The question of development

On the Peninsula, there are conflicting opinions as to whether the development that we are seeing is environmentally sustainable or desirable.

I would be pretty confident the majority of people think that the Peninsula probably has had enough.

If that is the case, what can we do?

Council has a residential strategy in place that, at the behest of the State Government, dictates higher density developments that sometimes take up almost the entire block removing with it all the trees that might be on there.

The State Government basically said some years ago that council had to put in a strategy for urban consolidation or they would do it, taking away the planning powers of council, and so we have what we have.

The question remains what can we do?

A suggestion was made at a meeting I attended that we could make developer contributions to infrastructure so high that it would be unfinancial for anyone to develop.

There is probably some scope for looking at developer contributions but there is a mechanism where what is being asked for as a contribution has to be targeted to infrastructure projects.

In other words, you can't just up the fees to try to stop development.

Rezoning land back from the higher density to lower density is possible.

It would need State Government approval to do.

We could perhaps make requirements for developers to have consolidated a number of blocks before the higher density developments could go in, and then there would be scope for at least better forms of development rather than the gunbarrel type that seem so ugly and socially negative.

This wouldn't change the density, just the possible quality.

I agree with the majority that the Peninsula is developed enough.

The bigger question is what happens to the people that need housing if they can't come to our area.

They of course have to go somewhere.

Damage to environment, social problems, infrastructure are just as important to me if they occur in distant places, so just making people go somewhere else as long as it isn't here, is also not the solution.

The big picture, in my opinion, shows a worse situation for the future of Australia.

The Federal politicians seem to think that human populations can grow endlessly and thus they have dictated an immigration program that leads to endless population growth, and now Kim Beazley, the leader of the Labor Party, wants Australians to have more children.

He wants a baby boom.

Where are they going to live?

Cr Geoff Preece