Why Canberra planning in Civic needs an inquiry or even royal commission

The plan - which I have before me right now - had trees planted along Ballumbir St in a manner designed to convey the impression there would be no through traffic from Ballumbir or Petrie Streets. That made sense because Batman Street is but a suburban street, right next door to Ainslie Avenue, the thoroughfare planned by Walter Griffin which the ACT planners decided we did not need as much as the Canberra Centre, which cuts it, and the access it provided to Civic, in two.

I asked a jovial site worker why the variation, and he said "I guessed we bulldozed through the plans, as usual.'' He was joking and not a spokesman for the project, but he is not far wrong. No doubt, in due course, the Founders being commemorated, under the new arrangements under which national capital streets are chosen by developers, will be Andrew Barr and Shane Rattenbury, the enablers for this sort of thing.

It is now clear the builder-developers, with the active assistance of ACT planning have decided Batman Street is to become major thoroughfare, controlled by traffic lights, and allowing through traffic right into the heart of Civic.

No doubt there will soon be calls to make Batman Street double-laned, because it will attract the bulk of the traffic coming to Civic via Limestone Avenue, and now, as well through Quick Street. We will soon need lights at the Quick Street-Limestone Avenue intersection. Half the traffic coming down Donaldson Street will prefer Batman, because the new thoroughfare won't end, as Donaldson does, in a compulsory left-turn. The Rattenbury shared-car, bike and pedestrian mall alone should have about thrice the traffic volumes, and many will use it as a rat-run to Northbourne Avenue.

Naturally, the developer, whose flats will be more valuable and venture more profitable because of the new four-way intersection will not be responsible for any of the public "on costs" from this planning catastrophe. In due course, those who buy the flats will be among those paying, along with all of north Canberra, apart from residents of Duffy Street. Also among the losers will be the people of Australia, who cannot be thrilled to see how small and awful is the vision of the trustees of a city of whose planning we were once all proud.

For 40 years the planning of Civic has been abysmal, involving enormous transfers of public wealth to a small coterie of valuers, agents, developers lobbyists and builders, as well as another who seem to flip readily from private to public sector and back. If we could get back the lost public value, the ACT would not have a budget problem.

The modern disaster began with improper motives, and was anything but transparent. There has never been an inquest. It began mostly so as to save some rich Canberra businessmen and a nascent local bank from the logical consequences of their development follies along Bunda Street. Even then, Canberra bureaucrats thought some big Canberra businessmen were too big, or too important, to fail, and heaven was moved in their interest. Planning standards and the Griffin plan were less important. The modern day legacy, worsened by the continuing subservience of our politicians, planners and facilitating bureaucrats is the ugly Canberra Centre, which sucks almost all of the retail money from the rest of the area. The businesses renting premises there get a lot less than they deserve because any entrepreneurial spirit goes to the Queensland operation that owns it, in the form of turnover-based rents and captured goodwill.

Also among the consequences are the destruction of Ainslie Avenue, the ruination of almost all businesses south of Akuna Street, the collapse of Garema Place and Alinga Street shops and public space, and speculative (and theoretically) illegal warehousing by many of the businesses between Northbourne Avenue and Alinga Street.

Andrew Barr and his administration were not responsible for this perversion of planning and corruption of motive. But their response to it is hostage to the same bad ideas. Barr, and Malcolm Snow, are now spruiking, on behalf of the ACT government, the sale of flats to yuppies by the lake, as well as, seemingly, any other big development proposal that transfers public goods, at a loss, to a smallish group of property developers.

Even as they proclaim the "need" to do so, there is an aesthetic and economic desert in the real Civic begging for reconstruction. The plan for that? A casino hardly anyone will go to, which will not attract national or international visitors but continue to impoverish a small number of problem local gamblers. And a sports stadium to subsidise Raiders and Brumby profits, designed to be empty 164 hours a week. And, probably, the loss of a swimming pool which may need refurbishment but is or could be used by ordinary citizens, 18 hours a day, all the year round.

Canberra traffic planners have accentuated these disasters, usually in arrears, by clogging roads, and making virtually every intersection controlled by traffic lights. The NCA's long silence is a mystery calling for investigation. ACT Planning authorities do not plan, and do not even vet plans before ticking them off unless someone complains.

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It is hard to say, given the competition from Sydney, but I venture to suggest that Canberra CBD has had the worst planning, the least transparent systems, and the highest public costs arising from historical favours granted to developers of anywhere in Australia. No worse outcomes could be achieved if every politician and every bureaucrat were thoroughly bribed. It may be, however, but so learnedly dumb that most outcomes come from mere stupidity and eagerness to please.

Is it too late to have a searching inquiry - perhaps a royal commission - into the state of planning of inner north Canberra? Hopefully by people at a complete remove from any of the local players, judges and politicians constantly patting each other on the back.

Perhaps with a moratorium on future developments there until we get some answers. It ought not cause economic problems: There are many other vistas, not least in Molonglo, to which developers could shift their focus. Given the ACT government's attention to building standards, it would not involve extra expense for quality control.

I know that our new ICAC, when it gets going, will be looking closely at deals, cronyism, insider arrangements and so on. I wish them well. But the need for an inquiry into Civic planning needs something else. We need a searching investigation into judgment, dereliction of duty, watchdogs that do not bark, planners who have handed the city and public land to the private sector in a deluded belief of a net public benefit, and the short-termism of almost everyone involved. Much of this is out of ACT ICAC's ambit.