Ahead of the ACT Budget on 27 June, the ACT Government today announced it would spend more than $98 million on parks, public spaces, and recreational infrastructure. Chief Minister Andrew Barr called it “a very significant package of investment in parks and places … in every part of the city”.

“Canberrans enjoy the best quality of life in Australia and the world,” Chris Steel, ACT Minister for Transport and City Services, said.

“This budget announcement will further enhance the recreational amenity of Canberrans. They can expect to see more mowing; more tree maintenance; and more tree planting to make sure our streets are looking good, and that they are lined with healthy trees.

“These initiatives will go directly to supporting Canberrans’ wellbeing … They have been assessed against the Wellbeing Framework, providing significant benefits for Canberrans’ quality of life.”

Canberra Liberals MLA Nicole Lawder, Shadow Minister for City Services, was not impressed.

“Mowing, tree maintenance, weeding [are] all basic city services that have been neglected for years,” she said. “Getting the mowing levels back to something almost reasonable. Just wait for spring when the grass suddenly grows, and the government is surprised and caught out by it, year after year.”

Acton Waterfront park

The biggest announcement is $35 million over six years to build the Acton Waterfront park, built on 30,000 sqm of land reclaimed from Lake Burley Griffin.

The park will have event lawns, a new play space, barbecue areas, and terraces overlooking the lake.

“All of the issues that came up during quite an extensive round of consultation on what people wanted from the new park are incorporated in the design,” Mr Barr said.

The Chief Minister envisages that Acton Waterfront will in time become one of Canberrans’ favourite recreation destinations and a popular tourist venue. (However, at the moment, he remarked, the area has a higher rabbit population than usage by Canberrans and visitors.)

The original Burley Griffin plan, the government states, was to connect the city centre and the water; this park will achieve that. Part of the lake was reclaimed to restore the plan’s symmetry, Mr Barr said. A 500-metre boardwalk and Henry Rolland Park, formerly a carpark, are already open.

However, the reclaimed land will need time to settle before it can be developed, Mr Barr explained.

“It’s simply not possible or safe to undertake immediate construction on the reclaimed land,” he said. “That’s a very clear engineering hurdle … New top soil will need to be put in place, and then a range of new amenity will be constructed.”

Once the National Capital Authority approves, new soil will be brought to the rock fill area, then settle for 18 months before stormwater works and the construction of the park begin.

The park is part of a greater project: according to the National Capital Plan, Acton Waterfront will be “a vibrant cultural and entertainment precinct on a waterfront promenade”. Behind the park, there will be shops, cafés, restaurants, community spaces, and residential development – although the first residents will not move in for years yet.

“The CBD population has increased,” Mr Barr said. “It’s going to progressively grow over the next 15 to 20 years. And so we’re investing now in all of that community amenity ahead of that population growth.”

Other park projects

Over the next two years, the government will also spend $3.2 million to upgrade Yerrabi Pond District Park, Gungahlin. New toilet facilities will be built on both sides of Yerrabi Pond, near Wunderlich Street, Gungahlin, and Bizant Street, Amaroo; new picnic facilities will be built on the southern side of the lake; more parking spaces will be created in Phyllis Ashton Circuit; and more lighting will be set up around the pond.

“In Gungahlin, one of our fastest growing regions, we’ve seen the existing parklands being heavily used,” Mr Steel said.

“As a result of that, we need to put in more amenities for recreation – things like picnic facilities, toilets, and also more parking … so that they can enjoy the park land around the lake, whether it’s to go for a walk or whether it’s to go for a picnic with friends and family … We had a petition to the Assembly about some of those items. We’re really pleased to be able to respond to that, as well as deliver on some of our election commitments.”

The government will also spend $492,000 to improve Telopea Park, one of Canberra’s oldest parks, created in 1922. The park will have new formalised paths, lighting, and landscaping.

A further $1.3 million will be spent over two years to upgrade Hawker Playing Fields, Belconnen, with additional parking, LED sportsground lighting at all three ovals so players can train at night, new toilet facilities, and female-friendly changerooms.

Upgrading Garema Place

$25.5 million will be spent through the City Precinct Renewal Program to upgrade infrastructure in the City Centre, Acton, Braddon, and Dickson, ensuring that they “remain attractive destinations for locals and visitors”.

Garema Place will be upgraded to create “a modern and exciting dining and retail location in the heart of the City Centre”.

As in City Walk, new garden beds, seating, and lighting will be installed “to make [the area] more friendly for people, and a place that people might actually want to spend time in”, Mr Barr said.

Combined with private sector renewal of buildings and shopfronts, this will make Garema Place “a more attractive venue for people to spend time in – nighttime and daytime, weekends and holidays”, Mr Barr said.

Last week, the ACT Government announced the heritage restoration of the Sydney and Melbourne buildings.

• Historic laneways in Canberra city centre upgraded (7 June)

“We recognise that these are iconic parts of our city centre,” Mr Barr said. “We will be playing our part, together with the private sector, in making them better places for people.”

Trees and mowing

The ACT has more than 800,000 trees, which provide a significant benefit to people living in Canberra, Mr Steel said: cooling the city during the summer, and biodiversity.

“We need to make sure that we’ve got the staff to maintain them,” Mr Steel said.

The ACT Government will spend $24.2 million to maintain and plant trees, including employing 12 more staff.

The government will also spend $2.6 million to continue the rapid response mowing team set up last year. Ten extra staff will be spread around the city to better respond to community requests for mowing, and to respond to weather conditions and line of site and safety mowing requests.

“That’s been a really successful model that we piloted,” Mr Steel said. “Now we’re extending that same team into another year, so that we can see more of that mowing work happening, and during the winter, more weeding as a result of wet weather.”

The government will spend $5.3 million to improve the capacity of the stormwater infrastructure network to better manage local flooding, including at the Kippax Group Centre. (A 2020 study found that the building did not have sufficient capacity to deal with flooding; surrounding streets could be flooded.)