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  • 8 hours ago
The ACT government wants to densify Canberra, arguing its proposed "missing middle" planning law changes will increase the choice of housing that can be built in its suburbs and meet the demands of a growing population. But with a changing climate, some worry the city's infrastructure - including stormwater systems - don't currently have the capacity.

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00:01Concrete drain panels stripped away by the sheer weight of water.
00:07Some say the damage from the weekend's downpour is decades in the making.
00:12Obviously this watercourse was here before Canberra was built
00:15and in the 1971 floods unfortunately we lost lives
00:19and the creek infrastructure as you see it today was designed back then.
00:23Well since then we've got much better knowledge about watercourses and nature-based planning.
00:29A Legislative Assembly inquiry is examining changes touted as a housing solution that avoids urban sprawl.
00:37But there are fears existing infrastructure will struggle.
00:40We need 40% of blocks to be permeable to absorb some of the runoff when we get these kind of sudden rainstorms.
00:48It's better to put sediment ponds and some mitigation measures back into the creek, naturalise it, bring some of the ecology back.
00:57Engineers agree there's work to be done.
01:01My analysis that was done nearly a decade ago said quite clearly
01:05there's some areas that you couldn't densify beyond what was already there
01:09and could not be developed unless you looked at local solutions
01:14and stormwater had to be in that planning policy mix.
01:19The Government insists capacity and climate change is being accounted for.
01:24There's a requirement for developments to have permeable surfaces and planting areas to hold that water within their sites.
01:31And then for water that leaves the block and goes into the stormwater network
01:35we've got a rolling program of infrastructure studies, capacity upgrades and targeted sort of interventions.
01:44Downstream problems requiring mixed solutions.
01:49The focus is still in the areas that are physically affected by nutrient cleanliness.
01:52The main problem is the minimum number of human resources.
01:54The minimums cost of the basic mission is also to make sure that the listeners are being attacked by your local sciences.
01:55If you can, you can see the same number of human-levels.
01:56The minimum begins the minimums in the middle of the region.
01:57The minimums in the middle of the region is the minimum of the country.
01:59The minimums in the main-levels for the museum and the central bank-levels for the museum.
02:01The minimums are to remove the entiree, and the 1-levels for the museum in the field to cover the museum.
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