Canberra needs to crack down on shoddy builders and developers before an extra 37,000 homes are squeezed into the Northbourne Avenue light rail corridor, the Master Builders Association has warned.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Plans to overhaul the city's main drag were unveiled on Thursday, lifting building heights to 48 metres in some places along the stage one light rail route and creating "urban villages" around light rail stops.
Northbourne Avenue's height limit at the moment is 32 metres. By comparison, Woden's Lovett Tower is 93 metres high and Belconnen's Wayfarer Apartments 88 metres tall.
The extra height would allow another 37,000 dwellings to be built along the city's gateway, about 75 years' of housing supply.
But Master Builders Association ACT chief executive Michael Hopkins said before those homes were built, there needed to be sweeping reforms of the territory's building regulatory system.
Regulators have come under fire for failing to clamp down on defect-riddled apartment buildings and dodgy developers.
Mr Hopkins said the MBA had been calling on government to fix the system since 2010, with major areas of concern the building licensing system, the professional development and training of young builders and ensuring the home warranty insurance scheme was fit for purpose.
"The stories about poor quality apartments that have come to light - it is an almost daily occurrence to hear about these things in our office," Mr Hopkins said.
"At the moment Canberra is about to experience another rapid phase of growth in construction. A well-functioning system needs to be in place before we start."
The ACT government has promised a review of the system, although Acting Chief Minister Yvette Berry sought to deflect responsibility for some of the problems to the federal government.
"Some of the action that's being called for could be in the realm of the federal government, I recall last year some of the federal Labor members had called for some changes around phoenixing laws," Ms Berry told ABC Radio on Friday.
"That's the kind of thing that can really give regulators the tools to crack down on dodgy directors."
But Engineers Australia ACT general manager Keely Quinn said a lot of the time, building quality issues came back to the design.
"It's very easy to blame the builder, but it's the person who is creating the design to make sure the building stays upright that needs to know what they are doing," Ms Quinn said.
"In the design phase is where they seem to see the biggest issues, and yet there is no regulation of engineering in the ACT. It's much easier to get it right at the beginning, than to try and go back and fix it."
Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate Director-General Ben Ponton said while the urban renewal strategy would be finalised in June, it would be rolled out over the next two to three decades.
He said it envisaged the transformation of Northbourne Avenue from an arterial road to a "world-class urban boulevard and transit corridor".
"The framework proposes a strong emphasis on the pedestrian experience and strengthening east-west connections for areas on either side," Mr Ponton said.
"Capacity along the Northbourne corridor will change following the substitution of buses for light rail which will enable significantly larger capacity to move people."
Mr Ponton said while technical studies had been done on reducing Northbourne to two lanes in each direction near Civic, more investigation needed to be done about the impact this would have across the broader road network.
"The framework proposes that the existing three lanes of traffic will be maintained along the majority of Northbourne Avenue in the short to medium term, with lower traffic speeds proposed to improve pedestrian access," Mr Ponton said.
City Renewal Authority chief executive and former National Capital Authority head Malcolm Snow said it was important to have a land use and urban design strategy that complemented the city's transport strategy.
"In a perfect world you would have had this gateway community strategy out for comment at the same time as you're having a debate about light rail," Mr Snow said.
"The development industry worked out that probably light rail was coming, and so irrespective of the delay, the market has already responded to the opportunity, and that's why you're seeing already significant redevelopment happening along the corridor. That redevelopment will continue."
Public Transport Association of Canberra chairman Damien Haas said while Canberra developers imagined each of their projects as a "standalone precinct". that was not a sustainable long-term model.
"PTCBR hope that the combination of residential buildings and high quality commercial buildings around light rail stops creates precincts that support each other and become true neighbourhoods," Mr Haas said.
