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.
A couple of days before Christmas, a call came through from the Coles project manager to the Dickson Residents Group convenor that the new supermarket complex was to go ahead in May/June 2021.
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.
As the COVID-19 crisis took hold and people bunkered down, residents hoped for less stupid things by the ACT Planning Directorate.
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.
oh what a planning mess – complete with strange deals and ACT Government games and incompetence. Click here for the story in City News.
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.
The news from the residential battlefront around the future of the community and cultural life of the Dickson area is not rosy. The government continues to lie…
I have written about this in City News.
Canberra desperately needs a real-life planning minister who works honestly with the people of the city to get great results. Unfortunately we have one who is not regarded as being a minister who does his job but rather sits on his hands and watches the city’s amenities being degraded
I have addressed this issue in a piece on City News
First an update on the 2016-2017 ACAT appeal about the proposal to remove the carpark in front of Woolworths and to build an apartment and supermarket complex.
The Dickson Parklands is an important site for the inner north of Canberra.
Continue reading ACT Government makes a mess of consultations
The neighbourhood had their answer. The signs went up – and yet another original style (AV Jennings) house was about to be put on the market.
You will often hear commentators state that politicians are unpopular. I don’t think it as simple as that.
Local politicians, like our federal friends, love to take a key social issue and link it to another in order to wedge the residents.
Very strange things happen in the urban design planning space in Canberra.
There’s significant redevelopment underway on Northbourne Ave in Canberra.
There’s been some great public discussions in the media around the spin that has been put out by the government to distract from the real problems with the decisions to place new government housing developments into several Weston Creek suburbs.
The other day we ran a set of small stories on urban issues – one being about student parking and how it has become a nuisance in the streets near the school.
The Appeal against the recently approved development application (DA) for the Dickson supermarket complex goes to its next phase very soon (see dates below).