ACT Planning greenlights 14-storey mixed-use tower on Northbourne Ave corridor

ACT Planning has approved a 14-storey mixed-use tower on a 4,200-square-metre site on Northbourne Avenue, midway between the Dickson group centre and the CBD, according to documents lodged with the Territory's planning register this week. The development — proposed by Canberra-based group Geocon in a joint venture with a Sydney-based superannuation fund — will deliver 312 residential apartments, ground-floor retail tenancies, and a publicly accessible plaza facing the light rail corridor.

The approval lands at a pointed moment. Canberra's rental vacancy rate has held below 1.2 per cent for most of the past 18 months, and the ACT median house price sits at roughly $835,000, squeezing public servants and essential workers who still need to live close to the Parliamentary Triangle. The Territory government's 2025 Housing and Homelessness Action Plan set a target of 5,000 additional dwellings within 5 kilometres of the CBD by 2030, and industry figures say the pipeline remains well short of that pace.

What the development actually delivers

The approved scheme sits on the former Northbourne Avenue service station site at the corner of Antill Street, Dickson — a parcel that has sat effectively idle since a 2021 demolition cleared the old fuel infrastructure. The tower's lower four floors will carry 1,850 square metres of commercial and retail space, with the residential floors above split between studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom configurations. According to the planning documents, 15 per cent of units — roughly 47 apartments — will be allocated to community housing provider CHC Affordable Housing under a mandatory inclusionary component attached to the lease variation.

The design was drawn by Canberra architecture firm Cox Architecture and is required to achieve a 7-star NatHERS energy rating across all residential units, a condition inserted by the ACT Planning Authority during a revised assessment round that concluded in late June. Car parking is capped at 0.6 spaces per dwelling, a ratio that reflects the site's direct adjacency to the Dickson light rail stop on the Stage 1 Capital Metro line. Cyclists get 400 dedicated spaces in the basement.

Development timelines in the ACT have stretched badly over the past three years. Infrastructure ACT's data shows average time from approval to construction commencement for major residential projects blew out to 28 months in 2025, up from 18 months in 2022, driven largely by civil contracting delays and materials costs. Geocon's representative told the planning authority the project would proceed to construction tender within 90 days of the formal approval notice being issued, targeting a 2029 completion.

Pressure from both sides of the market

The Northbourne corridor has become the ACT's most contested planning battleground. The Watson and Dickson community councils both lodged objections during the merit review phase, citing building height inconsistency with the surrounding low-rise residential fabric along Phillip Avenue and concerns about wind impacts on the adjacent Dickson Parklands. The planning authority dismissed both objections, ruling the site's RZ5 high-density residential zoning and its position on a primary transit corridor overrode neighbourhood character arguments.

For buyers watching the project, the practical reality is that off-the-plan sales are unlikely to open until late 2026 at the earliest, once Geocon finalises its financing structure with the superannuation co-investor. Prices have not been advertised, but comparable Geocon projects in Braddon and Turner have launched two-bedroom apartments between $720,000 and $890,000 in the past two years. Stamp duty in the ACT on an $800,000 purchase currently runs to approximately $28,000 under the Territory's reformed duty-free threshold model for owner-occupiers — meaningfully lower than the equivalent burden Queensland and Victorian buyers are carrying on similar-priced stock right now.

Anyone tracking this project should watch the ACTPLA register for the formal approval notice, expected within 10 business days. That document will trigger the 90-day commencement-to-tender clock and is also the last moment for third-party appeal rights through the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal.