3 September 2013

Lawson finally kicks off

| johnboy
Join the conversation
22
lawson

Andrew Barr has announced the long delayed development of Lawson is getting started after all that unpleasantness with the PCB’s left over by the Navy:

Set on 100 hectares, Lawson will have a mix of about 1850 low, medium and higher density dwellings, and include a small retail centre and community facilities.

Almost half of the suburb will be reserved as public open space including Reservoir Hill, Lake Ginninderra foreshore and the College Creek corridor. And, the historic Old Travelling Stock Route, which ran through the site, will be maintained as a distinct path through the use of landscaping, footpaths and interpretive signs.

Lawson is centrally located, being within 2.5km of the Belconnen Town Centre, 7km to Civic and with the University of Canberra, Bruce CIT, Calvary Hospital, Canberra Stadium, the AIS and Lake Ginninderra all close by.

Work will start on the first stage of the development this month, with the initial lots expected to go on sale at the end of this year, and it is anticipated that construction of homes will commence by the end of 2014.

The first lots to be sold will include 124 single residential blocks and 12 multi-unit sites, for the development of up to 560 dwellings.

As with most land in the ACT there are contaminants that need to be remediated. There is asbestos associated with the reservoirs that were previously located on the top of Reservoir Hill and also the pipes which ran from the reservoir. There was also the illegal dumping of building waste which probably occurred during the construction of surrounding suburbs.

The site is also home to around 120 eastern grey kangaroos. They are being monitored by the Environment and Sustainability Directorate and their grazing area and travel paths are being retained.

map

Join the conversation

22
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

LSWCHP said :

poetix said :

poetix said :

I wonder what Henry Lawson would think of the suburb?

You know Poetix, I think it’s time for a suburb called Morant.

After all, he was a contemporary of Lawson and Patterson, and every bit as talented at writing…

Street straight, you bastards! But he’s never been officially rehabilitated, has he?

This is an interesting one by Lawson about being a ‘second class’ citizen: http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/lawson-henry/second-class-wait-here-0022028

Errmmm…I think he told them to shoot straight, rather than urging them to construct straight streets as may be found in Washington and more conventionally planned cities.

Still, if you’re going to have a Freudian slip while discussing the construction of a new suburb, then that’s the slip to have. 🙂

Especially as it was a deliberate joke, my dear!

poetix said :

poetix said :

I wonder what Henry Lawson would think of the suburb?

You know Poetix, I think it’s time for a suburb called Morant.

After all, he was a contemporary of Lawson and Patterson, and every bit as talented at writing…

Street straight, you bastards! But he’s never been officially rehabilitated, has he?

This is an interesting one by Lawson about being a ‘second class’ citizen: http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/lawson-henry/second-class-wait-here-0022028

Errmmm…I think he told them to shoot straight, rather than urging them to construct straight streets as may be found in Washington and more conventionally planned cities.

Still, if you’re going to have a Freudian slip while discussing the construction of a new suburb, then that’s the slip to have. 🙂

milkman said :

Be very interesting to see how it is priced.

The suburb looks like a carbon copy of the eastern part of Bruce, so gather prices will be pretty much the same.

Izzyduck said :

I think that you might find this is Lawson South – being developed by the Land Development Agency. Lawson North is the former Belconnen Naval Transmitting Station, owned by the Department of Defence.

Is Lawson South going to be the actual suburb name, or is it just a marketing device like Gleneagles and Harcourt Hill? I can’t see why they wouldn’t just leave the whole area as Lawson.

poetix said :

I wonder what Henry Lawson would think of the suburb?

You know Poetix, I think it’s time for a suburb called Morant.

After all, he was a contemporary of Lawson and Patterson, and every bit as talented at writing…

Street straight, you bastards! But he’s never been officially rehabilitated, has he?

This is an interesting one by Lawson about being a ‘second class’ citizen: http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/lawson-henry/second-class-wait-here-0022028

breda said :

c-c ‘s chemophobia is more to be pitied than condemned. How he/she could bear to live in places that have had all kinds of human activity on them for centuries, even millenia, is difficult to comprehend.

c-c, stay away from Europe, Asia, North America, large parts of South America and Africa, and most inhabited islands. They’re all CONTAMINATED!

Someone doubted the claim the media release made, I stated it was plausible.

Where your getting the inference that the presence of land needing remediation if it is to be disturbed, equals a hazard to health under normal circumstances is frankly bemusing.

c-c ‘s chemophobia is more to be pitied than condemned. How he/she could bear to live in places that have had all kinds of human activity on them for centuries, even millenia, is difficult to comprehend.

c-c, stay away from Europe, Asia, North America, large parts of South America and Africa, and most inhabited islands. They’re all CONTAMINATED!

Sadly, the billions of people who live in these places just don’t understand the time-bomb they are sitting on, even as their life expectancy increases. Ha ha! You’ll get the last laugh, when they start growing extra limbs and digits, right?

Sheesh.

Any chance of building a pedestrian/cyclist bridge over the lake to connect with the bike path that goes around the western side of the lake, joining up where that seat is? It’d make a nice walk/ride around the north part of the make.

That’s interesting, the Giralang side remains Commonwealth land – will that land also be remediated of any contaminants

LSWCHP said :

And I’m grinning at “As with most land in the ACT there are contaminants that need to be remediated”. That’s a truly masterful piece of “Maaaate….don’t worry about the deadly toxic hazard,” spin.

Seriously, if most (ie greater than 50%) of the land in the ACT is contaminated in some way then I’ll eat my turban.

No doubt Lawson had contamination on a very significant scale., but it’s a plausible claim. I happen to know that some of the most prime land in central Canberra, land that would be a huge windfall if sold to developers, is so heavily contaminated, that the powers that be would rather redevelop the city centre than fork out to remediate it.

Most suburbs would have some informal dumps underneath them, and there’s a couple of areas where industrial use was abandoned that are likely to be contaminated. Before Tuggeranong was built, they had to remediate a lot of the land because the RAAF had bombed the crap out of it during WWII for practice.

Then there’s the little things. Termite treatments beneath homes traditionally used organo-chlorides like Dieldrin, and electrical and telecoms infrastructure used PCBs and asbestos among other things.

I wonder what Henry Lawson would think of the suburb?

LSWCHP said :

No doubt in keeping with modern practice, each block of land will be about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, with the pricey ones being A3 sized. And the roads will be wide enough to allow two small children to pass each other on their bikes, but no wider.

Yep. Another mini-Gungahlin in the making i bet.

justsomeaussie2:58 pm 03 Sep 13

Is there a higher resolution resolution picture of the proposed layout than the one above? I can’t find any on the LDA websites.

LSWCHP said :

Seriously, if most (ie greater than 50%) of the land in the ACT is contaminated in some way then I’ll eat my turban.

I imagine that the asbestos-containing houses push the associated blocks into the “contaminated land” category. That would be a fair whack of the available land being “contaminated”.

No doubt in keeping with modern practice, each block of land will be about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, with the pricey ones being A3 sized. And the roads will be wide enough to allow two small children to pass each other on their bikes, but no wider.

And I’m grinning at “As with most land in the ACT there are contaminants that need to be remediated”. That’s a truly masterful piece of “Maaaate….don’t worry about the deadly toxic hazard,” spin.

Seriously, if most (ie greater than 50%) of the land in the ACT is contaminated in some way then I’ll eat my turban.

I realise it used to be Defence land but I’m disappointed it doesn’t take up a much larger area. Was hoping for bike paths and parkland etc right through that whole area.

Plus Lawson will have local shops before Giralang does!

milkman said :

Be very interesting to see how it is priced.

Guaranteed to be extremely expensive.

I think that you might find this is Lawson South – being developed by the Land Development Agency. Lawson North is the former Belconnen Naval Transmitting Station, owned by the Department of Defence.

milkman said :

Be very interesting to see how it is priced.

Well depends on what price the market will take, but i’m guessing it will not be cheap by any standard.

Be very interesting to see how it is priced.

Madam Cholet1:22 pm 03 Sep 13

Robertson said :

That will be good timing: Abbott gives us a recession and the ACT government releases a new suburb.

Sell! Sell! Sell!

Plenty of labouring jobs for ex public servants then.

Holden Caulfield12:50 pm 03 Sep 13

I remember this being talked about 20 years ago!

That will be good timing: Abbott gives us a recession and the ACT government releases a new suburb.

Sell! Sell! Sell!

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.