Making better use of arguably Canberra's greatest asset, Lake Burley Griffin, has been an enduring problem for the capital. It has become a vast, largely empty parkland, inaccessible, devoid of life and cut off from the city by Parkes Way, so the argument goes.
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Attempts to bring more people and vibrancy to the area such as introducing pop-up cafes or the Westside shipping container village have had limited success. The government's big play for the area is the City to the Lake, a vast project that could see more than 600m of road sent underground, a land bridge constructed over the road and a large section of the lake reclaimed to accommodate construction along its shoreline.
But there are growing questions over whether the proposal as it currently stands is actually being driven by community need, or a desire to drive more development. In addition to possible commercial buildings, up to 141,000 square meters of prime land would be freed up for apartments and other development. A number of community groups including the Lake Burley Griffin Guardians, the local chapter of the Walter Burley Griffin Society and the National Trust have objected to the plans for the area.
According to the ACT Government's consultation, the majority of responses to the plans have so far been positive. But the government refuses to say what it might cost or how much it hopes to raise by the sale of that land. Recent attempts by The Canberra Times to obtain those figures under Freedom of Information laws were blocked on the grounds that doing so "may prejudice the ability of the government to engage the community in an open conversation about realignment options for Parkes Way".
What we do know from the limited information that has been released, is that an independent cost benefit assessment has found none of the options for a land bridge stacks up financially. The government has also admitted it is looking for an alternative site for a 50-meter public pool to replace the current Civic pool.
Given significant community alarm over the proposed Manuka redevelopment, skepticism over City to the Lake and the possible scale of the project is understandable. One of the strongest messages to come out of the botched Manuka consultation process was a sense that the community did not have ownership of the project from the start and that the process was largely being driven by and for developers and those who stood to make a buck.
There are many Canberrans who like the lake just the way it is, and would fear large buildings taking over the foreshore that remains one of the city's greatest public assets. Any debate over the future of West Basin and the wider foreshore area needs to be dominated by the community, not the voices of those who might stand to benefit commercially from developing the area.
Lake Burley Griffin, for all its faults, remains one of the jewels in the city's crown, and it is too important to risk getting it wrong. For any rejuvenation of its shoreline to be a success, the process needs to be owned, driven and supported by those with the most invested in its future - the Canberra community.
