winning Eastern European builder that has a reputation.
• Intimate lifts that hold six people and re-enforced block & tackle connection points on the roof to enable queen size bed removals
• Marketed by a realtor that knows the game and can talk under wet concrete taking liberties with the truth.
• All apartments have windows that let in light.
• Luxurious balconies for bonsai devotees
• Provides more opportunities for investors interested in negatively gearing. Opportunity to buy off the plan before the DA
• Passive surveillance will decrease crime in precinct. Opportunity to observe lost tourists and throw rocks at them.
• Occupants won’t need car parking space as they are within one kilometre of a bus stop and walking distance to ASIO & Russell. Secure Bicycle space
• Environmentally sustainable plastic sewerage pipes and high quality veneer external finish
• Body corporate already established to ensure bogan behaviour of tenants is minimised and only up-market personality types permitted

OMG, they’re going to let people live in the centre of Canberra — what’s worse, in PRIVATELY DEVELOPED FLATS! Fellow Australians might actually see evidence of human life while pondering those monuments to death along Anzac Parade. Call to action indeed! I join with the OP in wanting to protect Canberra’s heritage and tourist icons — those dusty paddocks and car parks along broad avenues that make Canberra a truly unique national capital (though pictures suggest similar features in Naypyidaw and Pyongyang).

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The OP is so sad. I grew up a couple of blocks away, and Constitution Avenue just about sums up the reason why I and much of my generation left as soon as we could — empty expanses where nothing happened, no one lived outside ‘quiet and well set-back’ bungalows.

Those ‘flats’, as you so quaintly call them, don’t appear to be any taller or any closer to Anzac Parade than the decades-old office building across the road. If it’s okay for people to work in this locality why can’t they eat, sleep, love and cry there? I guess it offends your tidy mind.

But regularly visiting Canberra now for work it’s great to see the town growing and evolving. When possible I walk around the lake in the evening and it gladdens me to see increasing numbers of happy people – many of whom no doubt live in nearby apartments.

People not monuments make a city. The great cities of the world are populated and pulsing – cathedrals, temples and galleries abut dwellings, shops and workshops. It’s the mix that makes it work. I’ll take Paris’s Latin Quarter over Versailles any day.

IMHO that type development along Constitution Avenue is just what Canberra needs.

OP is clearly a drug addled and perhaps mentally ill hermit.
That would certainly explain the incoherent rambling of the post and how the apparently missed the stories on television and print discussing the planned development in detail.

OP needs to calm down.

1. The proposed site is *not* on anzac parade, it is on the street behind it.
2. The site is seperated from anzac parade by a wide stand of trees, a road, and a further tree lined setback on the block itself.
3. In regards to “heritage”, the exisiting site is a mess of weeds and a hodge podge of overgrown shrubs.
4. We need more urban infill, and this ugly block close to the city is an ideal place for it.

It would be very unwise (and a planning no-no) to rely on screening by a row of trees to preserve the vista up Anzac Parade. Eventually those trees will have to be cut down and replaced – and the flats would be there in full naked view until the replacement trees re-grew. If the flats will show when you look up Anzac Parade from anywhere in, say, Reconciliation Walk, then the vista is badly interrupted and they are a bad development.
Clearly the developers are angling for expensive views from the flats – and that isn’t something that should have precedence over the vista and this internationally & historically important place.

Looks OK and I cant see it affecting Anzac Parade in anyway what so ever.

I assume that underground parking will be provided for all owners/tenants cars?

Anyway, as the LDA is looking after this project, I have complete faith that nothing can possibly go wrong, like someone might again forget to include 85 pages in the design and planning legal documents………………………….oh, look out the window, there’s a flying pig!

Looks good to me. the area is a wasteland currently.

I-filed said :

I urge the public to attend the public meeting and make sure these flats are modified so they don’t affect Anzac Parade.

I’ve got a better idea: Go in with an open mind and find out what it actually is you’re ranting against.

My opinion is in between. Flats on Anzac Park sounds fine. Eight stories seems a bit excessive considering that it’s a major landmark and there’s only houses with nice gardens there now.

I fail to see the issue here.

As others have pointed out, the proposed development is located along Anzac Park, not Anzac Parade, and is set back from the Anzac Parade corridor a similar distance to large buildings already in the area. It is also consistent with the Griffin Legacy plan to turn Constitution Avenue in to a major boulevard lined with mixed use development.

On looking at the drawings in the pdf, perhaps go to the consultation and ask for the two blocks of flats adjoining Anzac Pde to be set back even further (perhaps just don’t build those ones?) and perhaps limited to 3 storeys (which doesn’t include basements and attics).

Before going any further, you need to find out who owns the land – is it the ACT or the Commonwealth? If it is the ACT and you really do care, then put in a heritage nomination for the relevant area. If the ACT Heritage Council accepts the nomination, the place then has ‘nominated’ status, and has protection under the ACT Heritage Act.

If the place is Commonwealth land, you will need to find the relevant commonwealth legislation to see what, if any, protection there might be.

I suggest you talk to the National Trust about this. They’ll be across it very quickly and they’ll know whether there is any point in going down the ACT path.

That said, even if the place falls under the ACT Heritage Act, the Heritage Council may not be as assertive in protecting the place as it probably should be.

The “community consultation boards” have a wealth of images – but no mockup of the actual view up Anzac Parade once the buildings are there. That avoidance should serve as a warning – the public need to have visual evidence of what these buildings will look like.

The words on “heritage considerations” are dishonest:
“Section 5 Campbell is not entered on the Commonwealth Heritage List or the National Heritage List, nor is it listed on the ACT Heritage Register.”
NCA and the ACT Government are fully aware that Canberra is being put up for listing on both the National Heritage list AND the World Heritage List. Intangibles such as vistas are crucial heritage values that will be under discussion regardling these proposed listings.

The “heritage statement” prepared by consultants to the NCA ends with this gobbledegook: “the approach to built form, in terms of height, siting and mass, and landscaping will promote a fuller understating of Walter Burley Griffin’s objective for the Municipal Axis as Canberra’s ‘high street’.” – What on earth is that supposed to mean? A block of privately developed flats encroaching on Anzac Parade’s visual values is going to contribute to the Walter Burley Griffin Plan? That spells out that the consultant is simply jumping to the ACT Government’s requirements with a specious statement. The “high street” concept belongs to Constitution Avenue, not up along the side of Anzac Parade.

Please note that the NCA also haven’t made it clear whether they require registration to attend the March 6 consultation, or whether stakeholders can simply turn up.

I-filed said :

Bennop said :

The PDF I see (link below) does not show what you describe. The development is located on Anzac Park the road behind Anzac parade- so they are set well back, similar to the current houses already located further up and down both sides of Anzac Park already. Not that that makes them any good. But you the way you describe it makes it seem like hundreds of flats will line Anzac Parade; which ain’t true.

http://www.lda.act.gov.au/uploads/campbell%20section%205/Community%20Consultation%20Boards%2012%20Nov%202011.pdf

No – look closely – they aren’t set back – the plan has the walls of the apartment blocks right up against the boundary. Furthermore, the height isn’t specified – as there are some 600 luxury flats planned for this block, it will be a TALL building. This will definitely impinge on the sightline up and down Anzac Parade. The flats are not set back – to keep the ambience of Anzac Parade, they would actually have to be set back considerably further than the houses along Anzac Parade, because of their height.
I urge the public to attend the public meeting and make sure these flats are modified so they don’t affect Anzac Parade.

you must be looking at a different drawing. The one on the link to the public consultation does show that it’s not on Anzac parade and it shows the building heights

Firstly, the apartments are on Anzac Park not Anzac parade. There’s a row of huge trees between the two. Not in keeping with the area? So how are they different to the 20m or so tall Anzac park east and west buildings directly across the road? It looks like they’re putting up 3 different options for the development for people to comment on anyway.. But i suppose you will still go with your NIMBY panties in a twist.

On my reckoning, going on the details of the PDF, the blocks fronting Anzac Park would be about 8 stories high. The old ABS building at the end of Anzac Parade/Constitution Ave was 7 stories high.

I-filed said :

Bennop said :

The PDF I see (link below) does not show what you describe. The development is located on Anzac Park the road behind Anzac parade- so they are set well back, similar to the current houses already located further up and down both sides of Anzac Park already. Not that that makes them any good. But you the way you describe it makes it seem like hundreds of flats will line Anzac Parade; which ain’t true.

http://www.lda.act.gov.au/uploads/campbell%20section%205/Community%20Consultation%20Boards%2012%20Nov%202011.pdf

No – look closely – they aren’t set back – the plan has the walls of the apartment blocks right up against the boundary. Furthermore, the height isn’t specified – as there are some 600 luxury flats planned for this block, it will be a TALL building. This will definitely impinge on the sightline up and down Anzac Parade. The flats are not set back – to keep the ambience of Anzac Parade, they would actually have to be set back considerably further than the houses along Anzac Parade, because of their height.
I urge the public to attend the public meeting and make sure these flats are modified so they don’t affect Anzac Parade.

No it doesnt. It shows trees and green space fronting the road.

Top left of the first page of the PDF shows the height of the building.

Once again, the development is not proposed on Anzac Parade- but on Anzac Park which is the road behind Anzac Parade.

Once again, it doesnt mean I think its good- but at least describe it accurately. You do your case no good with exaggerations and misinformation.

Bennop said :

The PDF I see (link below) does not show what you describe. The development is located on Anzac Park the road behind Anzac parade- so they are set well back, similar to the current houses already located further up and down both sides of Anzac Park already. Not that that makes them any good. But you the way you describe it makes it seem like hundreds of flats will line Anzac Parade; which ain’t true.

http://www.lda.act.gov.au/uploads/campbell%20section%205/Community%20Consultation%20Boards%2012%20Nov%202011.pdf

No – look closely – they aren’t set back – the plan has the walls of the apartment blocks right up against the boundary. Furthermore, the height isn’t specified – as there are some 600 luxury flats planned for this block, it will be a TALL building. This will definitely impinge on the sightline up and down Anzac Parade. The flats are not set back – to keep the ambience of Anzac Parade, they would actually have to be set back considerably further than the houses along Anzac Parade, because of their height.
I urge the public to attend the public meeting and make sure these flats are modified so they don’t affect Anzac Parade.

The PDF I see (link below) does not show what you describe. The development is located on Anzac Park the road behind Anzac parade- so they are set well back, similar to the current houses already located further up and down both sides of Anzac Park already. Not that that makes them any good. But you the way you describe it makes it seem like hundreds of flats will line Anzac Parade; which ain’t true.

http://www.lda.act.gov.au/uploads/campbell%20section%205/Community%20Consultation%20Boards%2012%20Nov%202011.pdf

Mad as.

What the? Is this a joke? Anzac Parade is the centerpiece of the parliamentary triangle! Apartment blocks would absolutely ruin it