Canberra's community must work with developers and government planners, not just expect the government to address their concerns about urban renewal, a prominent community council member says.
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Belconnen Community Council's deputy chairman Damien Haas said some people were against high-rise development, but others were willing to embrace change and it was "not just about asking the government" for help.
Mr Haas said often community councils were suspicious of developers, and vice versa, and that everyone had to work together to help enliven Canberra's town centres.
His comments follow Chief Minister Andrew Barr on Wednesday criticising some residents for having a "small-town mindset" when it came to taller buildings, and that town centres had a "point of difference" in such areas compared to Civic.
Mr Barr's comments were the latest in the long-running debate over the future of the city's town centres including Woden, Belconnen and Tuggeranong, as the government focuses on re-developing the city and Dickson.
Mr Haas said that Belconnen's experience of drawing up a masterplan in 2016, and now working on a draft precinct code had helped turn a "moribund" into one with large residential towers and a "lively nightlife".
He said while some individual developments in Belconnen had not gone as well as planned, overall the changes were "of great benefit", growing the number of night-time entertainment options and restaurants in the area.
"I think residential density is something people in Canberra need to come to grips with," he said.
"I can understand why people are worried, but I would rather have a 20 storey building in Belconnen town centre than in the back of Hawker, and residential density increases in town centres are the only way for us to sustainably deliver a compact city.
"One more 20 storey residential tower is a whole new suburb you don't have to carve out of the bush on the edge of town."
Mr Haas said a "really crucial thing" was that community expectations of master plans needed to be "managed", that such plans were more of a philosophy for a town centre, but the plans were not "scrolls" with a statutory impact.
"What the community does by contributing to the masterplan is allow the government to turn that into a precinct code and the code is what guides the architects and design, and the community should give the same level of focus to the codes," he said.
ACT Property Council executive Adina Cirson said developers in town "strongly agree" with what Mr Barr had said, but that some developers were building for the future residents of an area, "who aren't being consulted".
"Let's put out the white flag out for sure, but at the same time if a government consults for four years on a master plan and a territory plan, then has a community round table and then there's a parliamentary inquiry, at some point the government needs to make a decision," she said.
She said there needed to be "agreed on principles for negotiation", and most developers consulted with the community, there also had to be faith in the planning directorate.
"It's not like these developments are getting approved without thought to other parts or the area or how it interacts with a town centre; there needs to be some trust in the independent planning authority," she said.
