News update – September 2020
In this forthcoming election, nine of Canberra’s key heritage experts state:
the special and internationally recognised qualities of Canberra and its defining landscape need to be respected and conserved, including by sympathetic new development.
Here is a cri de coeur to all those who are deeply concerned about the future of this planned city and the need to conserve Canberra’s heritage.
A useful reference is the Australian Government’s definition of heritage:
Heritage includes places, values, traditions, events and experiences that capture where we’ve come from, where we are now and gives context to where we are headed as a community.
Our heritage gives us understanding and conveys the stories of our development as a nation, our spirit and ingenuity, and our unique, living landscapes. Heritage is an inheritance that helps define our future.
See also the ACT Government’s Five Year ACT Heritage Strategy 2016–2021 published in 2016. We await a policy statement.
- Candidates Forum Election 2020 via ZOOM
North Canberra Community Council in conjunction with The Riot ACT staged a meeting, hosted by hosted by Genevieve Jacobs, Group Editor for Region Media, with the following Kurrajong candidates
- ACT Greens: Shane Rattenbury & Rebecca Vassarotti
- ACT Labor: Rachel Stephen-Smith
- Canberra Liberals: Candice Burch & Elizabeth Lee
- Canberra Progressives: Tim Böhm, Therese Faulkner & Pet Swarbrick
- Independent: Bruce Paine
The themes and policies discussed included:
- Planning review, consultation and compliance, accelerated development along the northern corridor
- West Basin
- Climate change, biodiversity
- Economic and social issues
- Further information on the candidates for the Seat of Kurrajong
- Bruce Paine Independent
Contact:
Search for @BrucePaineIndependent Twitter: search for @PaineIndepend
Statement supplied by Bruce on request.
I promise to:
- Save West Basin and similar areas from Developers.
- Freeze all rates and taxes until July 2022.
- Review ACT Budget spending to get better value for our money
- Maintain the ACT’s progressive social and environmental policies
If elected, I will oppose any filling in of Lake Burley Griffin and any residential or commercial development in the West Basin area and similar areas around all of Canberra’s lakes and ponds. I will support their transformation into areas for the community’s enjoyment.
I am not against all Development but want to see good Developments in appropriate areas – and the latter excludes the foreshores of Lake Burley Griffin and Canberra’s other Lakes and ponds.
For full statement click here
Following a letterbox drop to Reid residents, we have requested a statement from the Canberra Progressives for more specific to this suburb. In the interim please click for the three contact details for the three Progressive candidates standing for the seat of Kurrajong:
Consultation closes 5 pm Friday 16 October 2020
The National Capital Authority aims to provide a safer and more user-friendly precinct and is seeking ideas on ways to improve the park.
You can take the survey or email your comments KingsPark@nca.gov.au.
- Examining Ainslie Avenue development options
Please note Ian Bushnell ‘s article on the Study to examine Ainslie Avenue development options redevelopment of Ainslie Avenue, Riotact 3 August 2020
You might also be interested in this article about the Kanangra Court Flats, Ainslie Avenue, Reid.
http://www.canberrahouse.com.au/houses/kanangra-court.html
See also the ACT Heritage Council’s 2015 decision not to award Late Twentieth Century Sydney Regional Style Kanangra Court Flats heritage nomination. An extract on how the Sydney Regional Style architects and the architects, Collard Clarke and Jackson, approached sloping site issues is below:
Sydney Regional Style is greatly influenced by the qualities of the sites on which the properties are built, which are often sloping, rocky and well-treed. ‘Typically, a house would descent its hillside site in a series of split levels covered by roof planes approximately parallel to the slope of the land. This configuration helped to produce interior spaces of greater richness and complexity…’ (Apperly, Irving & Reynolds, 1995, pg 240).
Collard Clarke and Jackson achieved these domestic qualities by grouping the flats into separate blocks that approximated, in area and building footprint, the scale of a domestic house. The blocks were also assembled as a series of ‘L’-shapes, or ‘zig-zags’, connected by circulation stairwells screened with pierced face brickwork and extruded up to three storeys high. These domestic qualities are further reinforced by the choice of building materials, being white painted, bagged, load-bearing brick walls with timber-framed grey cement tiled roofs and detailing such as window proportions and small balconies. (Philip Leeson Architects, 2011, p.298-299).
- Reid Spring Walk 3 pm 22 November
Subject to COVID-19 restrictions, RRA will be running a walk through Reid with particular emphasis on the unified landscape treatments and street furniture including verges, driveway materials, street trees, hedges, fences, street signs and lighting as well as the original cottage forms designed by the Federal Capital Commission and the Department of the Interior.
Further details to be announced.