Glandore Character Zone

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (15:30): Today is a very sad, a very disappointing and a very disheartening day for my electorate, particularly those at Glandore. Many are even expressing anger and fury. That is because they have just learned that a development reaching eight storeys into the sky has been approved for Glandore. It is a development that has been the subject of more than four years of community debate and lobbying and petitions and legal advice and council motions and parliamentary speeches and community meetings and much letter writing.

It is a development at the centre of a broader issue for the Glandore community: the protection of the Glandore character zone. This eight-storey development at 192 Anzac Highway was first proposed more than four years ago. As a mere candidate, I was part of that passionate community that fought against the original application and, at that time, we won.

Why were we fighting it? Because this development overshadows the Glandore character zone, because it does not fit in with the character surrounds, because building this sets a precedent for the stretch of land along the length of the Glandore character zone and because the planning outcomes in terms of traffic, parking and other concerns are an issue for the Glandore community.

We do not do enough in Adelaide to preserve the architectural character of residential areas, our built history. Glandore is a gem of the inner southern suburbs—an absolute gem—and every character home is a winner or a hidden diamond waiting for its chance to shine again. The market is certainly recognising this with some very competitive prices of late.

Because of the beauty and completeness of the architectural landscape in Glandore, about seven years ago the community fought hard to establish Glandore character zone. They wanted to do that to protect the incredible wealth and concentration of Art Deco and period homes in the wide tree-lined streets. They wanted to make sure that future generations can enjoy this slice of history. It is something worthy of admiration and protection.

As part of that special character zoning, it was a commitment that the adjoining properties along Anzac Highway, just a few hundred metres in length, would not be more than three storeys in height. This would prevent overshadowing and infringing on the character zone and help preserve the area. That is a commitment that has been tested and fought and won by the Glandore community repeatedly, and residents should be commended for their efforts.

So you might ask: how have we arrived at this point? How is it that an eight-storey building can go up, this time very suddenly and with no community consultation? The answer is simple. The answer is this Liberal government. The answer is this planning minister. The answer is that in July the minister used a power afforded her to correct minor errors to make wholesale changes

The minister claimed that by allowing eight storeys on this block and seven others, she was correcting an error, but everyone in Glandore knows that is not the case. It is not a mistake that our community wants to protect its character zone. With the stroke of a pen, that three-storey limit that locals have fought so diligently for was shattered, and it took seconds for this developer to resubmit their bid for eight storeys, as is their right under this legal change that has been done by the Liberal government.

I am under no illusion, there will soon be more of these applications and within the year probably we will see the landscape change. Single storeys will be replaced by not just one but many high-rise apartments, previously foreign to this area, each one overshadowing the character zone in Glandore. With each one, we will remember this day when the Liberal government failed our community, the day they said, 'A character zone does not really mean much and it is fine for this strip of land to look like every other on Anzac Highway, which is rapidly being transformed.'

I am not against new developments, neither are the people in my electorate. Yes, people need places to live and, yes, we need to have more density in the city to avoid spread in the country. But can't this community have one little slice of heritage, one little slice of history? Can't we just protect that? According to this government, the answer to that is no.

I really feel that this minister and the Liberal government have radically underestimated the mood in Glandore and made a political miscalculation here. Then again, maybe they have calculated perfectly. Maybe to them the votes of developers are more important than the votes of people in Glandore. Despite the pleas of the local council and our community for the minister to suspend this change until at least the community could have a say, that was denied. I will continue to fight alongside Glandore people for the protection of their character zone. But today there is no doubt that this Liberal government has made that so much harder.