Pesec calls for halt to ACT Government's apartment plans for West Basin

Well there goes any chance I had of voting for this guy.

“Public meeting after public meeting has called for an end to this ill-judged proposal to fill in part of the Lake, one of the most recognisable and loved features of our national capital”

Public meetings filled with a tiny minority of self selected NIMBY’s who don’t want to see anything happen on empty and vastly unused land unless it solely benefits themselves.

Also a wildly ironic statement from Pesec talking about a lake foreshore that’s only 50 years old. Perhaps we should go back to the river, which was also one of the most loved features of our city before development and progress created the lake.

The government has produced a strategy that says they will delink parking from commercial development and not require apartments to have a minimum number of parking spaces. The people living here will be absolutely dependent on walking, cycling or public transport, so you would want to be sure major shops are extremely convenient.
If you want to visit the area from outside, you will be dependent on the same ways of getting in. I don’t think it will be viable to bring your kayak in on public transport. Of course, the government closed the boat and surf ski hire place a few years ago, so usage has decreased in recent times.
In the government’ strategy, they claim they will increase canopy from 19% to 30%. This won’t be done by protecting treed areas such as West Basin but will instead be lining roads and cycleways. The government describes the treed areas as “underutilised”. Beware any clumps of trees, they are a waste of space which are better used for apartments.
Floriade is likely to become unviable in its current location due to the reduction of nearby parking. Required used of public transport will not be popular with tourists. This is likely the real driver why they want to relocate Floriade.
The balloon festival is likely to become unviable due to the need to go up to 1000ft if within 300m a populous area. That’s a significant chunk of the basin and means balloons have decreased flight path options.

It may well be that this proposal would result in another distinctly sub-optimal development, and that people who know and care about the “Burley Griffin Vision”, heritage and environmental values etc. will be disappointed at best, and mortified at worst, by what would result from it – but a little city council/regional government which was set up on the assumption that it would be heavily reliant on land sales (and which has fewer taxing options than larger and more economcally diverse jurisdictions) has to get the money from somewhere.

With the latter issue in mind, the best thing an independent Senator for the ACT could do would be to press for a parliamentary inquiry into the medium/longer term fiscal viability of the ACT – and options for addressing a fairly obvious trajectory, particularly if there are to be relatively strict “national interest” limits on further development.

With even more pressing signs about the fiscal viability of the NT, and to some extent, Tasmania, some strategic action in the Senate on this question would be timely and of broader relevance.