DRA has submitted formal comments to the Land Development Agency on its latest development plans for the western end of Adelaide Avenue. We appreciate all input from the range of members and other residents that reached us before the deadline of 4 April 2015.
The “Canberra Brickworks and Environs” might sound remote from most Deakin residents and their concerns, but in fact the Old Canberra Brickworks precinct is only a relatively small corner of the total site, which stretches from Denison St and Kent Street in Deakin to Denman Street and Cotter Road in Yarralumla, covering over 40 hectares on both sides of Adelaide Avenue. In effect, it is on the scale of a new suburb.
Our deeper studies of the proposal, with input from planning experts, indicate that the planned housing development and roads changes will have a significant affect on Deakin from the time the development commences in 2016.
Our comments have focussed on the amount of additional traffic that will be directed onto Deakin streets and the direct impact of over 3000 additional residents in Deakin and the immediate neighbouring part of Yarralumla.
In addition, the whole of Adelaide Avenue from Kent Street to Yarra Glen would be transformed from its current mature landscape character to a frontage of high-rise apartments and an additional complex traffic interchange.
DRA does not oppose an infill development of appropriate form and scale in this area, but this would require some fundamental changes, and consideration of wider impacts that LDA has so far failed to undertake.