Director-general Dorte Eklund hailed the draft variation (353) as likely to " increase opportunities for development in some non-residential zones and make the Territory Plan easier to understand". The development opportunities of which she spoke relate to the draft variation's allowance of a fast food outlet at the Beard industrial estate, on the outskirts of Queanbeyan, and a convenience supermarket of about 1000 square metres at the Canberra Outlet Centre in Fyshwick. Ms Eklund described the former as benefiting "both staff and their employers, as workers will no longer have to go off-site to buy food", while the latter would "serve the needs of workers and visitors in an around the outlet centre".

The directorate's media release explained that variations such these are prepared "in response to feedback received from development assessors, the community, and industry representatives during the ongoing monitoring of the functionality of the Territory Plan". Such bland and reassuring bureaucratic language fails to convey, however, the apparent alacrity with which the Planning Directorate has agreed with the idea that Fyshwick needs a supermarket idea – in spite of the Territory Plan's objectives of that industrial mixed-use zones accommodate "industry associated retailing, services and other commercial uses" and provide for "a range of commercial and services activities at a scale that will protect the planned hierarchy of commercial centres".

After commissioning a market survey, Balmain Asset Management last year submitted a development application for a lease variation allowing the gross floor area limit for a supermarket to increase from 200 square metres to 1000 square metres. On December 15, the directorate issued a "scope for a planning report" for the proposed variation changing the outlet centre from an RC2 area to an RC5 area, following which a number of community information sessions were organised.

A planning report followed on May 5. Replete with tables, employment growth projections, pie charts and the like, this marketing device relies on some heroic assumptions as justification for a new supermarket. The claim that it will employ 100 people (50 directly and 50 indirectly) is the most obvious of these. Equally contentious is the assertion that a supermarket will "facilitate Fyshwick's growth as a retail destination and attracting shoppers from outside the ACT".

It would be unfair to describe the report as a complete snow job, however. The executive summary makes clear Balmain Asset Management's primary reason for seeking a draft variation: the outlet is struggling to find and retain tenants "in part due to the absence of strong anchor tenants and competition with other centres offering a multi-purpose offering". The report's authors are not above injecting a note of alarmism about the centre's future, either, suggesting that if it was to close "it would send a negative message to the business and broader community about the strength of the ACT economy, and also potentially result in a derelict building on a major avenue and approach route in Canberra".

Enthusiasm for new employment-generating enterprises notwithstanding, it's hard to see why the government would warm to Balmain's application, or why it would want to given the precedent-setting nature of propping up a single failing business. The plan lacks any real merit in terms of public interest, or net public benefit. Supermarkets large and small exist within a 5km radius of Fyshwick, and more are planned. The proposal lacks a wider commercial imperative too, since it's likely shoppers will be coaxed away from the Fyshwick food markets.

It all adds weight to the contention increasingly heard in some quarters that planning in the ACT has been effectively captured by cashed-up rent-seekers.