Local Heritage and Character Protections

Ms O'HANLON (Dunstan) (14:35): My question is to the Minister for Planning. Can the minister update the house on how the government is taking practical action to better preserve our state's heritage and character?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Housing Infrastructure, Minister for Planning) (14:35): Thank you to the member for Dunstan for her question and her passion for local heritage. Of course, local heritage and character are very important to our state's built environment, and it is important to the amenity, aesthetics and wellbeing of local communities like those in the member for Dunstan's electorate. It is important that our planning system records and protects local heritage and character, and that's what we've been committed to since we've come to office.

One of the things we've done in the planning system is we've established an independent panel of experts to undertake a review of the implementation of the state's new planning system. Part of that review produced three recommendations that sought to empower local councils to make sure that the planning system appropriately protected heritage and character in local communities like the member for Dunstan's and provided, in particular, an upgrade of that heritage and character and, most importantly, demolition protections.

We've got a three-pronged approach to preserve local heritage local character. First of all we're supporting councils to undertake code amendments to elevate character areas into historic areas, and that allows for greater protection for those properties and, most importantly, demolition control. We've supported those councils to also undertake code amendments to review and update character area statements and historic area statements to address the gaps and deficiencies in the descriptions that help preserve the streetscape, in particular, of these areas. Thirdly, we're implementing tougher demolition controls by having a state-led code amendment that introduces a new assessment pathway that only allows for demolition of buildings in a character area overlay or historic area overlay once a replacement building has been approved.

All of those measures are very, very important. They are important to assist councils to make sure that local heritage issues, which are a local issue, and the councils and the communities who are best placed to be involved in them make sure that they are involved in listing local heritage places, elevating the character areas to historic areas and reviewing those statements. I wrote to the councils to encourage them to actively make those investigations, do those assessments on heritage and character policies, make sure the code amendments are being done, because that hadn't been done in previous years. Just a lot of councils, I guess, are banging on a closed door to protect heritage in their local areas.

I can update the house and tell you that numerous councils have actually begun that important work, and we've been assisting them in doing that. We've allocated $600,000 in funding to eight councils to lead the way to better protect local heritage, to better protect local streetscapes: Barunga West, the City of Prospect, the City of Adelaide, the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peter's and Alexandrina Council have all been offered $75,000 each to match their costs in producing these code amendments.

Importantly, these code amendments protect 93 local heritage places, 15 historic areas and 458 representative buildings. That is an important initiative by this government. We won't stop there, because the City of Onkaparinga, the District Council of Yankalilla and the Adelaide Plains Council are amongst other councils that are producing their own heritage-related code amendments and, if initiated, will also be offered $75,000 each to assist them with their costs. That will see a further 120 properties in those areas protected. This is a very important set of initiatives for local communities. I know the member for Dunstan, the member for Adelaide and many others on this side want to protect local heritage.