Articles

The article by Brett Odgers was published in the Walter Burley Griffin Society’s News Update 73, May 2020.  This is a useful factual article that outlines the damage to Canberra’s planning in the 21st Century. It refers to the lack of interest by the Federal Government, the frustrating and ineffective public consultation run by both…

Extreme Challenges Facing the Conservation of the Lake Burley Griffin and the Lakeshore Landscape — a Community Parkland Space. In the 21st Century, community parkland landscapes have become vulnerable to exploitation by political financial interest groups. The associated values that are under threat are – environmental qualities, views and vistas, significant landscape experiences, community health…

The tram is literally on “the wrong track”. The crossing of Lake Burley Griffin needs a more exciting and enlightened solution that respects the national capital ethos, while better expressing, visually, economically, and symbolically, a progressive new mode of public transport for Canberra, in the Central National Area. Download & Read Full Article

The article by Tom Greenwell, ‘A City in Search of a Centre’ (Canberra Times 3/8/19), uses a journalistic conceit that Griffin’s planned central area, within his National Triangle was not completely realised, is ‘empty’ and needs filling.  He notes that the commercial and business functions were placed outside this area and it was instead filled…

If you are reading this, the chances are that you like plants, gardens and parks: the smell of flowers and earth, the sound and sight of birds and bees, reflections off water, tall trees and the variety of a layered landscape, perhaps with views to the distance. The importance of this connection with nature is…

NOTES for an Address to AGM of the Deakin Residents Association, Oct. 24th 2017 Tony Powell.   Let me state at the outset that I am not referring to ‘malfeasance’ on the part of the Barr Government, but ‘corruption of due process’ in the manner that I expressed in my public lecture to the Canberra University…

This interesting online news article mentions issues surrounding lakeside development (amongst others). The article previewed former planning commissioner Tony Powell’s address to a community council in October 2017.  Read the article from Canberra’s The Riot Act online news site here  

West Basin is under serious threat of “urbanisation by stealth” on the part of the ACT Government, whose aim is to justify re-zoning for medium to high density residential development and sale of land in the foreshore area in order to meet its budget imperatives.   “City-to-Lake” designation is spurious because it contradicts the propinquity…

Juliet Ramsay, convenor of Lake Burley Griffin Guardians and cultural landscape expert, looks at threats to the aesthetic and social values of Lake Burley Griffin in this article particularly to the West Basin.

Your editorial (Times2, October 2, p2) is notably sanguine about Canberra’s future. Yet it expresses no interest in Canberra as the nation’s capital. The National Capital Authority is portrayed as “an independent planning watchdog sidelined”. It is, of course, the Commonwealth’s key agency responsible for fulfilment of Australia’s national capital aspirations. Moreover, “having an unelected body such as the…

The ACT government’s plan for medium-density apartment blocks of six to eight storeys along Commonwealth Avenue and at the nationally significant West Basin site on the beautiful Lake Burley Griffin is unwise. It is overkill. Canberra is an internationally significant city with a unique character. The build environment merging into the local landscape is the essence of the city’s…

The proposed redevelopment of West Basin will have one disastrous implication that for me makes the proposal totally unacceptable: it will destroy Canberra’s greatest community event; Floriade. This is because the redevelopment means that car access to Floriade will be impossible as there will be no public parking in West Basin. Once people become aware…

The French city of Lyon is an almost-island formed where the Rhone and Saone rivers meet. At the southern tip where the rivers join is an area of 150 hectares known as the Confluence. This rundown area was occupied by a river port, a wholesale market and two massive prisons built in 1831 and 1865. In 2003, the…

Having just celebrated Canberra’s Centenary year in 2013, this year, 2014, marks the semi-centenary of the official inauguration of Lake Burley Griffin and its parklands. After fifty years of Lake Burley Griffin’s presence in the nation’s capital it is timely to reflect on the visions that created the exceptional lake parkland feature, the appropriation of lakeshore public spaces and the bleak reality of the lakeshore’s protection and future…

The Land Development Agency’s backdown on the Yarralumla Brickworks development to a sensible height and density as noted in Meredith Clisby’s article “Brickworks development backdown” (August 28, p1) is extremely welcome. Height and density building reduction is now desperately needed in West Basin. West Basin is used by Canberrans and importantly by visitors to our…

The National Capital Authority’s proposed changes to the National Capital Plan as it pertains to City Hill and West Basin is a travesty being forced on Canberra. While there are some sound approaches in the NCA draft, good judgment does not extend to City Hill and West Basin. With regard to City Hill, the draft…

This study sought to establish how the people of Canberra use and value Lake Burley Griffin and what views around the lake are significant. Information from this study can be used to ensure the continuing beauty and social value of Lake Burley Griffin whether by maintaining, enhancing or developing its special places…

The National Capital Development Commission has won the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects inaugural ‘Award in Landscape Excellence’ for its project ‘Lake Burley Griffin and Adjacent Parkland’. Read the full article published in ‘The Lake News’, June 1986  

Sir:  At any rate, we have added a word to the vocabulary of the country, because when I knew I had to do something about this new Lake I wondered what it was open it, close it, name it what was it to be? Inaugurate. (Laughter) I think that’s lovely. I declare this lake duly…

An article about the Landscaping of Lake Burley Griffin, written by R. Clough and J.E. Gray for the Institute of Park Administration Conference,  April, 1964 .   Click here to view the PDF