Three rules for OSM planning in Canberra
**Rule 1: In Australian Communist Territory everything is owned by the
government,
Rule 2: everything is controlled by the government and
Rule 3: nothing happens without the government know about it.**
If you want to know why read on.
(note: **text** is markdown and this would be in bold if the forum was on
GitHub.)
I live in Canberra, the Australian Communist Territory, where we all work for
the Federal Government and don’t do anything useful. At least that is what the
Australian press and politicians would lead you to believe. Canberrans
disagree, “if you worked for these politicians you wouldn’t vote for them.” It
is a bit like you sending us your inlaws, they are not welcome. As for the
press, well, what do they know about Canberra. There is a great deal of
misinformation about the ACT and this is obvious when Canberrans talk with
visitors, “It’s part of NSW, isn’t it? It is certainly in NSW?” Well, we are
not ruled by Sydney but certainly, we are ruled by the Federal Government.
If you find me a bit sceptical about outsiders ability to understand the ACT,
then that’s because you have never spoken about Canberra with my family. So
first I will clear up a few basic facts about Canberra, then I will tell you
where all the money comes from, and finally, I will explain why nothing happens
in Canberra with the ACT Government knowing about it. In the Australian
Communist Territory, you better pay attention to the Five-Year Plan.
**Some basic facts**
Firstly, until this year most of the population worked for the government (ACT
or Federal). Now just over 50% are employed outside the government. It is not
true that all the Federal public servants work in Canberra, about 50% do but
over 30% work in Sydney and Melbourne, and about 16% work in rural Australia.
Canberra is the bush capital. I read somewhere that 30% of the Federal
government employees work for defence: biggest budget, most employees, $50
billion for subs, the biggest everything. It is not true that the Australian
Public Service is particularly big either. The Australian Public Service is
only a third the size of the NSW public service. Most Canberrans were not born
in Canberra, they either immigrated to the country or Canberra from Melbourne,
Sydney or rural NSW (or Queanbeyan for that matter).
**How does the ACT work?**
We are not a state but a territory, which means that we don’t have the autonomy
of the state. Canberra is like Rome with another autonomous territory with the
city. Our Vatican City is called the Capital Planning Authority. The Capital
Planning Authority still controls everything in the Parliamentary Triangle but
also has regulatory oversight of any developments in the ACT within 200m from
major thoroughfares around it. The ACT government is responsible for planning
in the rest of the ACT, except military areas, of which there are many. For
reasons of prudence the ACT planning is done in such a way that it does not
conflict with the Capital Planning Authority. A difference is that the Capital
Planning Authority is prescribed to build in a “premium quality” so that it
looks special.
**How is development in the ACT funded?**
With the federation of Australia, the Commonwealth purchased three large farms
and then a bit (Hall), but unfortunately, not Queanbeyan. All land then
belonged to the Commonwealth Government and that is how it is until this day.
If you “buy” a house in Canberra, you have a 99-year lease on the land on which
it stands. After that, it would in principle go back to the ACT government.
(Rule1: In Australian Communist Territory everything is owned by the
government.) This is unlikely to happen to a house, but investors have been
caught out purchasing a site for retail development and then have done nothing
with it to discover they were threatened by the ACT government with lose of the
lease unless they finished the job. The most important sources for ACT revenue
are land tax, payroll tax, Federal Government (CHOGM) funding and most
importantly LAND SALES. Yes, the ACT Government is the real estate developer in
the ACT. (Rule 3: nothing happens without the government know about it.) All
suburbs and Canberra are planned and developed by the ACT Government and I know
only one exception – Ginninderry. (Rule 2: everything is controlled by the
government). When the ACT Government is short of money it develops another
suburb with a few thousand houses and sells them off in an auction, where each
block can get up to almost $850,000 and the whole suburb is sold off in hours.
(I think in Molonglo Valley the whole suburb was sold off in just 6 hours.) To
top that all off, demand outstrips supply. Luckily with our benevolent
dictatorships, this Mafia structure works well.
**Building a city**
If you were an engineer or urban planner, you would love Canberra. The
Australian Communist Territory is a planned economy and the ACT Government has
plans for everything. The ACT Government has standards how everything is to be
built, designs all sections of the city to those standards often using
templates, contracts the construction of the plans to industry, before then
resuming all the assets back to government control and selling the land in lots
to individuals and builders. The ACT government provides all this information
for what it is planning on government portals and provides mapping tools that
allow you to visualise all routes, roads, paths, infrastructure, and zoning.
I will describe specifically where you find this information and mapping tools
in the next post, before venturing to a concrete task that we need to undertake
on OSM.
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