Turner, Australian Capital Territory

Infobox Australian Place | type = suburb
name = Turner
state = act
city = Canberra

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caption =
lga = North Canberra
postcode = 2612
est = 1928
propval = $390,000
pop = 1918 (2001 census)
ACTgov = Molonglo
fedgov = Fraser
near-nw = O'Connor
near-n = Lyneham
near-ne = Dickson
near-e = Braddon
near-w = Acton
near-sw = Acton
near-s = Acton
near-se = City Centre

Turner (postcode: 2612) is a leafy early Canberra suburb, close to Civic and the Australian National University (located south in Acton). The population of Turner on census night 2001 was 1918 people.

Turner is named after Sir George Turner, a Federalist, legislator and one of the founders of the Australian Constitution. He was a Premier of Victoria, and later Federal Treasurer under prime ministers Barton, Deakin and Reid. Streets in Turner are mostly named after writers, legislators and pioneers. [http://www.actpla.act.gov.au/actlic/places/]

Design

Turner was developed in the 1940s and 1950s. It was one of the last suburbs developed with the garden city theme of super-wide nature strips. In fact it is said that Turner represents the pinnacle of spacious garden city design with wide 12 yard nature strips with generously wide roads that give a more spacious feel than older suburbs such as Reid or Braddon, and more consistently wide nature strips and larger parks compared to slightly later suburbs like O'Connor.

Turner, though a small suburb, can be divided into three logical areas:
* The south east area which is bounded by Northbourne Avenue, Barry Drive, Watson Street and Masson Street (Haig Park). This area was first developed in the 1940s and originally consisted of detached dwellings. Very few of these houses are left after a development boom from 2000-2005 demolished them to build blocks of units.
* The Western part is bounded by Barry Drive, David Street and McCaughey Street and consists of detached dwellings.
* The Northern part of the suburb is bounded by Northbourne Avenue, David Street, McCaughey Street and Greenway Street consists of mainly detached dwellings and some medium density.

David street which forms Turner's northern boundary is designed to line up with Black Mountain in one direction and Mount Majura in the other direction. This provides an impressive vista in either direction whilst driving this street. Greenway street also provides impressive vistas to Mount Ainslie and Black Mountain.

Original block sizes were generous in Turner, ranging from around 800 m² to 1400 m², with a couple even reaching 1600m². 900-1000 m² is typical. In the postwar period when resources were scarce, surprisingly small houses were built on these large blocks that are now inner city. This has made Turner blocks prime targets for redevelopment, whether it be for units, townhouses, dual occupancies or occasional luxury houses. It was quite usual with the original buildings to have tiny three bedroom and even two bedroom houses on the blocks with floor areas of around 85m² - 110m². These houses were not only small but typically had tiny windows and were poorly positioned on the block for solar access - an important consideration in Canberra's cold climate. Houses were typically positioned for aesthetic effect with various ideas like inner-corner semi-detached (Hackett Gardens), facing the corner (MacLeay Street) or symmetrical arrangements between the houses (Holder Street). Over the years very few if any houses remain in their original unextended state. Floor plans of the original government designed and built houses can be obtained from the local planning authorities.

A number of artifacts of the original design of Turner can still be seen. Firstly, as is typical for Canberra, powerlines are behind the houses so as not to interfere with Street trees. Street lamps are low and designed for pedestrians. Several different designs of lamp were installed originally, and examples of each can be still be seen; however, unfortunately, the replacement of lamps has not been historically sensitive. Some streets have footpaths with the house numbers imprinted on the concrete and red fire hydrants can be seen in some areas. Because the suburb's construction was interrupted by the war, various ideas can be seen in the layout of footpaths. For example in the southern areas, footpaths cut off the diagonal of the block. In McKay Gardens it has service lanes as might be found in Balmain in Sydney.

uburb amenities

Turner has an excellent combined Special-Education and Mainstream Public school situated between David, Hartley and Condamine Streets, with a combined Pre-school. There are also a number of child-care centres:
* Christopher Robin's Children's Garden (Watson Street)
* Treehouse In The Park (Ormond Street)

Turner has a generous selection of churches:
* a Baptist Church (Condamine Street),
* a Ukrainian Orthodox Church (McKay Gardens),
* a Seventh-day Adventist Church (MacLeay Street),
* a Lutheran Church (Watson Street)
* a Friends Meeting Place (Quakers Church) (Condamine Street) and
* a Korean Full Gospel church meeting at the Baptist church.

It also has a tennis club (Condamine Street) and lawn bowls club (McCaughey Street) and several ethnic clubs, a French association (McCaughey Street) and Polish club (David Street) and Croatian club (McCaughey Street). There is a police youth club on Watson Street (relocated to West Belconnen in late 2006 due to costly maintenance issues with the building).

Its position being immediately adjacent to Civic puts it in walking distance of the CBD, and it also adjoins the local O'Connor shops. Its proximity to Acton, the location of the Australian National University makes it a desirable location for students and professors to live, although the high rent prices force many students to look elsewhere.

Open space

Turner has a high proportion of parks and open space. This is due to a number of factors:
* It contains half of Haig Park - an enormous park of pine trees originally built as a barrier to reduce dust from affecting the city, when Canberra was still mostly a sheep station.
* It contains a flood/drainage reserve associated with Sullivan's creek which makes up a large portion of parkland that is technically subject to flooding, although this is on a very infrequent basis.
* It contains several public sports ovals.
* It contains Turner primary school which has a generous oval and open space.
* It contains a Tennis club attached to Haig Park.
* It enjoys the generous 12 yard nature strips on most streets with two streets — Holder Street and Hackett Gardens — with their own private pocket parks. It is a remarkable thing that in this suburb that adjoins the CBD almost half the streets face a park or open space.

Haig Park in Turner consists of two main sections, cut in half by McCaughey Street. If one counts that part of Haig Park is cut off by Sullivan's creek, there are three parts. Two small sections have been divorced from the park, one for the Scout hall and one for a preschool.

Geology

Calcareous shales from the Canberra Formation are overlain by Quaternary alluvium. This rock is the limestone of the original title of Canberra "Limestone Plains".

Several earthquake fault lines pass through Turner; and its residents often experience earth tremors.

Notes