Convenient, Connected, Affordable Living

The Greens want Canberra to be a city that’s easy to get around, with the services you need at your doorstep.

But right now too many homes are being built on the outskirts, isolating people and almost requiring them to have a car to access health, education, and community events.

The Greens want to set city limits for Canberra and develop our suburbs as real communities where everyone is able to live a healthy, fulfilling life, in a way that cares for the local environment.

JUMP TO: Planning a Connected, Affordable City | Homes Not Horseracing | A Great Path Network

'A model suburb for the Greens vision in Canberra'

Planning a Connected, Affordable City

The way we shape our city shapes our lives. With the right system in place we can deliver great quality homes, in well-connected suburbs, with easy access to services while looking after our local environment.

For too long, construction on the edges of our suburbs has pushed many native ecosystems into increasingly precarious situations. And for too long, Labor has imposed rules restricting homes from being built inside our current footprint.

They want you to believe that solving the housing crisis means concreting over all our green space and developing on the outskirts of Canberra. But building new suburbs this way is expensive, and not nearly as effective as building inside our current city footprint. 

Building more homes inside our current footprint will mean we can integrate the environment throughout our suburbs, making Canberrans moving into a new home immediately well connected, with access to parks, public transport, shops and schools as they move in.

THE ACT GREENS WILL:

  • Set city limits to stop bulldozing environment on the edge of the city
  • Encourage Canberra to grow in, not out, with improved zoning rules
  • Deliver vastly more public and community housing
  • Support more density around public transport, local shops and community facilities
  • Leverage community knowledge for great local outcomes
  • Use social planning to deliver spaces that improve wellbeing, including for people with a disability
  • Establish a Government Landscape Architect

Read in Full | PLANNING A CONNECTED, AFFORDABLE CITY ›

'A model suburb for the Greens vision in Canberra'

Homes, Not Horse Racing

Land is the ACT’s most precious resource. We need to use it carefully, for maximum community benefit.

Labor is poised to hand the racing industry millions in profits, by allowing them to develop some luxury properties around the racecourse in Canberra’s north.

But this is prime land in the heart of Canberra. It’s exactly where we should be building homes and services to create a real community, already served by light rail.

With enough Greens in the Legislative Assembly next term, we will have the ACT Government buy back the entire 64 hectare site from the racing industry, to build a new inner north suburb and school.

THE ACT GREENS WILL:

  • Redevelop the current horse racing site to maximise community benefit
  • Deliver thousands of new homes, including hundreds of public and community homes and a retirement village
  • Build a new school and early learning centre to service the local community
  • Improve the health of the local environment by re-naturalising Sullivan’s Creek, growing a microforest and establishing public parks
  • Foster community with a public square, community hall, market gardens, environment hub and arts centre
  • Create space for shops, restaurants, retail and commercial offices
  • Ensure rezoning produces benefits for the Canberra community, not the horse racing industry
  • Ensure profits from development flow back to the Canberra community, not the horse racing industry

Read in Full | A New Inner North Suburb and School ›Read in Full | Concept plan for Canberra's newest suburb › 

'The path to a well connected Canberra'

A Great Path Network

The ACT Greens want every Canberran to be able to get where they need to go easily and affordably — and to enjoy the trip while they’re at it — on well-maintained, well-located and well-connected paths. 

But right now walking, scooting, riding, pushing a pram or rolling to the bus stop or the local shops simply isn’t a reliable option. Too often local paths are cracked, dangerously uneven, or missing altogether.

It’s time to reprioritise our city to maximise the health benefits of active travel, make our city truly accessible for all the people who visit and live here, and cut transport emissions — Canberra’s main source of climate pollution. 

THE ACT GREENS WILL: 

  • Fix your streets faster by cutting maintenance and repair deadlines from 18 to 6 months
  • Deliver proactive path maintenance with an ongoing program of quality audits, sweeping and cleaning
  • Inject a major funding increase for path maintenance to set the standard needed for a truly liveable city
  • Put people, not cars, at the centre of urban design by fully implementing the new Active Travel Design Guide by 2030
  • Give pedestrians priority at appropriate street crossings, as we did during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic
  • Fund new raised pedestrian crossings around ACT schools and provide every public school with a school crossing supervisor
  • Insource maintenance work rather than depending on private contractors to speed up the rollout of improvements

Read in Full | Connecting Canberra with a Great Path Network ›