19 September 2024

Kowen Forest town centre: unsustainable urban sprawl or visionary planning?

| Ian Bushnell
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Kowen Forest consists of pine plantations and is a recreation area. Will it be the site of a new town centre? Photo: ACT Government.

Is the Canberra Liberals’ plan to bulldoze Kowen Forest and build a new town centre there a bit too “bold and ambitious”?

Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee isn’t going to die wondering after this election campaign. She has thrown everything into this campaign and come out with some surprise announcements that have captured headlines and she hopes the imagination of voters.

Bold has been her byword.

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Promising a stadium at the Acton Waterfront came out of the blue, as did promising a sixth town centre by 2050 for Canberra to cater for 100,000 dwellings of all types, but pointedly, from the Liberals’ perspective, the single blocks that they say Canberrans are clamouring for.

It’s a high-risk, high-reward strategy that sends the message that the Liberals are the party of big ideas and action.

With their town centre plan, the Liberals are also embracing the “vision thing” and telling voters they are thinking long-term about Canberra’s future needs.

But, like the stadium, this big idea is divisive.

The battle lines are drawn: Big Canberra or the compact city?

The national capital that the Griffins conceived was never supposed to be the sprawling, decentralised city that it has become, and the idea of spreading it even further, this time to an eastern sliver of land disconnected from the rest of the city on challenging terrain, will be hard to sell.

However, Kowen has been on the table as a potential development area in the old NCDC days before self-government.

The Kowen Forest itself is a recreation area, although Ms Lee says a pine forest doesn’t really rate in terms of biodiversity. She says the two nearby nature parks will be preserved but that may not be enough for some to say hands off.

The Liberals have turned their backs on the western edge, citing ecological sensitivities but Labor will continue investigations there. Some will argue it makes more sense to find land there if needed, that would still be attached to the urban mass and be within a reasonable distance of the city.

That comes with usual caveats about preserving bushland.

But for Labor, and the Greens in particular, the emphasis is on filling out the Molonglo Valley, Gungahlin and Ginninderry, and sustainably filling in the established suburbs, especially along transport corridors. Eventually, the Commonwealth will unlock the CSIRO Ginninderra land in Canberra’s north.

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Interestingly, the government joint-venture cross-border Parkwood development is not part of Ms Lee’s plans, but West Tuggeranong, subject to a feasibility study, still is.

Greenfield development is costly, especially where the topography is difficult, and requires services and transport connections, something the Barr Government has been increasingly wary of.

But Ms Lee believes returns to the Territory through land sales, rates and taxes will more than cover these costs.

For some, the idea of adding another town centre to a Canberra they see as big enough will be anathema.

Ms Lee will need to continue to make the argument that without it, Canberra will not be able to house itself as the population grows.

A month out from election day, the Liberals now have positioned themselves as the party of change with a distinctly different vision for the future of Canberra.

Light rail curtailed, electric buses, a stadium by the lake and a new town centre by 2050.

It’s a lot for voters to take in. It may depend on just how bold they want to be.

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HiddenDragon9:36 pm 20 Sep 24

“The battle lines are drawn: Big Canberra or the compact city?”

That characterisation would be closer to the truth if it weren’t for the fact that the Liberals are proposing a more permissive approach to RZ1 densification than Labor.

The choice isn’t about “sprawl” or not, it’s about where it will happen.

In much the same way that the ACT government pretends that Canberra runs on 100% renewable electricity, while relying on fossil-fuel generated power from NSW and elsewhere when the renewables can’t do the job, they are pandering to the densification obsessives (and profiteers) by pretending that Canberra can be a compact “15 minute” city (blah blah blah) while sending increasing numbers of Canberra workers across the border in search of housing choices which are not available in the ACT and never will be under Labor/Green planning ideology and revenue gouging.

Thank goodness for the Liberal visionary policy of getting rid of this tinder box. With my 90 years old Grandparents screaming in horror, skies turned black, winds howling, I listened to their terror as they endured the Canberra fire tornado in Chapman. HOW DARE YOU LABOR!

Then, my dear old Aunt and her 89 years old mother were evacuated from Duffy HOMELESS. HOW DARE YOU LABOR.

And Labor/Greens want an Urban Tree Canopy!! ARE THEY MAD? ARE THEY INSANE?

THE CANBERRA FIRE STORM 2003. On behalf of those who died. Those evacuated. Those who lost everything and all the dead animals… LEST WE FORGET.

From that DISASTER came the Urban Fire ACT…. It requires you to clear trees around your property so you can escape. Now the Labor/Greens won’t let you without paying them fines and fees.

FEE, FINE, FO, FUM I smell the blood of the Canberran. Vote these people out and bring back some Liberal common sense. Labor/Greens are NONSENSE!

Andrew Cooke12:23 pm 20 Sep 24

How exactly are the Liberals planning on funding all of this? We have a new stadium, now a new development on land with no infrastructure, no roads, no public transport. All of this for a party promoting less taxes, less rates.

What services are the Liberals cutting to fund their promises?

You realise every Greenfield development starts with little/no infrastructure right?

They will fund it through land sales and ongoing taxes.

The area might be more expensive to service than other areas and infill but it’s not like a satellite development is rare or uncommon. Googong estate is a perfect example just across the border and it’s far smaller than this area.

They are respecting the locals and reducing the kangaroo cull. That’s a kind of cut?

tom anderson4:52 pm 20 Sep 24

The very same way that the Labor Party are funding their promises on the never never and they will start without the $3 plus billion of the tram to Woden

Stephen Saunders11:06 am 20 Sep 24

“Big Canberra or the compact city”. Has the author never heard of ACT Labor’s wet dreams for the so-called Western Edge of 10,000 hectares? Kowen Forest is only half that size.

If Kowen is only half that size, there is no way it will fit 100,000 residents – especially not if they are predominantly on single family plots.

Andrew,
It will easily fit that and more if they actually wanted to develop it, even with detached dwellings.

Average density per dwelling in the ACT is sitting around 2.7, the dwelling density per hectare wouldn’t even need to be that high to fit 200,000 people there.

That doesn’t mean it’s a good/bad idea, but area isn’t an issue.

Fun fact: Pinus Radiata is a declared weed in the ACT.

Bold is good, more housing is good, a change of government will be good

Densification is the key, not another satellite suburb outside of ACT in the middle of the forest, quite literally.

No infrastructure in this area either, no pipes/sewage/power etc.

Change for the sake of change isn’t good at all.
ACT Labor is doing fine and Liberals are incompetent.

Hopefully not as bad as NSW Liberal election deadline fiasco level of incompetence but who knows with this party?

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