Grievance Debate

Housing Development

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (15:31): I rise today to bring to the house both the greetings from thousands of residents of Rostrevor, Woodforde, Teringie, and Magill and their displeasure with the government and, more particularly, with the Minister for Planning. Last week, on Thursday 12 May, the member for Hartley and I were pleased to be able to attend an Adelaide Hills Council community forum on the future of the site at the old Magill Training Centre and, particularly, the extraordinary traffic problems and challenges the redevelopment of this site will present.

We were most disappointed that neither the minister, nor the Minister for Transport, nor the Minister for Road Safety, were able to attend on that night, nor indeed anyone from the government, apart from—and I appreciated his attendance—Paul Gelston, from the Department of Transport, who I hope by now has had a chance to report to his minister on the extreme levels of concern in our communities in Hartley and Morialta, particularly in those suburbs.

Members would recall that in 2009 the government made a decision that the Magill Training Centre land was to be sold in order to build the new youth training centre at Cavan. So far, so good. Then, of course, we went through the DPA process. Hundreds of residents in this area attended public meetings in 2011 and 2012 and put forward many propositions and ideas. Unfortunately, the Minister for Planning, in releasing the ministerial DPA in the week between Christmas and new year in 2013, ignored most of that community consultation. Nevertheless, there was some forward motion and some appropriate restrictions on development were in place. Indeed, land division was eventually lodged with Adelaide Hills Council in July 2015.

The development is a joint venture between Devine Limited and Starfish Developments, and we hope that it will produce many good houses, but our understanding was that it would be in the region of 250. The DAC has now taken over and the proposed number has gone up to 400 dwellings in total. It is proposed that three large lots will accommodate residential apartment buildings, which may total up to 100 dwellings, and that a number of regulated trees and eight significant trees are proposed to be removed.

The significant issues that were raised last Thursday night were largely around, firstly, the inappropriate increase to 400 dwellings that the government has allowed, but that is not something that can be changed. The government does still have, however, the capacity to improve the transport infrastructure to this site. I am talking about public transport opportunities which we hope the minister will take on board and improve to that area. With cycling infrastructure, there are opportunities for improvement but, in particular, there are some real trouble spots that are major trouble spots now and deserve attention now.

The increase to 400 new dwellings in the area will increase traffic movements by thousands to and from that site every day, so there will be an impact on intersections such as Glen Stuart Road and Norton Summit Road, Norton Summit Road and Woodforde Road, Norton Summit Road and Coach House Drive, and Norton Summit Road and Magill Road. That whole precinct is going to present extraordinary challenges going forward. As it already presents challenges now, with thousands of new traffic movements, it will be very difficult. Going in the other direction, the corner of Moules Road and St Bernards Road has also been identified as a significant problem.

Mr Gelston would have heard the message from the in excess of 120 people who came along on a cold, rainy night last Thursday to express their concerns about these intersections. I have previously written to the Minister for Transport. Along with my colleague, the member for Hartley, we jointly wrote to him on 14 December outlining a number of these issues. I will not read it now for lack of time, but I encourage the minister to follow up on the concerns that we raised in December.

We particularly sought a commitment from the government for a full road management plan to complete investigating and addressing these matters so that treatments that will be suitable for these intersections and the whole precinct might be considered. This is the responsibility of the state government, who is receiving in excess of $60 million for the development of this area, so the state government has a responsibility to our communities to ensure that this matter is addressed fully.

The residents in our area demand some action here. We have put out a survey, and before the end of May we will receive all those responses, but we have already received in excess of 100: loud and clear, they demand that the government take action on this matter.