Rush to bulldoze puts social and heritage values at risk

For the federal Treasurer, there was the satisfaction of reminding voters that the government's asset recycling initiative, announced last May as a way to counter the effects of a fading mining investment boom, is at last under way. He also gently chided other state leaders for their procrastination in securing funding for road infrastructure projects. For the ACT Chief Minister, the geniality was even more pronounced. Mr Barr announced that the money would go straight towards the proposed City to Gungahlin tram project, and that this, added to the money from the sale of surplus assets, "would see an estimated investment of up to $450 million … in the Capital Metro project".

The list of assets to be sold over the next four years is extensive – government buildings and office blocks, public housing precincts, an ambulance station, even the visitors' centre on Northbourne Avenue – and their redevelopment will substantially alter the city's character and form, perhaps even its social fabric.

Mr Barr believes this asset "recycling" and the Capital Metro project represents "the opportunity to cement Canberra as a city of the future – to grow the economy, to make our people healthy and smart, to keep our city liveable, and most importantly to spread and share opportunity". Hyperbole aside, it may well do.

Much of the public housing in the inner north and south is tired and rundown, and frequently afflicted by petty crime and broad social problems. Office blocks like Macarthur House stand in stark contrast to the modern, efficient commercial properties now routinely occupied by government departments. The land occupied by these post-war era buildings has risen steeply in value over the past two decades and now demands to be put to more productive, that is to say, high density use.

To do this makes eminent practical sense. Consolidation in the inner city will obviate the need for further (expensive) infrastructure provision on Canberra's outskirts, provide a livelier urban dynamic, and should, in theory at least, make light rail more of a viable economic proposition.

But the redevelopment will necessarily require hundreds if not thousands of public housing tenants to be relocated from the inner-city to the suburbs. Many will welcome the opportunity to move to more modern accommodation, even if the trade-off is the loss of an inner-city lifestyle and the ease of access to services that goes with that. Others are likely to be loath to move for that reason. To its credit, the government has said it will mandate the provision of accommodation for low-income earners in all redevelopments of former public housing sites. But with the imperative for the government to maximise the return from the sale of land, and the increased prices for goods and services that gentrification generally brings, it is probable that relatively few low-income housing tenants will be left in inner Canberra after redevelopment runs its course.

The other troubling aspect of the government's urban renewal program is the haste with which it wants to consign architecturally and historically significant (if not broadly appreciated) buildings along Northbourne Avenue to the wrecking ball. Canberra's early planners envisaged Northbourne as a gateway entry to the city, and lined both sides with public housing built in the post-war international architectural style as an affirmation that this was to be the people's capital. The government now regards the Bauhaus-influenced housing precincts as impractical, ugly and an impediment to efficient development. Keeping the best examples would complicate matters, but it would not necessarily cripple development projects, particularly if they were re-used for commercial purposes. That Mr Barr seems unwilling to contemplate a compromise bespeaks a rapaciousness that does him and Labor little credit.

Mr Barr talks up urban renewal as an economic no-brainer, and a win-win for all Canberrans. Those sentiments would carry greater weight if he were to better acknowledge the importance of preserving social and heritage values.