The rabbits are gone. Now the future awaits.
Canberrans will be invited to put forward ideas for the future of City Hill, the long-overlooked park at the centre of London Circuit.
Community groups, schools and individuals can contribute to the six-week consultation the government will run to gather ideas to make the heritage-registered park a "more welcoming, comfortable and engaging public space".
Consultation will be open to March 25, with the public encouraged to draw or describe their ideas for the site.
The Civic Library will host a City Hill ideas exhibition from March 9 to 25.
On Canberra Day, the government will hold a "Discover City Hill Day", including tours with landscape architecture, active travel and local heritage experts. A First Nations Walk on Country will also be held, the government said.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr said he was looking forward to seeing what the community came up with.
"Canberrans of all ages are encouraged to share their ideas on how this underutilised site could be turned into a more interesting and engaging public space," Mr Barr said.
"The consultation will help inform the future of City Hill and the Canberra Civic and cultural district and our next steps. This includes better understanding the park's role as a centrepiece between the evolving Acton Waterfront, the Canberra Theatre Centre redevelopment and connecting light rail."
Mr Barr told budget estimates in July 2023 he hoped more people than rabbits would eventually use the space.
City Renewal Authority chief executive Malcolm Snow told estimates at the time the authority was acutely conscious the area was a heritage place.
But, he said, a minimal structure could be built that would create a reason for people to want to go there and complement the park.
"I would like to think a site as important as this would generate national interest, if not international interest," he said.
Plantings on City Hill were supervised by the then superintendent of parks and Gardens, Charles Weston, in 1921.
The plantings form an intrinsic feature of the heritage significance of City Hill, the ACT's heritage register says, meaning they are protected from development.
Dead or damaged trees must be replaced with the same species, and the landscape qualities retained.
"City Hill has historic and aesthetic significance and represents an important element of urban design and an integral component of Griffin's plan," the ACT's heritage register says.
"It is a generating point for the major avenues of Civic and its plantings provide visual corridors for those avenues."
Ideas - including drawings - can be submitted to the ACT government at: https://yoursayconversations.act.gov.au/cityhill.
