Comments are due this Friday 22 May. See https://www.nca.gov.au/consultation/block-23-section-33-acton-acton-waterfront-phase-2-boardwalk-and-land-reclamation
Of particular concern are the following:
- Constructing a boardwalk by reclaiming land using infill is a very extravagant exercise particularly when there is already enough space for both a pedestrian path and an upgraded bicycle path.
- The purpose of the infill is not just to build the boardwalk but to create more space for yet more high-rise apartment buildings in plain view from Commonwealth Bridge.
- For considerable tax & rate payer expense the end result will be just a mix of apartments and commercial premises, a public boardwalk and two small parks.
- Lake Burley Griffin and its surrounds should have an integrated conservation management plan to inform future projects like this with comprehensive advice on inherent heritage, environmental, cultural and social values.
- With high-rise construction will come commensurate loss of important vistas to The Brindabellas from multiple vantage points. Such proposed high-rise will also compromise the West Basin Water Axis.
- This site is worthy of something much more deserving, more exemplary, for instance, a gallery, auditorium or museum that fill gaps in the national and ACT current cultural and social institutions.
- Privatising public land on this estimable site, currently dominated by green space and mature trees, is hardly appropriate in the national capital of Australia.
- The obvious impact of climate change makes the loss of green space including 200 trees appears at odds with the need to protect such assets to Canberra and a contradiction to ACT Government’s attempts to make Canberra greener (see Territory Plan Draft Variation 369).
- Lake Burley Griffin, an artificial lake, is in fact, ‘naturalising’. Why disturb the edge of the lake and displace foraging platypuses?
- Densifying Canberra’s inner north should not result in sacrificing irreplaceable, publically assessable Acton Park and waterfront that, in its current form, has established an elegant symmetry with Commonwealth Park to the east of Commonwealth Bridge.