Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin) - Madam Speaker, I raise the issue that I, as a member for Franklin and I assume other members for Franklin and the minister for Housing would, have recently received a substantial number of emails and other correspondence from people in the Kingborough municipality about the proposed housing supply order that would enable a subdivision at Huntingfield. I have been really overwhelmed by the strength of community concern and the range of issues raised by people and the breadth of the community in the area surrounding Huntingfield and much further afield making representations on this. People have raised so many concerns about the flow-on impacts of this development.
It is clear from our record that the Greens are very strong advocates for increasing the supply of affordable, highly-liveable and energy-efficient homes in Tasmania. That has been our track record in government and it is in parliament too. When Cassy O'Connor, the Leader of the Tasmanian Greens, was the minister for Human Services between 2010 and 2014, she oversaw the master planning of Huntingfield. We appreciate the importance of that site to increasing the provision and density of housing supply near urban centres.
We, as members of the Greens, share the widely held concerns that the current approach being taken by the minister, including the order, has been rushed and inadequately thought through. The Huntingfield Master Plan that Cassy O'Connor oversaw as then minister had the total number of homes and lots planned for the next stage of the Huntingfield development at 230. We, along with the community, were surprised at the proposal for 500 or more. We have also heard 550 being planned along with the move to rezone the site as an inner residential zone. The submission made by the Tarremah School makes the point that the inner residential zone density is significantly higher than that of the general residential zone, which is intended to provide for increased densities in inner residential areas where sites will be in close proximity to public transport and a range of existing services through the proximity to commercial precincts.
The draft order as has been proposed provides for this greater increase in density beyond the inner residential zone to a new proposed zone precinct A, which would have an even greater permitted density of housing than other inner residential zoned land in other parts of Hobart. There is no basis that we can see for the intensive zoning that is being proposed.
In order for the Housing Land Supply Act, which was passed last year, to be an effective and publicly-trusted mechanism for increasing the supply of affordable housing which was its stated intention, it has to be implemented without any resort to planning trickery. The move to rezone Huntingfield to this even more dense inner residential precinct A zone, when it is clearly not appropriate in that environment, does not instil confidence in people about how this act is being applied. We understand and endorse the need to increase the density of future housing developments, particularly in greater Hobart, but that cannot be done without plans for infrastructure, including access to schools, public transport, and services. These are the vast suite of comments that people are making, the real concern about the impact on the two local schools, Tarremah and St Aloysius, on the safety for students and on the traffic flow for those two schools.
On the impact of the proposal for business zones, for a business district to be located right near St Aloysius and Tarremah that would be imposing a commercial activity directly next to those schools when there is no sense at all in putting them right on the edge of the development adjacent to existing housing when they would be better located inside this massive subdivision that is being proposed.
The other concerns that members of the community have raised relate to the stormwater impacts. Tarremah had terrible flood events in May last year that caused substantial damage to the school and it took a lot of parent's effort and a lot of money to recover from. They speak to the inundation issues already occurring in their area and raise the question as to how stormwater can possibly be managed, given the scale of density that is being proposed. The Peter Murrell reserve is right next to the development and the Friends of Peter Murrell also raise important points about the impact of on Coffee Creek and how stormwater could be managed from such a massive development. These are all clearly huge concerns. The last one that I wanted to raise in this regard is the flow of traffic into Hobart. So many people have written specifically on their concerns about the Southern Outlet, the failure of this Government to manage the flow of traffic into the Southern Outlet. I really plead with the minister to seriously take note of the community concerns, and to present back to the community a real clear indication that he will engage with them on these issues.