Govt selling Acton Park to developers and partially filling-in West Basin

[Andrea]

Issue: The lake around the Lakeside Hotel and Commonwealth Ave bridge will be filled in and Acton Park will be built over with 2000 apartments, 4000 car parks, and road infrastructure for the apartment complex including re-bridging Parks Way.

Lake Burley Griffin is a public asset but its size will be reduced and the A.C.T.will lose Acton Park to allow a private developer to make a private fortune by building 2000 apartments. The massive infrastructure cost to enable this development i.e. car parking, roads and bridges and filling in the lake will be paid for by the public.

The ACT Government negotiated hard to swap the Deakin horse paddocks for the Commonwealth public land at Acton Park and the lake which will then be re-zoned and sold to a developer. The government did not ask the people of Canberra what they wanted to do with their own land, the horse paddocks. The people had the ability to sell to the Commonwealth and reduce the ACT’s massive debt.

The people of Australia own Lake Burley Griffin. They paid for the lake through Commonwealth public funds. The ACT government does not own the lake. The publicly-owned lake is part of the plan for the A.C.T. at the turn of the 20th century approved by the Commonwealth and the people of Australia through a public design competition. It is there for the recreation of the city central and the beautification and character of the national capital.

The development proposal makes the lake smaller by filling in an area of the lake around the Lakeside Hotel and eliminates Acton Park, the area around here.

The government needs to ask the peoples of the A.C.T. and Australia if they want to lose part of the lake by filling in some of the West Basin and lose Acton Park. After all it is owned by the people. Many people would prefer the government to act more in democratic ways and less in dictatorial ways in the planning and political processes.

The payment of all other engineering work to enable the apartment development appears to be from the public purse. At the moment the:

• hundreds of millions of dollars for re-bridging Parks Way will be paid with public money by the people of the A.C.T.,
• great cost of partially filling in the West Basin will also be paid with public money by the people of the A.C.T..

The A.C.T. community needs to judge whether whether the government is privatising profits and socialising the costs. It is the authority of the community to decide whether this land is for privatising profit and socialising the costs and not the government.

It is also the authority of the community to choose whether to:

• sell the Deakin horse paddocks to the Commonwealth and use the money to reduce ACT public debt or
• swap the horse paddocks for the lake foreshore and sell the foreshore to a developer.

The community has not been asked or approved of this. It has not gone to an election as a policy.

What will stop the A.C.T. government selling off parts of the lake again and again? As things stand today the A.C.T. government can again sell off parts of the lake foreshore intended for the recreation of the community and beauty and status of the national capital.

The issues are:

• let the Canberra people decide whether to sell the Deakin horse paddocks to the Commonwealth and reduce debt, or swap the lake for Acton Park and the lake, re-zone and sell to a developer. This is a democracy.
• It is the say of the Canberra people whether their lake foreshore is re-zoned and 2000 apartments and 4000 car parks built on it and not the Labor/Green government. It is a democracy. Let the people decide.
• the people must decide whether to privatise profits and to socialise the costs. The money belongs to the people of the A.C.T., and not the government and cannot be used to pay for a private developer to make a private fortune.

[Author]

Posts