After a rather erratic beginning, the issues surrounding the decision by the Federal Government to reassess the role of the National Capital Authority seem to be focusing on two major elements: the cutting of funds to the NCA for the construction of Constitution Avenue and the establishment of a parliamentary joint committee inquiry.
It seems odd that the cutting of funds should have been announced for a specific project of great importance for Canberra before the creation of a committee of inquiry on the activities of NCA.
The cutting of funds appears to have the definite intention of reducing, if not erasing, the functions of the NCA before providing an opportunity for a considered assessment of the matter within the work of a balanced committee.
The interests of a nation's capital should not be approached in such a cavalier way.
Constitution Avenue represents important unfinished business. Besides considerations of a symbolic or architectural nature, this urban artery is a direct connection between Russell and Civic that eventually extends through London Circuit, south to Commonwealth Avenue and north to Northbourne Avenue. Presently, it is a nondescript, visually eroded street, yet a fundamental element of the Parliamentary Triangle. It must not be casually exploited, as it has started to be, by new structures such as the replacement ASIO office building and the extension of Canberra Institute of Technology facilities.
Without adequate planning, these new structures will dramatically increase building and people density in the area; the well-canvassed consequences of traffic and need for services, and pollution, will inevitably follow.
Constitution Avenue is of paramount importance, and not only in terms of the Griffin Plan.
It is the fundamental structural element of the geometry around which is anchored and evolves the rest of Canberra. While the other two sides of the triangle, Kings and Commonwealth Avenues, are absorbed by rushing traffic moving between occasional buildings, Constitution Avenue, surrounded as it is by residences, parks, educational institutions, historical places, offices and the unresolved intersection with Anzac Parade, has all the ingredients to become a glorious boulevard, a precious urban place for the well-being of all.
This is why the NCA, besides accomplishing other remarkable work, dedicated key individuals within its planning section to this important undertaking for Canberra, a work that cannot be disposed of lightly. Cities after all have been defined as the pitiless indicators of the state of their civilisation.
The NCA has been performing a highly significant task on key sectors of our city with relatively modest means, maintaining a heritage of planning that has characterised our city since its very beginning.
If we did not have an NCA, we would have to re-invent a new one. The task of sustaining the value of our city as the nation's capital is a very particular one, requiring a highly competent and sensitive planning body that will always bear in mind the historical implications of its work.
A civic administration, as the ACT is instituted, is not equipped to plan at a national scale and scope.
In Canberra, we already have sorry examples of indifference and bad judgment, from the chaotic conditions at the airport to the inconsiderate decisions for neighbourhoods at the periphery of the city. Eventually, public expenditure is needed to try to correct bad situations with necessarily improvised and makeshift solutions. The presence of a professional, independent process of planning, incorporating many facets of community interest, could avoid such a situation.
Unfortunately today, quoting the words of the San Francisco planner Allan B.Jacobs, "Planning has been reduced to a socio-economic administration designed to respond to 'ad hoc' development pressure, to issue permits and design guidelines through which large-scale developers easily exert political pressure to get what they want."
Unless we are prepared to accept a Canberra reduced to an alienating urban environment on the model of the proliferating cities of the so-called developing world, then we must learn to trust professionally intelligent planning and planners whose basic priorities must be the health, safety and well-being of a community as the clear and comprehensive force behind public development.
Planning must be an active force inclusive of the dynamic of a city in an integrated process.
Its practical application should result in the following:
A functional plan that deals with physical organisation on a regional basis.
An area plan, concerned with a limited sector of the city, and which produces a tri-dimensional relationship between physical factors, natural and man-made.
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A project plan that explains in tri-dimensional terms the key aspects of the area plan.
An architectural representation, inclusive of explanatory graphics of detailed regulations.
A financial plan that deals with construction and management costs.
A capital program that sets the sequence and dimension of public action for a project's accomplishment.
A comprehensive plan to be annually reviewed following the adoption of the capital program by the city council.
The making of this comprehensive plan, together with the Capital Program, should be the basis of intensive collaboration between the NCA and ACT planning.
Planning is an intelligent public forum where the public comprises thoughtful individuals rather than a crowd. It has been the function of the NCA to activate such a forum and this has been done with talent and integrity. It should be valued for its effectiveness for the public at large rather than as an abstract efficiency. The NCA is an essential element of Canberra's structure as a city with a vital national role.
The capital's citizens must demonstrate their understanding through active involvement. Without an NCA, or with one reduced to mere bureaucratic functions, Canberra could become a provincial town of little interest for any one, except for the presence of a few incongruous monuments.
Canberra is a beautiful city, like no other city in the world. Only in Canberra the planning process can be turned into a work of art.
Romaldo Giurgola was the design architect of the Australian Parliament House.