So, what sort of city is it we want to be living in?

-1.
The issue is a bit deeper than meeting the demand of a few locals who want massive gardens for their kids to frolick in. The demand for these type of people has easily been met as most suburbs in Tuggeranong, Woden and Belconnen has massive gardens and are very leafy.
There is a lot of demand for higher density living in Canberra as it is the logical and environmental solution. This is not just the case for residential development in Canberra, but also commercial. Think about how much land/damage we’ll be saving if we build a 100 meter tower in Civic rather than a 4 storey building which stretches over hundreds of meters of land in Barton.
If you want your typical suburban dream move to Tuggeranong as areas such as Wanniassa have had negative growth and there are plenty of houses to choose from. Let the rest of us enjoy some higher density living in the places which are receiving very high growth. 🙂

Australianliberalist said :

They should be at least 700sqm so as to allow for a back yard. It is not resonable to expect families to live in units or houses with no yards. You will pay the price on a social level at a latter date if you ignore this need.

Hmmm, families in a lot of other countries make do with significantly less than 400m^2 blocks. Perhaps small blocks aren’t such an unreasonable thing if there is adequate community facilities (i.e. parks, ovals, etc.).

What you say about suburbia is interesting Al, nothing that i really doubt, but a point of view I’ve not often come across. At the very least, public transport is certainly easier to deploy to areas of high density, and higher density settlements tend to have lower energy requirements (especially for transport).

Some interesting graphs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Petrol_use_urban_density.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Revised_petrol_use_urban_density.JP

Another point is the water requirement for suburban developments compared to higher density developments in a dry city like Canberra. I seem to remember that Australians have just about the highest per capita water usage in the world, and I’d be willing to bet a lot of that is due to watering suburban gardens in comparatively (to the rest of the world) arid areas.

Gungahlin Al said :

There are broader social and environmental aspects to this issue than just greenhouse too. People have a right to choose to have a yard for their kids to play in or to grow some food in, just as much as people have a right to choose to have no yard if that suits their lifestyle.

The RAIA is proposing a halt to all detached dwelling development. Instead they should be defending peoples’ right to choose, and calling on the ACT Government to ensure demand is met and exceeded, and greater choice is made available.

We also need to put the sword to this myth that “the market” is demanding smaller blocks. Ever shrinking blocks are all the ACT Government is making available to Canberra – either through their own development arm, or through the concept plans and development plans they are mandating on private developers.

+1

How did this get boosted on WIN news as “Zed has an original idea”?

What Zed wants is whatever his Croatian (and other) builder/developer mates want.

What we need is high density living in Civic more than anything. Height restrictions shouldn’t be so strict, we need possibly up to 100m highrises in Civic and maybe a height limit of 10 storeys in Braddon. High rises in Woden and Belconnen are all well and good but there is not much point in continuously sprawling Canberra’s population all over the place. All this urban sprawl the government creates has greatly affected our CBD, thus our image and tourism goes down the toilet. It would be nice for tourists to come here and have fun in our city aswell as be interested in the great things we have here, atm its unfortunate to say that most outsiders find Canberra to be dull.

Massive backyards and parks are great for outer suburbia, but in the central areas it should be all about High density living!!!!!!!

Canberra is big enough already. Something close to 45km from top to bottom.

I’m all for urban in fill, but not on vacant land / open spaces. We should develop the already residential zoned and ageing developments of the past.

Civic could do with a lot more high density units. Apart from the ones across from DJs, there isn’t much in the center of the city. If more were put up, ie redeveloping the block that Blades, Centrepoint, Roger Bartholomews, etc is in, Civic might become a bit livelier at nights in the middle of the week.

I am in support of high density development around areas that have strong infrastructure such as Woden, Gungahlin etc especially to support the many young single people in the ACT but we still need suburban development that allows for family homes and green areas for children to meet and play. I have noticed more recently developed blocks being around 400sqm but this is not sufficient. They should be at least 700sqm so as to allow for a back yard. It is not resonable to expect families to live in units or houses with no yards. You will pay the price on a social level at a latter date if you ignore this need.

I like your comments, Al.

This whole debate seems to ignore that there are different forms of infill.

Where there is intensification around town centres, and it is done sympathetically to the existing environmnet, then most people seem to accept reasonable levels of density. A good example is the Woden Town Centre, where most people who responded to the various issues were happy with what was being proposed.

Unfortunately, ACTPLA played really dirty by not disclosing at the time that the ugly hi-rise was being considered by them, and eventually built.

The second issue is intensification within suburbs, which the govt is trying to control through the A10 policies. Where blocks are of certain size and within a certain distance of the local shopping centre, then some development is allowed.

The problem with many of these is that the blocks were never designed for these developments, and inappropriate solar orientation and other design elements result. Ugly block buildings within areas of traditional housing style is one example, and each incursion becomes an opportunity for developers to push the boundaries even further.

My bigest beef with ACTPLA is that they allow developers to step outside the various rules regarding setbacks, heights, etc. What happens then is that developers say that the development next door encroaches by x-amount, so my development should be allowed to encroach by even more.

The result is planning chaos and hence residents getting concerned about more and more inappropriate developments within suburbs and town centres.

If ACTPLA and developers treated existing residents with more respect, then some of these problems would disappear.

It is not a black or white either or argument, as the RAIA people are making out.
Griffith Uni’s Professor Brendan Gleeson summed it up well at one of ACTPLA’s Sustainable Futures workshops a couple of months ago:

“It’s a rather self-defeating exercise to try to asphalt your way out of congestion.”
“We’ve talked ourselves out of the idea that we can provide public transport to areas of low density, and it’s simply not true.”

I’ve been interviewed for ABC Stateline tonight on this.

A study by Energy Australia in 2005 put the sword to the myth that people living in detached housing are bigger greenhouse offenders than those in high-rise – and it directly contradicts the claims made by RAIA.

And this is backed up by ACF figures showing just 12% of average household emissions are due to construction, and 10% due to transport. Suburbia is not the bogey man that people are making out.

There are broader social and environmental aspects to this issue than just greenhouse too. People have a right to choose to have a yard for their kids to play in or to grow some food in, just as much as people have a right to choose to have no yard if that suits their lifestyle.

The RAIA is proposing a halt to all detached dwelling development. Instead they should be defending peoples’ right to choose, and calling on the ACT Government to ensure demand is met and exceeded, and greater choice is made available.

We also need to put the sword to this myth that “the market” is demanding smaller blocks. Ever shrinking blocks are all the ACT Government is making available to Canberra – either through their own development arm, or through the concept plans and development plans they are mandating on private developers.

The ACT Government kept land supply on a drip-feed for years, driving up prices to fill their coffers. There is still so much unmet demand, that people are being forced to take what they can get. If you were to ask buyers of these 300 and 400 square metre blocks if they would have preferred a bigger block with a yard, I’d guarantee most would say yes.

And that’s what Gungahlin residents are telling us in GCC. They are sick of the ever shrinking blocks we are being forced into, and they are sick of being treated like some social experiment.

I found the architects’ article a bit short on facts. They said that infilling four suburbs alone – including Hackett and Watson could negate the need for any new land to be released in Canberra.

But they didn’t use a single example of where this land would come from – are they talking about building on the ovals? Or local parks? Or subdividing every block??

Without actually explaining what they want to do the article was just waffle really.

…which incidentally means more work for architects.

Good point – I hadn’t picked up on that one. I’d assumed it was the architects in league with grubby developers trying to get their hands on the vacant land not already sold off by Kate Carnell in her term.

dosomethinguseful said :

however I just wish that with the land released there would be some requirement of percentage of land to be left as backyard.

This would be nice.

There’s no point in avoiding the ‘anti-suburbia’ of high-rises if suburbia is going to get filled with fence-to-fence McMansions.

I’m in favour of more land anf filling in some (not all) of the green, however I just wish that with the land released there would be some requirement of percentage of land to be left as backyard. Down south the last release was Bonython and most of the blocks were 300-400m and then they build house which take up nearly all the block.

I’m happy with my current 1000m+ block and 80’s house but if I wanted to sell and buy a block of land, there is no ‘useful’ blocks around.