Molongolo Valley Protest

$$$ will of course determine who goes there – Canberra has a pretty low vacancy rate and a competitive (delusional) housing market.
A decent sized development of affordable houses would quickly get taken up, without a new soul moving to Canberra, but no doubt their price will be pushed up by the land release price (which wont be flattened by a complete lack of services)

Where are all the people going to come from?

Given our insane real estate prices I have no doubt they’ll find buyers for the new properties.

Thumper, build a dragway and they will come!

I can’t argue with any of your points Maelinar…all fair. With the exception perhaps of “The residences, unfortunately, will be constructed in the slap-happy manner that most modern houses are built”. My family owns & runs one of the largest house building companies in Canberra, I can personally vouch for the high quality of their work, as can hundreds of their (non family member) clients.

“Agreed” on your other points though & they are a much stronger argument against this development than some half arsed environmental concerns.

While I don’t contest the ecological disaster that is placing a city upon a natural wilderness, my only query to these developments has been are these developments necessary in the first place ?

Apart from importing a whole lot of people into the country to fill these vacant houses, just where are these people coming from who are meant to be living here ?

I think the economy has been propped up by the building industry for a long time now, and unfortunately, it takes a little bit of time for the steamroller to stop, but I still can’t see these houses being occupied for a long time to come.

I was also at enough places on this weekend to justify solid planning needs to go into the construction of the infrastructure out there (if it is going to be built).

What is necessary:

1. Coppins Crossing extended to dual lane highway
2. Coppins Crossing bridge built properly – dual lane as well.
3. Wide roads – don’t do another Gungahlin.
4. A community police officer presence.
5. Vital infrastructure underground as often as possible (power etc).

The requirement for wide roads is pretty simple; our rescue vehicles are big and cumbersome. Over the weekend we had difficulty getting into some of the rabbitwarrens that people are forced to live in.

This weekend also proved that all you need is a high tree to require rescue vehicle support too.

Other than my confidence in this current government being able to plan an effective suburb being in the minuses, and there being no housing requirement (other than Deb Foskey, purchasing her own home) for this area, I don’t really have a problem with it.

The reality of course, is that this government will attempt to build this suburb upon the current infrastructure, which is a single lane road, with a bridge spanning the creek that gets closed when flooded.

On top of that they are going to attempt to cram in residential space for 40,000 new Canberrans, and three seperate business areas, one of which will have a shopping complex the size of Kippax or Woden Plaza.

There will be no emergency service support, including police and fire brigade, because they haven’t ‘factored’ it in, and no school because the Ginninderra superschool is within 5km birds flight of the suburb, although it’s roughly 15km if you take the road, not to mention that 40,000 other people will also be trying to use it at the same time (unless it’s flooding, and then you may as well just stay at home).

The residences, unfortunately, will be constructed in the slap-happy manner that most modern houses are built, due to the housing market boom and the resulting shoddy construction shortcuts that have been taken to simply build houses as quickly as possible. I’m guessing that entire boulevards of the same design house will be constructed as well, just to give you that Coronation Street effect as well.

Then because the houses are empty, since residents and tennants have ample to choose from, and to be honest, Ainslie is a much more attractive option than Molongolo Valley, the lowlife scum will move in, and it’ll become bogan valley. Heck, they may as well put the dragway out this way as well, so that the bogans don’t have to drive all the way down to the Airport to check out Shaun’s hotted up monaro.

Then will come TT and Current Affair, as the newly retired public servants who could afford to purchase housing at the time, get on air to complain about bogans smashing up their houses, putting holes in the walls, not paying rent etc.

Oh what a planning disaster this will be…

It is easily avoided:

Where the fuck are the parks ? – parks and recreational facilities are like flypaper to affluent middle and upper classers. Throw in a fountain or two, heck even chuck up a 2003 fires memorial, as long as the water is flowing somewhere near the memorial, people will pay for location.

Where the hell will people go to school, get support from (police, fire), or go to hospital ? – big, fast roads needed to compensate for the lack of building them there.

And finally, building really nice houses, on nice big blocks, with lots of room for gardens and ‘features’, will also bring in more desirable crowds, albeit as it’s going there will be stiff competition from the already developed areas of Canberra due to our declining population.

[/end rant]

Mael,

Most of these wankers enede up at Maggies when we were there. The protest was raising concerns about riding areas and protecting the three toed moo-moo wearing single mother from bangladesh that is seen in the area on a full moon.

About as helpful as superglue in your undies.

Whilst I’m sure that some (or even all) of these concerns have some validity…the simple fact is that we live in our nations capital..it’s a city. The whole place INCLUDING most of the trees growing in the area is foreign. The environment has already been altered here forever. It’s why I can’t care about things like the GDE, or this valley development. It’s a city, the environment suffers. We all live here, we’ll get over it.

There are untouched pieces of wilderness in this country under constant threat. It’s why I say “pick your battles”. For example, at the same time the NSW state Government was destroying old growth forest only 1 hour south of Canberra…they were erecting guards around trees in a park in the CBD of Sydney “for envionmental protection”. Ummmmm…wrong.

There were a few notifications flying about the bulletin boards here at work. The person posted was concerned about the development impinging on the horse paddocks and riding areas. The follinwg concerns were listed:

**Heritage valus
– Aboriginal heritage sites
– Early European cemetery (Landsend)
– Soldier settlers homes
– Bicentennial National Trail

**Community values
– Support for Riding for the disabled (Pegasus)
– New superschool at Holt
– Health and safety

**Financial considerations – compensation of existing lessees

**Environmental considerations
– Previous Environmental Impact Study was against development
– Water Quality in the Murrumbidgee
– Bush Fire risk
– Birds of Prey nesting areas

The summarisation is mine, and I’m not affiliated with the action group in any way, shape or form. More information can probably be obtained by e-mailing the Molonglo Valley Action Group, mvaGroup@gmail.com

Prostesting what? Building anything anywhere? I wonder if they’re prepared to bulldoze their own houses in favour of planting trees on the block instead?

I mean…seriously…no wonder people hate greenies. I’m a self confessed greenie myself…but people… PICK YOUR BATTLES! As for with the GDE..protesting any & all development just makes you look like a bunch of whinging hippies…this does NOT do yur REAL causes any good at all.