More than 700 Canberrans and interstate visitors have backed calls for an independent review and public consultations on the future of the City to the Lake development at West Basin.
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A petition circulated by the Lake Burley Griffin Guardians has called on the territory government to complete an independent review of the development, which forms part of the City to the Lake proposal on the lake waterfront.
Uncertainty has been growing about the government' City to the Lake plans, after the government abandoned or significantly scaled back plans for a huge convention centre, large sports stadium and aquatic centre on the waterfront.
It is also unclear what the plans are for Parkes Way, which would need to be lowered to allow foot traffic from Civic to the waterfront, given that work would be one of the most costly elements of the project.
Guardians' convenor Juliet Ramsay said more than 730 Canberrans and visitors to the city had signed the petition, which Canberra Liberals MLA Elizabeth Lee is expected to table during Legislative Assembly sittings this week.
She said the guardians were particularly concerned about the scale and nature of proposals for multi-storey apartment blocks at West Basin, and how much, is any, parkland would be maintained.
"The last consultation we had on the project was in 2015 and since then we've seen so many changes, we're not sure what is or is not proposed except for the apartments," she said.
"But there has been no real consultation on the apartment blocks, and our big concern is they'll start filling in the lake early next year for the boardwalk before talking to the community about what the end result will be."
Ms Ramsay said petitioners were deeply concerned about the density of the apartments -which could be four storeys high on the waterfront, rising to six storeys in blocks further back - as well as green space and car parking.
"We feel a complete review is needed of the entire West Basin proposal, and we should be limiting the apartment blocks," she said.
"What we've currently got is a government selling off a park for apartment blocks that most Canberrans couldn't afford to live in at a time when we've reportedly got a surplus of about 6700 homes in the city.
"West Basin is a great place, it might be a bit degraded, but it could be improved, and it has a beautiful vista across the lake, but if that vista is blocked with apartments and there's no car parking, people will stop using it altogether."
The City Renewal Authority is already reviewing whether various elements stack up economically, and align with government's current plans and a spokesman for Chief Minister Andrew Barr said it was "appropriate to review elements" over time.
But he said the government would not reconsider the decision to "proceed with the overarching plan to connect the city to the lake", and the detailed design for West Basin was "still some years away but will be subject to community consultation".
He also said building heights and uses in West Basin were determined by amendment 61 to the National Capital Plan, which had already undergone "extensive consultation", and that "no detailed planning has been done for any of the proposed land releases".
