{"id":705261,"date":"2026-05-31T00:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T00:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/705261\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T00:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T00:08:12","slug":"lights-at-canberras-manuka-oval-lean-inwards-thanks-to-strict-planning-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/705261\/","title":{"rendered":"Lights at Canberra’s Manuka Oval lean inwards thanks to strict planning rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the six light poles skirting Canberra’s Manuka Oval look like they’re on a lean, that’s because they are.<\/p>\n

The 47-metre-high lights lean inwards, because, if they were standing straight, they couldn’t be approved under the city’s RL617 rule.<\/p>\n

The strict planning regulation wouldn’t bend, so the light poles had to.<\/p>\n

Hitting the grass ceiling<\/p>\n

RL617 isn’t a rule that most Canberrans would encounter on a daily basis, but developers, planners and architects know it well. It sets the maximum height for structures in Canberra’s Parliamentary Zone.<\/p>\n

“When you look across Civic and think it’s all a bit stunted \u2026 it’s because of that,” Rodney Moss, former director of Cox Architecture, said.<\/p>\n

The height limit under the rule is 617 metres above sea level, which is specifically set to a chosen point on the landscape \u2014 the grassy peak of Parliament House’s sloping lawns.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The height limit under the RL617 rule is 617 metres above sea level \u2014 the same height as the hilltop of the Parliament House lawns. (Supplied: John Macdonald)<\/p>\n

Parliament House was designed so that ordinary Australians could walk over its roof, putting the people literally above their parliament.<\/p>\n

And this, among other natural vistas in the Parliamentary Zone, is exactly what RL617 was designed to protect.<\/p>\n

In 1990, the National Capital Authority (NCA) formalised the height limit as a key urban design rule in the inaugural National Capital Plan, preserving architect Walter Burley Griffin’s vision of a bush capital, where the natural environment remains dominant over built form.<\/p>\n

In doing so, Parliament House’s rooftop hill became the grass ceiling of the city.<\/p>\n

Only Parliament House’s flagpole and the dome of the Australian War Memorial poke above the invisible line.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Maunka Oval light heads are shaped like a shovel. (Supplied: Ben Wrigley)<\/p>\n

Height of the light not quite right<\/p>\n

In 2012, when broadcast-quality lighting was being installed at Manuka Oval to enable the venue to host more night-time sporting matches, Mr Moss had a challenge on his hands.<\/p>\n

“In order to give you television-quality light on the oval, the lights need to be a certain height,” he said.<\/p>\n

But Mr Moss said that would have taken the lights above the limit imposed by the planning rule.<\/p>\n

“What we did was bend the lights so that they came down below 617 metres above sea level, and then we made the light head into a shovel, so that the maximum amount of light is right on the edge,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It fits with the National Capital Plan and gives sufficient lighting to the oval, and the result is quite terrific.”\"A<\/p>\n

Architect Rodney Moss says while the lights’ angled design solved the hight problem, it also meant they cost more to build. (ABC News: Lish Fejer)<\/p>\n

The angled design solved the height problem, but the extra engineering required came at a price.<\/p>\n

“If it was straight up in the air, you’ve got a footing that goes straight down. That’s OK,” Mr Moss said.<\/p>\n

“If you’ve got this huge weight leaning forward, then the footings have to be much larger because it wants to fall over.<\/p>\n

“So the implications of going to 617 metres gave us a good result, but it cost a lot of money too.”The city that can’t grow up?<\/p>\n

The RL617 planning rule doesn’t apply everywhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Town centres like Woden, Gungahlin and Belconnen are outside its reach, but as Canberra’s population pushes towards half a million, adapting the rule would require negotiation between the territory and the NCA.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

ACT government architect Catherine Townsend says it’s time to have a conversation about the future of Canberra’s urban planning. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)<\/p>\n

“I think this is a coming-of-age conversation for the city,” ACT government architect Catherine Townsend said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve had a rule that has preserved a certain attitude to how the city grows, and I think it’s now time that we sit down and have an adult discussion about where the city goes in the future.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think we’re looking for a city that climbs uniformly higher, but some activation and some punctuation points, with higher, slender buildings would be, I think, a welcome addition.<\/p>\n

“I think there’s a discussion for the community, about what we want to see next.”<\/p>\n

A city centre looking for an ‘urban climax’<\/p>\n

In effect, the RL617 planning rule keeps a lid on the city skyline, as if drawing an invisible line across the horizon.<\/p>\n

It leaves places like City Hill as places of unrealised potential according to Ms Townsend, especially as its surrounding buildings near completion.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Catherine Townsend says the planning rule leaves places like City Hill with unrealised potential. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)<\/p>\n

And while she doesn’t believe City Hill itself should have buildings on it, Ms Townsend said its heritage-listed trees currently functioned like a stage curtain, blocking the vista to the south.<\/p>\n

She has a vision of a landscape and skyline that better reflects Canberra today.<\/p>\n

“What are we going to do with City Hill? What do we think about raising the height limits in the city to provide a more exciting and larger-scale expression of, ‘We have arrived at the centre of the city’?”<\/p>\n

It’s a thought Mr Moss shares.<\/p>\n

He said the RL617 rule explained what many locals and visitors had noticed but couldn’t quite put their finger on.<\/p>\n

“Canberra is lacking in urban climax,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The city lacks a visual declaration of arrival.<\/p>\n

“You sort of drive in and you think, ‘Where is it?'”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the six light poles skirting Canberra’s Manuka Oval look like they’re on a lean, that’s because they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[343135,64,63,342521,343136,2668,343132,343134,343137,343138,343133,85],"class_list":["post-705261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-act-chief-architect-catherine-townsend","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-canberra-act","tag-cox-architecture-former-director-rodney-moss","tag-local-stories","tag-manuka-oval-lights","tag-maximum-structure-height","tag-national-capital-plan","tag-parlimentary-zone","tag-rl617-rule","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}