Rhetoric alone is not climate action
Once upon a time, Canberra tourism included views of tree-lined suburban streets. That was Canberra as we knew it – a city in a landscape. The ambience was greenery and open spaces.
Category Archives: planning
ACT planning directorate past its use-by-date
The ACT Government’s planning directorate has an impenetrable structure that reminds me of the “Star Wars” concept – the Borg Hive – called The Collective.
Continue reading ACT planning directorate past its use-by-date
ACT Government hospital mess continues
How to get hospital planning so wrong!
When government bureaucrats present at community meetings, their spin and prepared lines do not go down well.
ACT Government lacks design leadership
A pamphlet arrived in Dickson letterboxes that won’t bring much joy to the other areas of the city. It announced that $3 million is to be spent on Woolley Street, Dickson.
Watson community knows about planning
The ACT Government is a planning failure
When the Watson Community Association (WCA) puts forward the community’s views about a proposed development, it does a really thorough job.
ACT Minister for heritage in trouble
The clock is ticking on this ACT Minister
Having been in government for four months, Rebecca Vassarotti, ACT Minister for the Environment and Heritage, should now have a firm view on heritage and comprehend that her role is about being a leader in the stewardship of Canberra’s environments.
ACT Government chops down more trees
In the lead up to the October ACT election, trees were an item of interest to anyone wanting to be elected.
ACT City Renewal Authority
An authority being a waste of space
The ACT’s City Renewal Authority, a 2016 bright idea from Andrew Barr, is something the people of Canberra did not ask for and is spending a lot of taxpayers’ money in one place – a selected part of central Canberra.
ACT Government Stupidity Halted
ACT Greens save park from bulldozers
While the October ACT election returned a new version of the Labor/Greens coalition, this result was not because it was respected.
Canberra community groups have fun
Local enthusiasm for trees and parks
When community groups bring residents together to collectively do something for their suburb, good things happen.
ACT Greens challenged on planning
ACT Government and the ACT Greens
Wandering down a street in Auckland, NZ, in early June 2016, we came upon a small group of people having a laugh about an advertising poster.
A day out in Braidwood
Making the time out to visit regionally
Earlier this month we ventured out for the day to meet a friend at Braidwood. She was from the south coast and so Braidwood meant we both travelled just over an hour.
Margaret Timson Park Belconnen
ACT Government fails on parks again
The last couple of years has been bad news for parks in Canberra.
ACT Government score card
They are not doing well!
With the ACT Labor/Greens coalition in place until October 2024, it’s a good time to start reporting on how it’s performing.
ACT Government ignores Commonwealth Park
Commonwealth Park neglected by government
Attention to a significant piece of national land is being overlooked among the misinformation used to justify the demolition of West Basin.
ACT Government and public sculpture
Need for a new public art policy
Sometime during the last election, a candidate said something about revising the public sculpture program initiated by Jon Stanhope when he was chief minister.
ACT Government and spin (fibs)
planning spin (fibs) dominate
It could be said that residents and community groups have been a little foolish.
Canberra’s missing arts centres
ACT Government failure on culture
In 2015, the now disbanded Land Development Agency announced the follow up to its 2011 master plan with the go-ahead for the Kingston Arts Precinct.
West Basin and City Renewal Authority
Reason to go for a wander
This piece is addressed to the ACT Greens & its members
Deafening silence of the ACT Greens
Election 2020 and Shane Rattenbury
Many residents who voted for the ACT Greens are disillusioned given how the partnership with ACT Labor has sidelined many planning, development, environmental, heritage and urban issues.
ACT Government planning mess
How planning went wrong in MacGregor
In 2010, Dickson residents lodged objections to a unit development and eventually took the developer and the ACT Planning Directorate through the appeals tribunal and won.
Lack of Master Planning in Canberra
ACT Government fails on master planning
Canberra’s community groups spend a lot of time assessing complex development applications.
Ainslie residents and local park rezoning
YWCA as unthinking developer
While attention is on larger issues such as the pandemic and a host of planning and development disasters, it is important to not overlook the ever-present local development issues.
Chris Steel works hard to lose 2020 election
A loser in the 2020 ACT elections?
Chris Steel is currently a Labor-elected member for Murrumbidgee and happens to be the Minister for Something within the ACT Labor/Greens coalition government.
Continue reading Chris Steel works hard to lose 2020 election
ACT Government and West Basin
More spin from the City Renewal Authority
When the ACT’s City Renewal Authority made its announcement on Tuesday (August 11) about the latest plan for West Basin, there was a slight glimmer of hope that, at last, maybe someone was listening. Not so!
Waste Facilities to wreck Fyshwick
ISCCC call to arms!
The Inner South Canberra Community Council has published a “Call To Arms” to highlight what is going on in Fyshwick with developments for major waste-disposal activities.
Signs of Something
four signs of life
The sign above is in Deakin and placed after an intersection and well before the next. Continue reading Signs of Something
Vote for Greenery
Difficulties for Canberra voters to support greenery
On World Environment Day, June 5, the Canberra Liberals committed to planting one million trees over the next decade if they form government following the October 17 ACT election.
Signage wars in Kingston
More about Geocon in Kingston
When the spin doctors for Geocon published the proposal for an eight-storey tower in the middle of Kingston (where two is the norm and three/four nearby), the locals were not happy.
ACT Government land deals
Reminder of the Dickson Land Swap
With the ACT election now just over two months away, Chief Minister Andrew Barr would be urging his colleagues not to remind the electorate of the infamous Dickson land swap.
ACT Government ignores heritage
Meanwhile at a site I regularly mention, Section 72 Dickson, another piece of sneakiness has been uncovered by Jane Goffman, of the Dickson Residents Group.
Argyle Housing and the Dickson Land Swap
ACT Government entangles Common Ground in Land Swap
Stephen Bartos, chair of social housing provider Common Ground, said his organisation wasn’t involved in the planning processes around the planned Dickson site and certainly didn’t want to be, when he spoke to “CityNews” on June 3.
ACT Government’s toxic planning
Canberra’s community representatives struggle to find positive things to say about the ACT’s planning directorate. Most have seen too much bad stuff going down.
Complexities of the ACT Murrumbidgee electorate
the empty chair waiting for the right candidate
How candidates perform in the electorate of Murrumbidgee is going to be a focus in the October 17 ACT election.
Continue reading Complexities of the ACT Murrumbidgee electorate
Mistake being polite with ACT Government
Time to stop being polite to rude people
Artwork: Stephen Harrison
Some of us sit at desks writing loads of stuff to bring about change while the barbarous politicians and bureaucrats just keep on doing what they do best – wreck the joint!
ACT Greens fail to be green
On the last day of April, the Inner South Canberra Community Council (ISCCC) issued a media release advocating the importance of streetscapes, open spaces and trees.
NCA and inequity in decisions
How the horse paddock grab is about inequity
Residents are often taken aback by the culture of disrespect for locals that has become firmly embedded within the ACT’s political and bureaucratic ranks.
NCA takes away community horse paddocks
Secretive land swap with ACT Government
Alternative facts are being used to deny the ramifications on a national asset and on the lives of Canberra’s active equestrian communities as the public wakes up to the ACT government’s secret land swap with the NCA.
ACT Government overdue to go
Canberra voters can do better
There are about five months to the next ACT election. There’s a lockdown in place. So how do ACT politicians get noticed if they cannot stand around crowded places to try to be noticed?
ACT Government to trash West Basin
NCA trades North Curtin horse paddocks
It’s not often that the community sector gets stunned completely by an ACT government development announcement.
ACT Government allows urban blocks to be neglected
More rubbish, more neglect, more bureaucracy
In September 2019, when I wrote about the regulatory disaster that was taking place in Paperbark Street in Banks, many people responded with like stories from across Canberra.
Continue reading ACT Government allows urban blocks to be neglected
ACT Government attack on Dickson residents
Yvette Berry continues her Boris Johnson moments
As the COVID-19 crisis took hold and people bunkered down, residents hoped for less stupid things by the ACT Planning Directorate.
ACT Government messes with Gungahlin
Developers ruin the town centre, politicians silent!
In late 2019 the ACT government proposed to vary the plan for the Gungahlin town centre. It didn’t take long for the Gungahlin Community Council to spot the devil in the detail – or to be more accurate – what detail went missing.
ACT Government allows excessive noise
ACT Government fails to listen about noise
Many Canberrans have the luxury of living in established suburbs and until recently had some confidence that the nature of the suburb probably would not change radically during their lifetimes.
Hoons on Canberra urban streets
ACT Government encourages hooning
Surfacing in community meetings across Canberra is an issue that is upsetting people’s enjoyment of their neighbourhoods.
Stay Safe and Carry On
The panic for toilet paper
I Maybe imagining this, but I think people have taken to smiling more. Maybe it is a way of not letting the threats of the virus get to you, but it is happening.
The degradation of Canberra by the ACT Government
Canberra’s lack of good design
After any neighbourhood auction, the conversations usually follow a similar line: will the property be occupied and the garden maintained or will it be up for demolition for yet another large, grey box with the established greenery taken away as rubble?
Continue reading The degradation of Canberra by the ACT Government
Sneaky planning moves by the ACT Government
the tricks of Yvette Berry MP and other ACT politicians
As the ACT’s state of COVID-19 emergency gets tougher, people look to those in authority that they should be able to rely on – those they want to trust.
Continue reading Sneaky planning moves by the ACT Government
No trust in ACT Government’s planning review
When the ACT government announced in February that it was funding the ACT planning review to the tune of $1.2 million there was not much dancing in the streets.
Continue reading No trust in ACT Government’s planning review
ACT Government burns tax dollars
City Renewal Authority waste money – again
In centuries past when a colonial power arrived somewhere foreign (to them), they presumed that they knew how to improve the local culture and commenced with handing around beads and trinkets.
ACT Government hospital mismanagement
Woden Valley Community deal with serious issues
Woden Valley Community Council (WVCC) meetings have commenced the year 2020 with priority themes that are much the same as in 2019.
ACT Greens and Trees
ACT Greens throw stones at themselves!
A tree came down earlier this week in Dickson (above).
Looking at the trees nearby, it will not be long before more of these trees meet a similar fate.
ACT Minister links a tender to philanthropy
More questionable behaviour from an ACT Minister
Previously I reported that there remains a looooong list of dubious matters involved with the proposed building of a Common Ground apartment complex on Section 72 Dickson. These date back to the infamous Dickson land swap.
Continue reading ACT Minister links a tender to philanthropy
Molonglo – An ACT Government planning mess
When the ACT Legislative Assembly voted in October to establish a committee to examine the planning problems that plagued the development of the Molonglo suburbs of Wright and Coombs, it would follow that this signalled that someone may be paying attention to what residents have been saying for the last few years.
At least that is what we should be thinking.
Canberra Brickworks and Doma
The suburb where common sense took 32 years!
The Yarralumla Residents Association (YRA) is 32 years old.
The association was formed because of the first proposals to redevelop the Brickworks site on the western edge of the suburb.
Making a mess of hospital developments
How political decisions overrule logic and good planning
First the good news. The ACT government is committed to adding overdue facilities to the Woden Valley Hospital.
West Basin alternative facts
Here’s a tale of the use of alternative facts by both the government and a couple of its supporters.
ACT planning lacks good governance
This opinion piece only scratches the surface of the enormous problems we have here in Canberra with planning and development. The whole of the planning system has been corrupted by decades of bad management and the development of a culture that has residents as the enemy to be tricked and out manoeuvred. Click here for my piece in City News.
Yvette Berry insults Canberra’s inner north residents
After almost a decade of residents saying very clearly what their preferred options were for a precious community site within Dickson in the inner north of Canberra (Dickson Parklands) , residents have been told that Yvette Berry, Minister for social housing (housing clearances mostly) is to announce that her wonderful deaf government is to build on this community site. Click here for the opinion piece published in City News.
for another instance of Yvette Berry’s talent – click here – being dismissive about the urgent and long over due needs for sports, community and cultural facilities in Woden.
Yvette Berry does herself no favours in Woden
Yvette Berry as ACT sports minister attended a recent Woden Valley meeting and totally trashed all the ideas that residents put forward for much needed and well-overdue sports, recreation and cultural facilities for Woden – where there are 20 plus towers of apartments about to appear. And as yet – no facilities are being planned for the area. WTF?? Click here for the opinion piece in CityNews.
16 years on, is this Canberra’s worst building mess?
Canberra planning is in a mess. How can a residential site be left as a rubbish tip for 16 years despite people contacting authorities to see if it can be fixed. Click here for the opinion piece in City News.
Mick Gentleman is the ACT planning minister – and is the local Labor member for this suburb. Nothing has happened! Go figure!
Griffin impugned for the West Basin’s awful future
Good journalism is welcomed and embraced. Journalism that is written to promote bad decisions by government must be called out. Here’s an example of the latter. The author, Tom Greenwell, starts well by making some points about Walter Burley Griffin’s planning for Canberra. But then he commits the crime of using Griffin’s name and visions to justify some outrageous developments being planned by the ACT Government (Urban Renewal Authority again!) that will destroy a wonderful part of the foreshore of Lake Burley Griffin. Click here for the article in City News.
and for more about West Basin alternative facts – click here; includes letters from Richard Johnstone of kingston – a supporter of West Basin developments.
And for more on the arguments against what Tom Greenwell has written – click here for a very well informed piece by Penny Moyes, one of the Lake Burley Griffin Guardians.
ACT planning’s brutal behaviour goes unchecked – again
Before the 2016 ACT Elections, the chief minister promised that there would be a panel formed to bring about master planning for the precinct around the Manuka Oval. That panel was to meet by the end of 2016. Did not happen! Instead there have been games, spin and alternative facts. The most recent insult being a meeting called that pretended to be about Manuka planning – but was simply a waste of people’s time. Another broken commitment by the ACT Chief Minster. Another insult to the intelligence of residents by Andrew Barr and his planning barbarians. click here for the opinion piece in City News.
It’s not easy being green around Kippax centre
When developers eye off ACT Government green spaces – the trend in Canberra is that those developers get to buy that land and the people lose yet another piece of precious community open space. This is happening with land behind the Kippax shops in west Belconnen in Canberra.The local Labor member is Yvette Berry and she loves to show up with a shovel to be photographed when community land and green spaces are being removed from the public ownership. Click here for the opinion piece in City News.
Woden Valley gets ignored
Two stories about a meeting at the Woden Community Council meeting in late July. The first is about an ACT Minister, Rachel Stephen-Smith, addressing the audience and apparently not having an understanding of the depth of anger about the lack of facilities in this centre – despite the enormous growth in apartments. The second involved the ACT Government’s planning bureaucracy’s mishandling of a small green space within the suburb of O’Malley. Both performances were astonishingly terrible – sort of funny if it was not about people’s lives. Click here for the opinion piece in City News.
National Capital Authority stupidity on Commonwealth Avenue Bridge
The agency that is supposed to be the steward for the national capital, the National Capital Authority (NCA), does come out with some rubbish at times. In this case it floated the idea of pulling down Commonwealth Ave bridge to build a new bridge for the tram. Luckily the project engineer who worked on the bridge is around t point out how stupid this thought bubble was. Click here for my opinion piece in City News.
Heritage ignored in Reid house approval
The suburb of Reid in Canberra is one of the oldest and residents accept that there are heritage values to be considered for most of the suburb. When a house was demolished and plans were approved by the ACT Government that paid token attention to these heritage values – residents were not happy. To make matters worse the ACT Heritage Council approved the development application. What were they thinking! Click here for my opinion piece on this in the City News.
New ACT Labor Minister goes neoliberal
Chris Steel became an ACT Labor Minister about a year ago. Watching him recently at a Weston Creek Community Council meeting I became aware of how these Labor politicians have so easily accepted the arguments of the classic NeoLiberals. It is all about market forces. Click here for my opinion piece in City News.
The NCA and towers to dominate national capital
Some stories about planning in Canberra are simply unbelievable. This is one of those and involves the National Capital Authority not doing its job.
ACT Politicians and public transport
How many ACT politicians actually catch the public transport that they continue to make a mess of? Click here for my piece on this in City News
Planning chaos and the Dickson supermarket
oh what a planning mess – complete with strange deals and ACT Government games and incompetence. Click here for the story in City News.
more CRAPP planning in Canberra
How sad! Yet another glossy ACT Government planning document that is a waste of time and effort – click here for my piece on this CRAPP in City News
The suburb of Watson leads on planning
The Watson Community Association recently conducted consultations to produce the community’s own visionary plan for their suburb. Click here for the piece in City News
Canberra and its tree loses
The bush capital is under threat from the ACT Government – it’s about trees
time to do something about West Basin
a call to all ACT politicians to do something
There’s misleading information being used to justify apartment developments on West Basin. It is overdue for all our local politicians to get involved. more on this from my opinion piece in City News – click here.
and for a later article on this — click here
ACT Government about to bulldoze a community site
Crunch time looms for Dickson parklands
There’s a long saga at play in Dickson in Canberra. Here’s the latest on this – click here.
and there’s more..
Continue reading ACT Government about to bulldoze a community site
A Christian School and trees being removed
No punishment for felling trees on public land
a story of a Christian School corporation, their use of public lands and significant trees being removed. Here’s a link to my opinion piece in City News.
The ACT Builders and ACT planning directorate
The little guys beaten by a care less bureaucracy
Talk to a builder, a building designer/architect or tradesperson working in Canberra’s construction and soon the conversation turns to the frustrations of having to work through development applications (DAs) with what is seen as the badly managed ACT Government’s planning directorate. click here for more
Woden town centre
Woden is being transformed, but into what?
The Greens/Labor coalition ACT government is infamous for its cabal of ministers who are making a mess of Canberra’s planning and development. What is happening in the Woden Centre demonstrates this. click here
How green are the ACT Greens?
Greens fail to protect the local greenery
During the last decade the ACT Labor Party has depended on the ACT Greens to form government. What has come of the ACT Greens? Click here
ACT Government bullies residents, again
Disneyland, like it or lump it in Coombs
Imagine this. You have bought a home and paid extra for views of the hills and to be opposite a quiet park alongside a pond with bird life and other animals. Trouble is the ACT Government then wrecks the place.. click here
ACT chief planner fails his own test
Chief planner’s quotes come home to haunt him
Two years ago the new ACT chief planner, Ben Ponton, went on the record in the daily paper with a statement about how wonderful he would be. I have used those statements to assess whether he has met his own key performance indicators (KPIs). He didn’t!
Here’s the piece in City News – click here.
Destroying Australia’s National Capital
NCA quietly approves tower shock on Northbourne
There are serious problems with the National Capital Authority (NCA) that could be addressed by the soon-to-be-elected ACT Federal politicians. I have outlined the background to the issues in a piece in City News – click here
Wading through the fog of ‘busy words’
For residential representatives in Canberra, the last few months have been very onerous due to the simultaneous release of a load of government consultation documents as well as the usual tricky development applications (DA) that need to be consumed and feedback provided. Click here for my piece on this.
Downer residents rally against development push
You can tell when residents are hitting the government where it hurts – when the press coverage from the government turns to spin – and more spin. There is no doubt that this is a response to the successes the pesky residents of Downer have had in getting attention through their brilliant “Don’t Dump on Downer” grassroots campaign. Click here.
West Basin blatantly a property deal
With the Christmas release of the draft City and Gateway Urban Design Framework, the ACT Government’s City Renewal Authority undertook media advocacy during February for an apartment suburb on West Basin. The ACT Government continues with its proposal for West Basin against the opposition of the Canberra community – click here.
Give us this day our daily spin…
It is annoying to constantly experience the culture within this ACT government that delivers a daily onslaught of spin. Who writes this stuff? Don’t they realise how hollow they sound? What do they think this nonsense achieves? click here for my piece on this
Someone save these trees from the developers
This a sad tale of people sitting on the fence while part of the heritage of the suburb of Downer is to be removed. Click here.
Mischievous elves dump on Downer
THE ACT’s muddle-headed bureaucrats keep coming up with planning brochures laden down with alternate facts and marketing spin. Ministers then blindly sign letters to residents based on the bureaucrats’ gobbledygook and then wonder why people get upset. I wrote about what is happening in Downer in City News.
Protesting the Dickson promise that never was
No surprise here! The ACT Government often plays with the truth.
Here’s my piece in City News on this.
Neglect and shame of the city’s mistreated trees
The ACT government has failed to care for Canberra’s urban forests. We are constantly losing trees. Click here for my City News article on trees.
Planning shock: regulators say no to developers!
In Canberra how developers bend and get around planning rules is a common debate. The ACT Government has several ministers who mess around in planning and development – and all not good at it. See my City News article – click here.
How does the ACT planning minister keep his job?
Here in Dickson we have seen the disgraceful, long-running mess created by planning ministers and bureaucrats about the establishment of a second supermarket in Dickson. This mess is typical of how business is carried out under the current planning minister.
I wrote about this in City News – click here.
Why the City Renewal Authority
Canberra has a reasonably new City Renewal Authority. It does not come cheap. Problem being people just do not know why it exists. Here’s my take on this – in City News.
Strange tale of the Manuka tree
THE people of Canberra love our trees and when one is threatened unnecessarily, people do whatever they can to save it. Here’s a tale about a significant tree, the ACT’s chief planner, the developer and – the tree’s future. Here’s my piece in City News on this.
National Capital Authority and the developer
Late in 2018 residents rallied about a questionable development proposal for 71 Constitution Avenue in Campbell. This development comes under the National Capital Authority and residents were dealing with the fact that the development broke the NCA’s own rules yet somehow it was being progressed. Here’s my piece in City News.
Traffic chaos delivered by Canberra planners
Unfortunately what has been happening for years in Canberra, being bad planning and development, looks to continue given the on-going bad decisions by the ACT’s planning minister and his bureaucrats in the planning directorate. Click here.
Canberra planners and respect
People are sick of the dumb statements that infill is necessary and therefore we must give up our cherished suburbs for high-rise. This is stupid.
The government’s real message on infill is not for residents but for developers seeking a green light to carry on as usual. Here’s my piece on this topic – click here.
ACT Government in conflict of interest
There’s a massive urban development on the western edge of Canberra (beyond Belconnen) called Ginninderry. There are a lot of good things being done by the developer at Ginninderry. But it is hard not to notice issues around the ACT government’s involvement as a partner. It is a very dubious arrangement.
I wrote about this in City News – click here.
ACT Government ignores residents
The ACT Government has a bad reputation in its dealings with residents and their concerns for the future of Canberra.
I have written about this topic in City News – here’s my piece – click here.
Urban Biodiversity
The Conversation on urban biodiversity
The Conversation has an article recommending a change to planning to deal realistically with urban biodiversity.