Torrens St Files

Component identifier:

Series 1

Content Summary:

"The Saga of Torrens Street", a summary by Ed Wensing.

Torrens Street was once a quiet inner city street in the suburb of Braddon. The street is famous for the Canadian pin oaks (Quercus Palustris) that line its streets, and feature in many early postcards and photographs of Canberra in autumn.

However, its quiet residential amenity was shattered in the early 1970's when some of the adjoining lessees in the commercial area of Lonsdale Street commenced using some of the residential properties in Torrens Street for unauthorised commercial uses.

From that time on, residents of the area voiced their concerns about the intrusion of the unauthorised non-residential uses, the loss of residential amenity, their right to quiet enjoyment of their leases, and the longer term impact such unauthorised activities inevitably have on an area.

The residents claimed from the outset that the unauthorised activities would be used to justify changes in land use policy for the area from residential to commercial activities. This is exactly what happened as the debate progressed.

The thirteen files and many other related documents, chronicle the efforts of residents to have lease purpose clauses in the area properly enforced prior to any consideration of changes in land use policy or to lease purpose clauses. One of the fundamental tenets of the ACT's unique system of leasehold tenure is that lessees must, at all times, put their leases to the use(s) for which they are leased. The ultimate penalty for failure to comply with lease covenants is determination of the lease.

The files consist of diary notes, file searches, lease title searches, company file searches, gazettal notices, correspondence, official reports, FOI searches, Ombudsman reports, press clippings, electronic media news report transcripts, ACT Supreme Court transcripts, court judgements, hansards of ACT Legislative and House of Assembly proceedings, hansards of Federal Parliamentary inquiries, photographs, and last but not least, humorous poetry. The documents cover the period from 1974 to 1990.

I [Ed Wensing] am personally responsible for generating much of the material and for meticulously compiling the files and records. I have no doubt that these documents are therefore, the best and most comprehensive personal collection of material on any single planning or land administration issue in Canberra's stormy history.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The Wensing Papers were donated to the National Library in June 1990 and December 1991.

Names:

Wensing, Ed

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