7 April 2009

Chiefly leader says it's amazing what you can get used to

| johnboy
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The Canberra Times brings word of a need for Belconnenites to familiarise themselves with the sky being blotted out by towering high rises.

    High-rise apartment blocks on Lake Ginninderra and in the Belconnen Town Centre will be a shock at first but people will get used to them, Chief Minister Jon Stanhope says.
    His vision is to increase the density in the Belconnen Town Centre and see more commercial and residential blocks near the water.

    ”I have lived in Belconnen for the last 40 years and I think that first tall building will be confronting. But greater residential reasonably adjacent to the lake is desirable.

Perhaps now is the time to build shade structures blocking the view down to the lake, to accelerate acclimatisation?

Having joked around, I completely support higher density housing around the city’s lakes.

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monomania said :

peterh said :

The residential projects proposed – what is their impact on our declining water supply?

maybe they could build water recycling into the residential sites, pump the lake water in, purify it and pump it to the units, then into the water treatment plant and back to the molonglo. Might bypass the ginninderra creek area, but it wouldn’t impact the overall water levels in our catchments….

Bizarre idea! peterh. How will having people living in a tower in Belconnen have any more impact on water storages than all of them living on individual blocks? The area of garden will be less per person. All this expensive recycling. Why when water can be purchased from irrigators who do better by selling their water entitlements than by using it for irrigation? That is why there is now a viable water market. Have you actually seen how irrigators apply their water. Middle of the day. Hugh sprinkler systems. Low value crops.

depends on the type of tenants. if it is public housing, the usage during the day will be higher. It was TIC, anyway. all these grandiose plans for high density residential, and we don’t have the rainfall to support these new people.

peterh said :

The residential projects proposed – what is their impact on our declining water supply?

maybe they could build water recycling into the residential sites, pump the lake water in, purify it and pump it to the units, then into the water treatment plant and back to the molonglo. Might bypass the ginninderra creek area, but it wouldn’t impact the overall water levels in our catchments….

Bizarre idea! peterh. How will having people living in a tower in Belconnen have any more impact on water storages than all of them living on individual blocks? The area of garden will be less per person. All this expensive recycling. Why when water can be purchased from irrigators who do better by selling their water entitlements than by using it for irrigation? That is why there is now a viable water market. Have you actually seen how irrigators apply their water. Middle of the day. Hugh sprinkler systems. Low value crops.

What a nice photo. The ‘artist’s impression’ photos of SkyThing werejust as nice.

Have a little faith in the capacity of developers to put the aesthetic preferences of the neighbours first. Just a little.

The residential projects proposed – what is their impact on our declining water supply?

maybe they could build water recycling into the residential sites, pump the lake water in, purify it and pump it to the units, then into the water treatment plant and back to the molonglo. Might bypass the ginninderra creek area, but it wouldn’t impact the overall water levels in our catchments….

Government consultation most of the time is just another of their tools to help pacify the masses. Typically they have already made up their mind on some issue, and “consultation” process is totally ignored. Or they cherry-pick some of the points raised that they can act on without changing their real plan so they can point to all these “compromises” they’ve made.

The only time something really changes is when, for whatever reason, public opinion majorly snowballs against them. But this is totally independent from their public consultation process.

Gungahlin Al12:24 pm 07 Apr 09

This Emu Bank site has had an 18-storey zoning limit for some time. So I guess you put aside the debate as to whether that is good or not, because it’s done and dusted, and whatever consultation there was or was not, was ages ago.

This development surfaced a year or so back as “Waterpoint” in a DA asking for 22 storeys. I gave some thoughts about overshadowing of the lake and foreshore, and the zoning provisions to BCC’s then Prez Stephen Bounds, and he lodged a submission using these and other comments. The overall design seemed OK though, with pretty good attention to apssive solar design and efficiency.

The DA was approved only after agreement to drop it to the allowed 18 storeys.

The photo representation in CT today looked much the same as Waterpoint, just with a name change, but it was a distant shot so that may not be correct.

I echo HC’s summation – SkyPlaza=abomination.

I’m in favour of it, but where’s the consultation?

Holden Caulfield11:44 am 07 Apr 09

I reckon the higher density thing is worth giving a go, too. I just hope we don’t end up with something like that SkyTower abomination in Woden. But the chances of that not happening are a million to one he said.

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