The City Renewal Authority has been tasked with running a competition to find ideas for transforming the centre of a rabbit-laden roundabout into a popular and accessible park.
City Hill, the heritage-protected area within Vernon Circle, will be the subject of a competition commissioned by Chief Minister Andrew Barr.
Mr Barr told budget estimates on Wednesday he hoped the future of City Hill would involve more people using the area than rabbits.
"I hope that would be a shared view in this place and in the broader community," Mr Barr said.
Mr Barr said he had asked City Renewal Authority chief executive Malcolm Snow to begin work on a "reimagining of the space as a city park rather than the centre of a roundabout, a rabbit warren, and the place where there's a flagpole".
"I've asked the CRA to engage with the National Capital Authority, as they clearly have a significant role in any works approval," he said.
Mr Barr said the project was an example of where both the federal and ACT governments would need to work together, which would be helped by the National Capital Investment Framework announced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Saturday.
Discussions were also underway to ensure future buildings around Vernon Circle are designed to address City Hill and have public access to the park side, he said.
Mr Barr said the competition would only seek ideas within the parameters of what was permitted on the hill.
Mr Snow told the estimates hearing the authority would work on the parameters of the competition over the next few months.
"I think it's important we are clear about how we want to go about something like an ideas competition. There's a tried and true approach to that, that genuinely, at the end of it, delivers not only some interesting ideas, but we'd like to think engages the Canberra community in the discussion about the future of that place," Mr Snow said.
Mr Snow said the authority was acutely conscious the area was a heritage place, but 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.
Mr Barr said the City Renewal Authority had experience in improving access and use of heritage parks after its work to transform Haig Park.
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. It is a generating point for the major avenues of Civic and its plantings provide visual corridors for those avenues," the ACT's heritage register says.
We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on The Canberra Times website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. See our moderation policy here.
