20090815 Secret Manoeuvers - Canberra Times

THE CANBERRA TIMES SATURDAY, AUGUST, 15, 2009

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Cover story

SECRET MANOEUVRES Visions for Constitution Avenue as a boulevard have been derailed by ASIO’s headquarters. John Thistleton asks how

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t’s so far removed from reality, it could be science fiction. Constitution Avenue is ablaze with bold red, green and blue in grand scenes promoting the National Capital Authority’s Griffin Legacy. A dusty, deserted street at night is dramatically transformed with yellow light spilling out all along the streetscape, showering alfresco diners. This is acclaimed architect Walter Burley Griffin’s vision for Australia’s main street. Griffin scholars say he regarded Constitution Avenue as the national capital’s premier address. Earlier this decade the National Capital Authority researched the main elements of Griffin’s 1918 plan and put forward ideas to bring alive 60 hectares along Constitution Avenue with shops, restaurants, residential and commercial buildings. Over time the avenue’s corridor is to accommodate more than 38,000 workers and residents. From late 2004, when the superbly-illustrated Griffin Legacy planning document was launched outlining a vision for central Canberra, through

to 2007 while consultations took place, people were shown Constitution Avenue as an elegant high street, a Parisian boulevard filled with diners and pedestrians. On the sunny, southern side of the avenue, broad public spaces would be set aside for cafes and shoppers. True to the plan, Constitution Avenue is becoming a lively, even fiery address. Today, neighbours in Campbell are convinced Australia’s national security service, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, steamrolled the vision for vibrancy to get a non-conforming, monolithic building on seven hectares near Russell. It’s due to be completed by 2012. ACT Planning Minister Andrew Barr declined The Canberra Times’s invitation to explain why he wrote to Campbell resident Andrew Schuller saying he too was miffed over the lack of consultation with the territory and believed the NCA has departed from its plan. The landscape dominates in the Griffin Plan, but critics say architecture dominates in this project. Former National Capital Development Commission principal planner Keith Storey says

How has it happened that the people of Canberra and the nation have had 10 days to comment on a project of this magnitude proposing a major building on an extremely prominent site in the national capital?

Parisian inspiration: Constitution Avenue as a thoroughfare with ‘‘shops, restaurants, residential and commercial buildings’’, from The Griffin Legacy.

Griffin would find it repugnant, but the NCA says in time other buildings and vegetation will moderate its impact. The Walter Burley Griffin Society, which commemorates the ideals and vision of Griffin and his wife Marion Mahony Griffin, fears this project will trigger a disorderly gaggle of individual developments, destroying a balanced, symmetrical urban pattern proposal. It says the height, bulk and scale of the building intrude on nationally significant views of Parliament House and reduce real estate in the most visually sensitive location in central Canberra to site-bysite deal-making. Canberra Senator Gary Humphries wants two storeys shaved from the top of the building. Member for Canberra Annette Ellis says it’s too late, the horse has bolted. Senator Kate Lundy, a member of the joint standing committee which two years ago tried to delay the implementation of the Griffin Legacy to allow more consultation, agrees. Lundy says, ‘‘I think it is too far gone. It’s another lesson in what happens when you do such a significant amendment all at once. People feel they have been disenfranchised and not had the opportunity to participate in the way they would have liked.’’ Lundy has no issue with the building’s size. She says the design doesn’t fit the pictures

THE CANBERRA TIMES SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 2009

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PHILIP DORLING Scant regard has been given to the symbolism of placing Australia’s domestic security agency, an institution that in most other countries would be called the secret police, in such a place of prominence in Canberra’s ostensibly democratic landscape. Page 6

accompanying the Legacy launch. ‘‘If that was gratuitous clap-trap from the NCA at the time to make us feel a little better about what they were proposing with the Griffin Legacy, then that is cause for concern as well.’’ The NCA’s chief executive, Gary Rake, and acting executive director, national capital plan, Andrew Smith, are adamant they were not bulldozed by the nation’s top spy agency into abandoning the blocky buildings illustrated in the Legacy, which come close to the avenue’s edge, with courtyards in the middle. They say consultation was completed in the lead-up to Amendment 60, one of four significant changes to the National Capital Plan, which both houses of Parliament approved in 2007. Rake and Smith say agreeing to Humphries’ request to change the building would be inconsistent with the National Capital Plan and would lead to uncertainty. Amendment 60 allows building heights to complement the Anzac Park East and West buildings where the avenue intersects with Anzac Parade, generally to six and seven storeys. The amendment is flexible and open to interpretation. Few people paid much attention to a reference in Amendment 60 to reinforcing Russell as the home of Defence and the security agencies. Well before August 2006, when the NCA unveiled a model of the Griffin Legacy, the Commonwealth Government had accepted former ASIO chief Allan Taylor’s recommendation to increase staff to 1860, then firmed up plans for the new headquarters. While politicians fall over themselves to announce lavish new buildings, they’ve said little about this one. For years the headquarters has been dryly dubbed ‘‘The Commonwealth New Building Project’’. Its proponent, the Department of Finance, says it was looking for a site for all Canberrabased ASIO staff to move into a single location, close to the country’s intelligence community and other partner agencies. The site needed to be big enough for a special-purpose building to expand over the next 50 to 80 years. Environment and heritage considerations and getting value for money were other considerations. ‘‘Remote greenfield sites were considered but rejected at an early stage because of their limitations on functional requirements and higher whole-of-life costs,’’ Finance said. The Finance Department says it chose the site with ASIO, in consultation with the NCA, town planners, services engineers, quantity surveyors, property consultants, heritage and environmental consultants. Now estimated at $589 million for building and fit-out works, the complex will be five storeys above the entry level at Constitution Avenue. A lower loading dock level will be accessible from Wendouree Crescent, giving the the building a total of six levels. The headquarters’ architect, Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp, is an offshoot of Mitchell/ Giurgola and Thorp Architects, which won the international design competition for Parliament House. The practice did not return phone calls asking for comment. Sifting through Commonwealth agency websites Andrew Schuller, a retired book publisher living in Campbell, has uncovered references to the headquarters from June 2006. He has found no opportunity for the community to comment other than a referral notice on the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and Arts website in March this year, inviting comment on whether it needed more assessment. ‘‘How has it happened that the people of Canberra and the nation have had 10 days to comment on a project of this magnitude proposing a major building on an extremely prominent site in the national capital?’’ he asks. Schuller says Amendment 60 was full of rhetoric about increasing the vitality of the street with a mix of commercial, entertainment and residential uses. ‘‘The ASIO building will create a solid block of high-security concrete offices and car parks all the way from Russell to Anzac Parade – absolutely the reverse of the vision of Griffin and the NCA.’’ Schuller notes the Government exempted the project from Public Works scrutiny in October 2007, but wonders when works approval was granted by the NCA. In March this year, after design details on the building appeared on the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts website, a spokeswoman for

the NCA said works approval would not be considered until assessment under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was completed. The NCA’s Smith says there’s a staged works approval process. The Finance Department says the NCA provided in-principle support for the building and its concept design in June 2008. ‘‘The NCA provided works approval for the site establishment works on January 13, 2009, and site works on June 16, 2009. The relevant works approvals for the ‘building works’ will be sought over the next two months, as design progression allows.’’ Senator Lundy says it’s clear the design doesn’t fulfil the vision previously described, which exposes a flaw in the Griffin Legacy which few people appreciated when the four amendments to the National Capital Plan were approved. She suspects that ASIO and the NCA have not had much of an exchange of opinions on the project. ‘‘This is a test of the NCA’s ability to assert both the spirit and function of the National Capital Plan on an agency like Defence, like ASIO. That’s the real test here.’’ Lundy’s comments echo the Walter Burley Griffin Society’s newsletter more than two years ago: ‘‘The amendments contain no urban design controls to ensure quality urban landscape and architecture. There is a complete lack of statistical information and planning data.’’ The society was concerned about there being no legislative requirement for community consultation and cited the ASIO headquarters as an example. Even with less-contentious buildings there was no right of appeal on the merits of any development approval. Although contributing to the Griffin Legacy’s research, the society has been a persistent critic, saying the amendments perpetuate the Canberra syndrome of isolated buildings and dominance of the car. For some years the new headquarters were to be shared by the Office of National Assessments, but in May this year ASIO’s director-general of security, David Irvine, told an estimates committee that ASIO expected to be the sole tenant. From various other documents it’s apparent the Government, on high security alert since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in New York and Washington and subsequent attacks elsewhere, is more vigilant in protecting critical infrastructure. Amendment 60 specifies developments to the street boundary to create continuous street

The ASIO building will create a solid block of highsecurity concrete offices and car parks all the way from Russell to Anzac Parade – absolutely the reverse of the vision of Griffin and the NCA.

Opposing views: Impressions of the new ASIO headquarters, as depicted on the agency’s website, top, and Constitution Avenue East, from the Griffin Legacy.

frontages, but allows for variations in individual buildings. ASIO’s headquarters will be set back about 40m from the avenue (most likely as an additional precaution against cars loaded with explosives). On its website ASIO says, ‘‘The secure perimeter will be achieved using landscape elements that are sympathetic and consistent with the overall ‘building in landscape’ approach to the design.’’ On car parking, Amendment 60 says: ‘‘Large off-street permanent surface car parks are to be avoided; car parking is to be accommodated in basements, or in above-ground structures concealed from public areas generally by habitable building facades.’’ The Department of Finance says 1100 car park spaces will be provided on the site, many in a structured car park below ground level, but not in the basement. Landscaping will shield car parking from being viewed from Parkes Way and a green roof will cover some of the structure. Rake and Smith say the site was always going to be occupied by a large building and this one, the first under Amendment 60, would be part of a mix of land uses. As well as bringing many people into the avenue, ASIO’s headquarters would help the success of retailers moving into the precinct. Smith says the design is of a high standard and responds to the National Capital Plan. ‘‘The quality and landscape is as good as it can be.’’ The NCA chiefs say the National Capital Plan’s consultation requirements differ from one area to another. For example, residential areas of Deakin and Forrest require additional consultation, but Constitution Avenue is not a suburban area. They say land in Constitution Avenue is owned by the Commonwealth, the territory and others, including the Anglican Church, and the mix of retailing, residential, commercial and government uses will over time be determined by developers. Smith is perplexed at Barr’s letter to Andrew Schuller in which the Planning Minister says it’s disappointing the Commonwealth has not continued to liaise with the territory on how this proposal remains consistent with Amendment 60. Smith says they have had open dialogue with the territory and in broad matters of principle were singing from the same sheet. Campbell resident Ros Gordon likens the secrecy of the project to a passage of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, when Arthur Dent wakes to find a bulldozer about to demolish his home for a by-pass. He’s unaware the Earth is also about to be demolished. He’s told the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months. ‘‘On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them,’’ Dent says. ‘‘That’s the display department,’’ the council official tells him. ‘‘With a torch.’’ ‘‘Ah, well the lights had probably gone.’’ ‘‘So had the stairs.’’ ‘‘But look, you found the notice didn’t you?’’ ‘‘Yes,’’ said Arthur, ‘‘yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.’’ John Thistleton is Business Editor.