Question: Darwin CBD – Building Permit System

Written on 13 June 2009.

Question Date: 10/06/2009

Member: Ms WALKER

To: MINISTER for PLANNING and LANDS

QUESTION

Can you please update the House on what proposed changes to the Northern Territory permit scheme will mean to the Darwin CBD, and whether there have been any alternative policies put forward?

ANSWER

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her question because, last month, I unveiled an exciting new plan for a vibrant tropical CBD for Darwin. The government went out and consulted with our community, and currently are also consulting with the community through the public exhibition phase. We want to ensure that our beautiful city remains tropical. We recognise that we have growth and population, and that people want to come and live in the CBD.

How do you actually ensure that that development maintains the characteristics that you want in a vibrant tropical city? We held a Darwin urban planning forum in conjunction with the Darwin City Council to really look at the Darwin urban planning issues. Coming out of that was that difficult issue of building heights in the CBD. It is an issue the CLP failed to tackle over years of government, but this government took up that tough issue.

We referred that to Urban Design Advisory Panel, a panel that exists only under a Labor government - they never had expert advisors in urban design including architects and town planners. The Urban Design Advisory Panel came forward with recommendations regarding building heights.

We went further than that. We put an IDCO in place to ensure that the recommendations were implemented to control the heights while we went back out again and consulted with the community on the UDAP recommendations. We put together a team to consult with the community and stakeholders. The team is lead ably by Dick Guit from Laing O'Rourke who I publicly thank for that effort on consultation. He is a busy man but he took the time out because he believes in the city and the future growth of Darwin. He worked with Rod Applegate from the Department of Planning and Infrastructure. They met and consulted widely, not just with landowners in the CDB but, also, with other stakeholders including the Planning Action Network. The recommendations that they brought back to government are now out on a statutory process to look at amendments to the Planning Scheme to incorporate the recommendations.

They go to a maximum building height of 90 m above ground level across the Darwin CBD. There are designs and volume metric control to promote breezes, light and views surrounding our beautiful harbour, to ensure that we also adopt a two-tiered building form, so we do not just get the block, straight-up buildings that we have seen in the past. There will also be a minimum 6 m set back on that second tier of the podium to ensure that we get the light, the breeze, and the views.

Other changes include a peer review by the Urban Design Advisory Panel to major developments being proposed. We believe that will ensure that those design elements are there to meet the communities' expectations. Regarding active interfaces at ground level - nothing mandated previously under the CLP - government is saying we want to see active interfaces at ground level, mandating awnings of all new buildings so that you can move through the city through shade and shelter from the rain, pretty obvious for a tropical city. Those proposed Planning Scheme amendments will be on public exhibition from Friday for 28 days.

In stark contrast to the government's action on this important matter for our growing city, there has been a blank flip-flopping from the opposition. Now, the only public comment on this vital issue so far was from the member for Port Darwin who said he was against 'Soviet style architecture and ...

Mr Elferink: Yes, I am.

Members interjecting.

Madam SPEAKER: Order!

Ms LAWRIE: This is how bizarre they are, '... wants buildings to be remarkable so that people look at them and say that is a good thing'. Well, if that is the best alternative planning policy the CLP can muster, well, it is amazing. A vague wish for remarkable buildings does not make a planning scheme amendment.

We all want strong architectural merit coming through on the building of our CBD. We want that strong architectural merit to reflect tropical design, which is why, for example, we are proposing mandating that peer review of buildings.

Mr Mills: Madam Speaker, this is a rather long answer.

Madam SPEAKER: Please pause, minister. If you could come to the point fairly soon, please.

Ms LAWRIE: Madam Speaker, the Urban Design Advisory Panel, who consist of experts, when they saw what I as minister proposed to take out to public consultation, they said, 'This will deliver the tropical and better design outcomes that your growing city needs'.