The next public meeting of the Gungahlin Community Council (GCC) will be held on Wednesday 10 April 2023 starting at 6:30pm. We will be meeting in-person at the Eastlake Gungahlin Club.
As usual the meeting will be live streamed on Facebook via the GCC Facebook page.
Agenda
The next public meeting of the Gungahlin Community Council (GCC) will be held on Wednesday 10 April 2023 starting at 6:30pm. We will be meeting in-person at the Eastlake Gungahlin Club.
As usual the meeting will be live streamed on Facebook via the GCC Facebook page.
Agenda
The 2023 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Gungahlin Community Council Inc., and November public meeting, will be held in the Eastlake Gungahlin Club, 51 Hinder Street, Gungahlin commencing at 6.30pm on Wednesday 8 November 2023. The AGM will be held first.
The AGM and meeting will be face-to-face. As usual the meeting will be live streamed on Facebook via the GCC Facebook page.
Persons wishing to attend the AGM are strongly encouraged to sign up as a GCC member (it’s FREE!) as only registered members can vote in the event of an election for an executive position.
Agenda
All executive committee positions will be declared vacant and nominations are now open for the office-bearer positions of President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Public Officer and up to five other Committee Members.
The GCC is a volunteer organisation that advocates for and on behalf of the district of Gungahlin as outlined in What We Do.
The GCC organises and hosts monthly public meetings. The GCC executive also meets once per month and much of the business of the executive is undertaken online through email, social media, our web site and other online tools. We engage with a wide range of ACT government agencies, MLA’s and Ministers, and members of the executive participate in a number of forums to better interact with the Gungahlin community. The GCC executive roles require a reasonable time commitment. The work of the GCC is captured in our newsletters and annual reports (eg. 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018).
If you know someone who may be interested in the work of the Gungahlin Community Council, please pass this information on to them.
You must be a registered GCC member to nominate for an executive committee position (signup as a member). A person is not eligible to nominate to be an Office-Bearer of the Council if the person is;
(a) an Executive Officer of a registered political party;
(b) a person employed by a registered political party;
(c) a registered candidate for a forthcoming election; or
(d) an elected member of the ACT Legislative Assembly or any Parliament or a person who has been pre-selected or has nominated for a forthcoming election to any of the aforementioned bodies; or
(e) an office bearer in a commercial or industrial lobby group registered with the Federal or ACT Government.
Nominations should be sent by emailing a completed NOMINATION FORM to the Secretary (secretary@gcc.asn.au) no later than Friday 3 November 2022. All nominations will be acknowledged by return email.
1. Opening and welcome
2. Apologies
3. Minutes of previous AGM held on 9 November 2022
4. Presentation of Annual Report for 2022-23
5. Presentation of Treasurer’s Report (Financial Reports & Reviewers Statement)
6. Appointment of Public Officer
7. Election of office bearers & general committee members for 2022-23
8. General Business
The next public meeting of the Gungahlin Community Council (GCC) will be held on Wednesday 11 October 2023 starting at 6:30pm. We will be meeting in-person at the Eastlake Gungahlin Club.
As usual the meeting will be live streamed on Facebook via the GCC Facebook page.
Agenda
The Suburban Land Agency will be undertaking works on Block 1, Section 228 Gungahlin, currently used as a car park and identified as Boon Lane car park on Google maps.
The carpark will be closed on Monday 25 September 2023 to allow access for the works which are essential to allow redevelopment of the car park in 2024.
The carpark is located between Ernest Cavanagh Street, Anthony Rolfe Avenue and Gozzard Street and is shown in red on the map below
Alternative parking options are available in the Gungahlin town centre. Information about the location of car parks is available on the Access Canberra website by searching ‘pay parking maps’ at www.accesscanberra.act.gov.au.
Please contact us by email on suburbanland@act.gov.au or by phone on 6205 0600 if you have any questions about the upcoming works. We would be happy to answer your queries.
Yours sincerely,
Ms Mayumi Piper
Senior Director, Community Development and Engagement 12 September 2023
The next public meeting of the Gungahlin Community Council (GCC) will be held on Wednesday 13 September 2023 starting at 6:30pm. We will be meeting in-person at the Eastlake Gungahlin Club.
As usual the meeting will be live streamed on Facebook via the GCC Facebook page.
Agenda
The ACT Government conducted a Feasibility Study for Active Travel infrastructure within the Gungahlin Town Centre in 2022. The final report has recently been released and identifies 12 individual community route links to improve active travel in the Gungahlin Town Centre. As detailed here – Active travel in the Gungahlin Town Centre – funding has been included in the 2023-24 budget to progress high priority segments through to detailed design.
The GCC partnered with Canberra cycling advocacy group Pedal Power to participate in the feasibility study, and provided the following joint feedback on a draft of the report. We would welcome any comments on the feasibility study or the comments below – email us at info@gcc.asn.au. Note that references below are to section numbers in the final report.
And the two additional points raised in the Conclusion:
GCC and PP suggest that these may significantly affect the priority of the link projects, as will the consultations associated with these developments, most notably the SLA-led Gungahlin Town Centre East Place-Making.
PDF Version submitted to the ACT Budget 2023-23 consultation.
The Gungahlin Community Council (GCC) continues to advocate for the completion of the Gungahlin district with all the transport, commercial (office), community, entertainment, education, health, sporting and recreation infrastructure and services residents expect in a Canberra district.
Delivering against these expectations addresses all the ACT Wellbeing indicators.
Gungahlin is Canberra’s second largest district and poses many challenges to ACT Policing. Because of the many cultural, religious, demographic, and ethnic factors that are impacting the community and how it interacts, in addition to their normal law and order duties, police are required to act as ad-hoc counsellors, mental health responders, youth workers, and first aiders.
There are insufficient police resources in Gungahlin and the existing Gungahlin police station is completely inadequate. A recent ACT Assembly petition[1] calling for an increase in police resources and urgent investment in a new Gungahlin Police Station attracted 660 signatures. The GCC has campaigned for nearly a decade on the inadequacy of policing resourcing and facilities and STRONGLY recommends that the ACT government address these policing concerns in the 2023-34 budget.
The 2022 Community and Recreational Facilities Assessment – Gungahlin District[2] identified 28 categories of community and recreation facilities with only 12 (43%) categorised as meeting current and likely future demand (out to 2045). This is consistent with the GCC’s 2019 community survey and feedback from community stakeholder groups. It is an issue that is further exacerbated by the lack of suitably zoned land in Gungahlin.
The GCC therefore strongly supports the Assessment’s recommendation that “Further investigations and planning will be required to confirm the need and feasibility of any future facilities in the Gungahlin district”.
The GCC:
Further action needs to be taken by the ACT government to facilitate the development of employment and community services in the Gungahlin Town Centre. Gungahlin is home to over 20% of Canberra residents yet supports just 6% of employment. This disparity impacts many of the ACT Wellbeing indicators. The GCC again asks the ACT government to renew efforts to work with the Commonwealth government:
The ongoing East Gungahlin place-making engagement needs to be followed by detailed planning and investment to deliver much-needed entertainment and diversified retail services.
The GCC continues to receive strong feedback regarding congestion on Gungahlin’s arterial road network, traffic flow and parking issues within the Town Centre, and the inadequacy of the public transport services and ongoing concerns with the bus interchange. We appreciate the ongoing work on intersection feasibility studies and the mesoscopic traffic analysis, but these need to be completed and remedial work commenced to avoid further lag between issues arising and infrastructure being constructed.
The GCC asks that planning work be commenced to duplicate:
The Barton Highway-Gundaroo Drive intersection has the highest accident rate in the ACT, and will need to support increasing volumes of traffic with the duplication of the Barton Highway towards Yass, and the eventual development of the CSIRO site. The GCC asks that planning work be funded to replace the existing roundabout at this location with an overpass, and the duplication and further improvement of the Barton Highway.
The GCC asks the ACT government to work towards improving linkages between town centres and other employment centres, to address ongoing concerns expressed by TCCS on the operation of the bus interchange, and to publish and action the Gungahlin Town Centre Active Travel Feasibility study to better serve Gungahlin.
The recent experience of Community Councils, including Gungahlin, is a lack of coordination of government services and agencies in implementing investments. The ACT government agencies are sensibly whole-of-Canberra. However, the construction and development of assets are local. The governance structure has a gap in the lack of local (spatial) coordination. The GCC requests that the government experiment with local governance or oversight for a specific district. The selection of a paid governing board to oversee the project is by candidates nominating themselves, and the choice of members is by sortition. The governing board would have a secretariat from the government to coordinate information to and from government agencies.
Governments deciding what and how to invest requires accurate, up to date, accessible, local, relevant information. The Government’s Wellbeing measures are an example. What is lacking is how to use the measures to assist the development of District Strategies, particularly in new build areas such as Gungahlin.
The GCC recommends that Wellbeing data be collected and reported at District level.
[1] https://epetitions.parliament.act.gov.au/details/e-pet-006-23
[2] https://yoursayconversations.act.gov.au/gungahlin-community-facilities/gungahlin-community-facilities-report-released
[3] https://www.cmtedd.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/1654077/Parliamentary-Agreement-for-the-10th-Legislative-Assembly.pdf
[4] https://gcc.asn.au/gcc/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Gungahlin-Town-Centre-A-Prospectus-for-APS-Investment.pdf
The GCC has been advised by the ACT Education Directorate that eight (8) demountable classrooms will be installed at Gungahlin College in August 2023. The Directorate writes:
The Education Directorate is continuing to closely monitor enrolments at Gungahlin College and taking steps to ensure we have adequate space for learning across the school.
In addition to a range of improvements put in place over the past few months, plus planned improvements to the playing fields, Gungahlin College will soon be receiving additional science and mathematics learning spaces as well as eight additional transportable classrooms.
Delivering eight additional classrooms
Planning is underway to install four relocatable learning units (RLUs) this term, providing eight additional teaching and learning spaces for the school. Enrolments are projected to grow moderately in 2024 and 2025. If these enrolment projections are realised, students will be able to be accommodated within the increased capacity of the school.
The RLUs will be installed in the area currently occupied by the College tennis courts.
While this does cause some inconvenience for community, we are pleased to note the ACT Government is delivering a new 10-courts tennis facility in Amaroo to open in 2024, in partnership with Tennis Australia and Tennis ACT.
When the RLUs are removed, the tennis courts will be reinstated for community use.
Work to deliver and install the additional classrooms at Gungahlin College is expected to commence during August.
If you have any questions regarding this work, please contact the ACT Education Directorate on ACT.Education@act.gov.au
The next public meeting of the Gungahlin Community Council (GCC) will be held on Wednesday 9 August 2023 starting at 6:30pm. We will be meeting in-person at the Eastlake Gungahlin Club.
As usual the meeting will be live streamed on Facebook via the GCC Facebook page.
Agenda
