The consultation period for the National Capital Authority’s draft development conditions for the North Curtin Residential area are open now, closing on Wednesday 10 June.
This is the development of 1200 housing units proposed for the eastern third of the North Curtin horse paddocks, proposed by the ACT Government. It comes under planning conditions to be set by the NCA (it is regarded as designated area even though this part of the area is regular residential). The conditions indicate a proposed ecology water park around the Yarralumla Creek through the site and up to the back fences of existing north Curtin houses, active travel connections across the creek, space for supporting services and retail such as cafés.
To read the draft documents and see how to make a submission go to https://www.nca.gov.au/planning/public-consultations/northcurtindcpdd
The Residents Association has major concerns with this development. The starting point is that it’s a lot of people in a small space. There are only two proposed road accesses, one into McCulloch Street and one into Cotter Road. Despite claiming to support less need for private cars, there’s no strong indication of how the site might be connected to bicycle networks or the light rail (at present there’s only a proposal for the light rail to trundle past—no tram stop! and an active connection across the creek into the back streets of Curtin and up across Cotter Rd – not to any active travel path along Yarra Glen/Adelaide Ave). NCA, Infrastructure Canberra and ACT Government please note: you need to join up your planning and solve this! At the moment it looks like each of the three planning authorities is regarding access for cars, pedestrians and active travellers as somebody else’s problem, to be considered in future. Any new development that aims to shift residents’ use of cars must generously provide for the alternatives up front, in planning requirements.
The draft conditions need to be read carefully between the lines and the illustrations. Where the conditions state something ‘must’ be done—that’s a real condition. This includes maximum building heights and minimum ceiling heights, open spaces and the water ecology park, 30% tree canopy cover—and a maximum 1-car parking space per dwelling (whether studio or 1, 2 or 3 bedrooms).
But the diagrams and maps of layout of the blocks and roads are only ‘indicative’ and ‘proposed’— not mandated conditions.