climateXchange

Post edited 2:34 am – August 28, 2010 by marea
Post edited 2:35 am – August 28, 2010 by marea

It's great that the ACT Government has set up a broad-ranging consultation called Time to Talk to seek the views of Canberrans about what they love about Canberra now and what they would like Canberra to be in 20 years' time. This initiative is to be applauded.

There will be public meetings over the coming three months on the following topics:

Population; Environmental Sustainability; Water; Housing; Getting Around; Land Use and Planning; Liveability and Wellbeing; City Form; Living in the Nation’s Capital; and ‘Who Pays’?

There is also a website here where you can obtain information and submit comments.

On the website there is also a survey you can complete and it would be good to have as many people as possible complete the survey.

The only qualification I have about the survey is that I think question 4 is a bit of a leading question. It asks about the density of urban development that Canberrans would like to see. It presents the third option of high and medium density around centres as the one leading to lowest greenhouse gas emissions.

I think you can have high density living that does not reduce greenhouse gas emissions if buildings do not have appropriate solar orientation and do not meet high energy efficiency standards. Also, this question doesn’t ask people what density they want in parts of suburbs that are not around centres. For example, the current draft Variation 303 to the Territory Plan is suggesting that an additional 20,000 blocks sized 700 sq metres could be available for dual occupancies across Canberra. Under that scenario each house would, effectively, be on 350 sq metres. The draft variation says that blocks under 500sq m would not need to comply with solar access provisions. Even though those houses will be required to meet energy efficiency standards, not having good solar access on small blocks will make the prospect of lowering greenhouse gas emissions a lot more difficult.