Attempts to redevelop Hawker Village go back at least 15 years. Photo: CBRE.
The Hawker shops redevelopment saga shows just how difficult it is to get anything done in this town.
And the community, or at least sections of it, only has itself to blame.
A refresh at Hawker has been in the works for 15 years, maybe more.
At one point in 2012, the government threw its hands in the air and put any redevelopment talk on hold for three years after the community rejected plans that it said would destroy its “village” character.
In 2023, Woolworths, which operates a Metro store on the site, announced plans to redevelop the area, including a new full-line supermarket, shops, a basement carpark, and a playground.
The catch was that it needed more land and wanted a direct sale of public parcels to do the job.
Guess what? Everybody agrees that the place needs a revamp, and after 15 years, a touch-up is probably not going to be enough, but then the complaints started.
Not enough consultation. It’s too big. Old folks might get lost or tired. What about parking? We don’t need a full-line supermarket. There should be an open tender. It won’t be the same. Exactly.
And this is just at the concept stage.
The government, which doesn’t have clean hands itself when it comes to shopping centre delays, also had news for Woolies. It now wants shop-top housing – new buzzwords for Canberra’s group centres.
Woolies is happy to oblige if it is viable. It is already planning housing at the Moncreiff Group Centre for which it won the tender to develop.
However, it will have to be resubmitted to the government with a new application, followed by a development application, further consultation, and possibly a shovel to show for it sometime closer to 2030.
The point is, if you started life in Hawker 15 years ago, you’ll be out of school and gone by the time something happens. Families are being shortchanged; they’re not spending as much as they should in their local area, and local businesses suffer.
This is how urban decay sets in.
Woolies is no charity. It’s got enough customer feedback, it’s done the demographic studies, and there is money to be made in a new supermarket and shops.
But as its Director of Property Andrew Loveday says, Woolies isn’t a fly-by-night developer. It’s going to stick around. It is in the company’s interest to make a new centre work, which includes attracting other traders and services, and making it a place its customers want to visit.
And it’s not as if Woolies hasn’t done this before.
There are local shops, such as Richardson, where property owners aren’t prepared to spend the millions needed to bring them up to date.
The Hawker community doesn’t have this problem, but if it is not careful, it will consult this proposal to death and miss another opportunity.
The perfect redevelopment may only exist in people’s imaginations.
Mr Loveday also made the point that these sorts of mixed-use developments are finely balanced things. They need to be commercially viable, meaning they have to make a buck.
It may come as a surprise to some, but the government does not redevelop shopping centres. It provides the planning framework and land, and the Territory Planning Authority serves as the gatekeeper; however, it is the private sector that actually pays for it and undertakes the work.
It is important that developments are not simply waved through and that the community’s interest is safeguarded. Yes, there are examples where community input has helped modify development for the better, such as the Dickson Coles.
But in this town of public servants, savvy with government processes and PR know-how, there seem to be too many reasons why things can’t or shouldn’t happen and not enough acceptance that not all change is negative.
