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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-09-16 Daily Xml
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Bills

Statutes Amendment (Vehicle Parking and Urban Renewal) Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:13): I rise to address the bill and indicate I am the lead speaker for the opposition. I indicate at the outset that the opposition will reserve its view between the houses in relation to the bill, and I will address some remarks more specifically, and perhaps in the course of the committee stage, to what is a relatively short piece of legislation—nine clauses. If I am not quick to share the member for Playford's sentiment in terms of its great leap forward as far as our state's planning is concerned, it certainly does augment particular arrangements affecting those in the suburbs particularly who will have experienced the infill that has occurred in particularly recent decades.

I think it is important to bear in mind that much of the consideration and compromise that has resulted in this bill that will provide the way for other work to be done mandating certain off-street parking is a kind of attempt to address the mistakes of the past, and the member for Playford has addressed some that are particularly felt by him in those areas of suburban Adelaide that he represents.

It is important to bear in mind, of course, that these provisions are going to apply going forward, so those who are dealing with these infill difficulties, let alone the greenfield developments of recent decades, will not be finding any great instant relief here and they might be reflecting: hang on, we have seen what has happened in terms of urban planning failures in the past and we do not want to see—if the member for Playford is going to characterise it that way—this held up as the grand best answer to urban planning going forward. The peak industry bodies have made that clear, from the Property Council to the UDIA and so forth.

It is true to say that there have been some responses to feedback over the course of this year. I hope the government keeps taking on board the views of those expert stakeholders and sector participants, because what Greater Adelaide needs is improved urban planning that really is going to have to get away from a response to urban growth based on ever smaller standalone blocks and then a kind of anxious response to increasing cars on the streets and so on.

I am not too quick to talk with rose-coloured glasses about the good old days—most of the time the good old days are not quite so good when you reflect on the details—but I do want to reflect on a contribution to this debate that Peter Goers made in his piece in about November of last year when he was reflecting on what he described as the good old days when houses were simpler and they were not having to accommodate the number and size of vehicles that are the norm these days, and reflecting about the benefits of simplicity in urban housing.

Perhaps in giving a nod to Peter Goers in that regard I say that it is the responsibility of governments, including in this area of urban planning, to do more than to patch up the same plan but a bit different. Ezra Klein wrote recently in a book that is getting around now—I made sure the library had a copy a couple of months ago and I think I was ahead of the curve—called Abundance that seems to be quoted by just about everybody you meet around the place, and it makes clear that the responsibility of government is not necessarily to be heavy-handed or a light touch but to ensure that what it does do is actually deliver something worthwhile so that people say, 'Hang on, government is doing something for us,' and the results are, in these circumstances, an improved urban environment.

Closest to me, just down the road, we have seen an example of urban planning gone terribly wrong in a way that Labor governments now repeatedly have freely acknowledged by way of apology. It was just terribly badly managed in terms of the urban planning side. We see members of the government heading down to Mount Barker and saying to all concerned, 'Yes, we're sorry. We got it wrong, completely.' The work that is now necessary to be done at Mount Barker to catch up and ensure that it is fit for purpose for a community of 30,000 and more as it grows is a matter, unfortunately, of backfilling, and that is for a whole variety of reasons.

When I refer to Ezra Klein's book and the concept of government actually delivering improvement I would say by way of contrast that it takes a determined planning step to turn around and say, 'Actually there's capacity for a different kind of urban living. There's capacity for density changes, for living in a village environment and for taking advantage of proximity to public transport and the investment in that public transport that goes with it that is what people want to see.'

I certainly have had in a way a generational change occurring in the Hills, Stirling key among them. Stirling has been through something of an existential crisis over the last couple of years, in particular the result of the devastating fire at the centre of town destroying the Stirling Woolworths, which has led to a lot of reflection about the way in which we live.

We do not want to see some sort of incremental infill that results in smaller blocks and the pushing of vehicles onto streets because we have got the same sort of cookie-cutter approach to planning. That will not cut it. We have to see more than just an approach to strictures around minimum standards for off-street parking in our housing. Planning needs to be more than just responding to the stresses of infill.

Of course, in taking all of these steps, there are compromises to be addressed. On the one hand it is important to be able to provide for a certain amount of off-street parking, and I think everybody would agree that that being done in an orderly way with new building is a desirable development. There is no doubt that there is widespread and strong frustration with the spilling onto the streets that is occurring as the result of infill, and there is support for some strictures in relation to off-street parking.

Competing with that, of course, is the question that builders and buyers of houses, let alone the industry, will be acutely aware of, in terms of its effects on housing affordability. And let us not forget the consequences for design quality and compromise and so on if we see, as Peter Goers has drawn attention to, a kind of streetscape that becomes increasingly large double garages being all that you see from the street. So there is a public interest in ensuring the work that is done in relation to the associated code amendments that will attend this bill does not end up throwing away a sense of amenity in relation to the street and the communities in relation to these future developments.

We know that the proposed changes that will challenge existing urban design standards include removing the current requirement for a habitable room at the front of a dwelling being 2.4 metres wide with a two-metre wide window facing the street that is to be replaced with a one metre by one metre window requirement. There is also the removal of the rule that garage doors cannot exceed 50 per cent of the frontage on single-storey dwellings on allotments less than six metres wide, which will have what I will keep referring to as the Goers effect without continuing focus on ensuring amenity is preserved. Thirdly, just to highlight, also the removal of the requirement for a front door to be visible from the street, instead allowing garage-only entry on allotments narrower than 4.5 metres.

As I said at the outset, the opposition is going to consider the bill and reserve its position between the houses. There is more work to do in the other place and I want to note the work that has been done in terms of engagement, particularly by our shadow minister for planning, the Hon. Michelle Lensink in another place. The focus for the time being really needs to come back to the job ahead, which is to ensure that the features of urban planning, such as they are beyond this nine-clause bill, go to addressing really much more substantial challenges to ensure that what we all love about Greater Adelaide, and what brings South Australians home and what keeps them here, is an urban planning environment that can give us confidence about the future rather than a focus on planning that is stuck in a sense of backfilling and covering over for past errors.

I hope that gives the house a clear enough indication of where the opposition is in relation to the bill and perhaps an indication of where some questions in committee might go to from here.

Ms THOMPSON (Davenport) (11:28): Parking is one of the most significant and most contested issues raised by our communities. No matter which suburb you visit, whether it is Happy Valley or Aberfoyle Park or right across Greater Adelaide, the message is consistent that our streets are choked with cars. Families tell me that they cannot park near their own homes, neighbours are frustrated by their driveways being blocked, and streets that once felt safe and open now feel crowded and in some cases unsafe for children and older residents to navigate. All of this has been made worse by infill developments that have added more homes but not enough off-street parking.

In my own electorate, I have seen firsthand the tension that this creates. A family in Aberfoyle Park recently explained to me that their street has become a car park every evening between visitors, teenagers with their first cars and households with multiple vehicles. There are nights when emergency services would struggle to get down their road. A resident in Happy Valley described the daily frustration of finding her driveway partially blocked by a neighbour's car, a problem that has caused more than one heated exchange on her street.

We are now seeing kids staying at home for a lot longer, which means that it is not unusual at all to see four or five cars parked at one address. At the last election, the Malinauskas government made a clear commitment to bust congestion and improve neighbourhood amenity. The bill before us today delivers on that commitment, with a strong but fair response that will make a real difference in people's day-to-day lives.

Nine out of the 10 top-selling cars in Australia today are either SUVs or dual-cab utes. These are bigger vehicles, but our garages and our driveways simply have not kept up. We have all seen it locally. In Flagstaff Hill, one resident told me how her family has two cars—a standard sedan and a ute—but the ute just does not fit in the existing garage. The result? It ends up parked on the street, squeezing what little space is left and frustrating her neighbours.

Local households with a driveway that fits one car but their second is a larger SUV have no option but to block part of the footpath. Parents walking their kids to school are forced onto the road just to get around it. That is not safe and it is not sustainable. This bill changes that. It introduces new minimum parking rules that reflect the reality of modern households. A one-bedroom home will need at least one car park. Two or more bedrooms will require at least two, and, critically, those spaces will be big enough to fit the vehicles Australians are actually driving: 3.5 metres wide, six metres long and with garage doors widened to three metres. These are not arbitrary numbers; they come directly from community feedback and industry consultation. They mean garages will once again be usable for cars, not just as storage sheds.

We also recognise that one size does not fit all. Higher density apartment developments or CBD housing are different. That is why this bill introduces a vehicle parking fund. Developers in certain circumstances will be able to make a contribution to the fund instead of providing onsite parking. That fund will then support broader parking projects that benefit the entire community. It is a practical and flexible approach; for example, in the southern suburbs, a developer of an apartment complex near public transport at Darlington might choose to contribute to the fund rather than squeezing in underground parking. That contribution could then help deliver better shared parking facilities at a nearby precinct or support improved park-and-ride options.

The bill also makes important amendments to the Urban Renewal Act 1995. These changes will streamline how precincts are planned and managed, removing outdated requirements and allowing parking to be managed across a precinct, not just on a site-by-site basis. Crucially, it also ensures fairness where government invests in primary infrastructure to support renewal. Whether that be new roads, stormwater systems or upgraded utilities, we can now fairly recover costs from those who directly benefit. Growth pays for growth, rather than leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.

I want to be very clear: this bill protects housing affordability. We know South Australians are struggling with the cost-of-living pressures. That is why this bill is paired with amendments to the Planning and Design Code that keep construction costs down and maintain housing yield; for example, outdated frontage and window requirements will be modernised so that homes do not need to be wider, which would drive up costs just to meet old rules, and, importantly, reduced parking requirements will continue to apply in places where residents are less reliant on cars, such as in the CBD, in affordable housing developments and in aged-care facilities.

This is not a blunt instrument; it is a targeted, sensible response, and above all it reflects the lived experience of the people I represent. This bill is about making daily life easier, safer and fairer. It is about getting cars off our streets, back into driveways and into garages where they belong, and restoring amenity and safety to the neighbourhoods we are proud to call home.

This bill is not just about parking spaces, though; it is about the kinds of suburbs that we want to live in. By modernising our rules, by planning smarter and by making sure growth pays its way, we are not just responding to frustration but setting a vision for liveable, accessible, people-friendly suburbs right across South Australia. I commend it to the house.

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (11:33): I rise to make a brief contribution on the Statutes Amendment (Vehicle Parking and Urban Renewal) Bill, because perhaps nothing annoys residents in the eastern suburbs more on a daily basis than our local streets being jam-packed full of cars and congestion. When I have been out doorknocking over the past few weeks and months in suburbs like Toorak Gardens, Rose Park, Dulwich and Eastwood, it is an issue that certainly gets raised with me and is on residents' minds.

It is an inconvenience for people who perhaps want to have visitors over. It is an inconvenience for residents themselves who might find it difficult to get a park near their own home or, indeed, just get in and out of their own property. But it is more than an inconvenience. I think it is also a road safety issue when we have parked cars on either side of narrow streets. It is very difficult for two-way traffic to navigate safely through our neighbourhoods, so I am certainly very supportive of any measure that tries to ease parking congestion or, I think, as the Labor election commitment put it, bust congestion and improve amenity in our streets and our suburbs.

I think it is really important to note that the situation we find ourselves in has not happened by accident. We have this problem because we have had successive Labor governments that have had a policy of encouraging unrestrained urban infill without any regard for what that does for established suburbs and without any regard for the local communities that are most affected by those policies.

We have had a Labor planning minister who established an 85 per cent urban infill target across Greater Adelaide, meaning that 85 per cent of all new developments were intended to be in the same existing footprint of Adelaide. That decision changed the face of our established neighbourhoods—certainly many suburbs in the eastern suburbs—forever. We do not have this problem by accident; we have it by deliberate policy design by those opposite who are obsessed with urban infill regardless of the cost.

Is it any surprise when you have a policy that encourages urban infill and ignores the views and the needs of those local communities, that encourages in some instances having old historic homes on big blocks bowled over and replaced with two for one, three for one, four for one—covering every inch of land, removing every single tree—that sees two times, three times, four times more cars that need to be parked on or near those properties in those suburbs? This is a problem that has been caused by unrestrained urban infill by successive Labor governments, and we have certainly seen the cost of that in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide.

I have spoken about it in this place before. When we see unrestrained high-density urban infill, it puts our existing public infrastructure, which in many cases, certainly in the eastern suburbs, is already operating at capacity, under enormous pressure. Whether it be our schools—and in my electorate there are two high schools, Glenunga and Marryatville, both of them operating well above capacity—whether it be our open space—and again in my electorate we are starved of green open space—whether it be our water or whether, of course, it be our roads and our traffic and our parking congestion, it is no surprise that we find ourselves in this situation today.

It is what happens when you have bad planning policy, and it is what happens when you ignore the views of communities that are most impacted by the decisions that have been made by Labor governments. Unfortunately, this policy of unrestrained high-density urban infill continues under this Labor government, despite the minister reminding me in his second reading speech on this bill that there was an election commitment to bust congestion and improve the amenity of our neighbourhoods. I think we can chalk that up as another broken Labor promise because we have seen the exact opposite in the eastern suburbs.

What we have seen as recently as last month is the Labor planning minister approving a code amendment that would see 20-storey towers built in residential Glenside—unrestrained high-density, high-rise urban infill that will put enormous pressure on what is an established suburb already under significant infrastructure pressure. Twenty-storey towers in Glenside do nothing to bust congestion. Twenty-storey towers in Glenside do nothing to improve the amenity of our Labor suburbs.

I missed that election promise. I think I lost it in all the other broken election promises, but it is yet another one when it comes to planning and protecting the character, heritage and amenity of our suburbs. Despite the community in Glenside raising many concerns about this proposal, they have all been ignored. And guess what some of those concerns involved? Parking. They said, 'Where is everyone going to park?'

In submission after submission, my community raised concerns about how congested Glenside already is when it comes to car parking. We raised concerns about how visitors cannot park on the site as it is, let alone before we build 20-storey towers under Labor's new plans. We raised concerns about how MFS appliances cannot fit down the street when there are parked cars on either side, and that is before the minister's 20-storey towers come online.

We raised concerns about how simply adding an additional 39 visitor car parks to service an extra almost 200 dwellings just did not add up, let alone the restaurant and the cafe that is apparently coming. It has been totally ignored and outrageously ignored by a government that has been obsessed with high-rise, high-density infill in the eastern suburbs.

Perhaps even more outrageously of all those, my constituents in Glenside can take no comfort in the bill we are debating today helping them with this car parking issue, because we are told that the minister proposes to exclude the Glenside strategic infill site from the operation of this legislation. It is stunning hypocrisy. It is stunning hypocrisy from those opposite to line up in succession singing the virtues of getting parked cars off our streets while at the same time excluding the application of this legislation in the one place in my electorate where it is perhaps most needed.

Of course, we remember why it is most needed: because the Labor minister has decided to build 20-storey towers in our established suburbs. I think it is stunning hypocrisy, I think it is a broken election promise and I think it is forever changing the character and amenity of our neighbourhoods while putting huge pressure on our public infrastructure, including car parking.

My position is very clear. Of course we want to see parked cars off our streets to stop them clogging up our narrow streets and suburbs. However, let's be very clear, this is a problem that has been caused by Labor's obsession with high density and now high-rise urban infill, regardless of the cost to the local communities that we are dealing with and with total disregard to how those communities are affected, including when it comes to car parking. That has caused a problem.

It is a problem that is being acknowledged today by the government by even introducing this bill but, sadly, it is a problem that they have shown no intent of fixing in the eastern suburbs. I will always side with our local community to protect our suburbs against unrestrained high-rise, high-density urban infill, even if the Labor government will not.

Mrs PEARCE (King) (11:42): I rise today to speak on the Statutes Amendment (Vehicle Parking and Urban Renewal) Bill. South Australia has seen the number of registered vehicles rise by 330,000 over the last decade, with many opting to buy larger vehicles, such as SUVs and dual-cab utes. Parking has also become increasingly problematic in our suburbs, especially in areas where substantial infill development is occurring.

Local roads are congested and on-street parking is difficult to find, whether it be for the daily school drop off, a local footy match or a barbecue at a family friend's place. It is something that I am hearing time and time again from residents in my local community. We absolutely love where we live. We adore the space and we do not want the qualities that we love most diminished.

We know that Adelaide's northern suburbs are growing and they are growing fast, and I totally understand why. Who would not want to live in the northern suburbs? That is why our government has set a clear direction for coordinated and strategic planning. Under the Greater Adelaide Regional Plan, we have identified where 315,000 properties will be built over the next 30 years, while preserving important land for future infrastructure.

In my patch in the north-east, the minister has initiated the Golden Grove Master Planned (Stage 2) Code Amendment, which is investigating the rezoning of 103.8 hectares of land for approximately 850 new homes. My community has welcomed this proposed development but has made very clear their expectation that it does not take away from the character of our neighbourhood. Congested roads with lines of parked cars certainly takes the shine off our beautiful winding streets, which is exactly why our government is taking action.

We have heard your feedback loud and clear. Parked cars need to be off our streets and back on driveways and in garages. We are ensuring sufficient car parking is provided with all new residential developments going forward and, importantly, we are doing this without impacting on housing affordability and supply.

This bill mandates a minimum number of car parks for new dwellings based on the number of bedrooms. That means builders must provide one car park for one-bedroom homes and at least two car parks for homes with two or more bedrooms. We know that it is certainly not just the number of car park spaces a dwelling has. I have heard time and time again from constituents in new homes that their garages are simply not big enough to fit their cars. In fact, if they are, you certainly cannot get the doors open to get in and out of them. It is why we often see garages repurposed into storage units, at-home gyms, toolsheds, extra bedrooms and even home breweries.

This is exactly why our government will increase the minimum dimensions for single-vehicle parks to 3.5 metres wide by six metres long from the current minimum dimensions of three metres by 5.4 metres. Additionally, garage door sizes will be required to be at least three metres to be able to accommodate larger vehicles, which many of us do own today.

These new provisions will give developers more flexibility, allowing them to opt for parking spaces instead of garages, which can be significantly expensive to build. This gives flexibility to those in apartment living in certain urban renewal areas, where, at the minister's discretion, apartment buildings can utilise a centralised parking precinct nearby rather than parking in the building basement.

Our government consulted extensively with residents and local government on this matter, who emphasised the urgency for reform to get cars off streets and into purpose-built parking at home. I strongly believe that, thanks to the hard work of our minister, experts and industry groups, these provisions balance the needs of home owners, builders and communities to deliver practical solutions that will help keep our streets clear and preserve the character of our local neighbourhoods.

Parking on local streets remains the remit of local government, which will take charge of enforcing parking controls through means already available to them. These reforms will reduce congestion, improve safety and create more space for people, not just their cars. As Adelaide grows, our government is rethinking how we design our homes and our communities, while preserving the unique character of our local suburbs. This legislation is just another way that we are delivering in this space. With that, I commend the bill to the house.

Mr DIGHTON (Black) (11:47): I rise to speak in relation to the Statutes Amendment (Vehicle Parking and Urban Renewal) Bill. This is a significant piece of legislation which will make an important difference to the neighbourhoods in my electorate. I have had a number of residents raise concerns with me in relation to street parking and the subsequent congestion and reduction in amenity that it creates.

Just recently I was in Seacliff, and there is a particular road called Kauri Parade—I have driven it for about 10 or 12 years, back and through to Sacred Heart from where I live in Hallett Cove—and it is one where you have to constantly wait for cars to come both ways. It is one where there has been a significant amount of urban infill recently, and it is a good example of where this legislation will make a difference in the future. When houses are bulldozed and split into two, having larger garages will get some of those cars off the street.

It is interesting that it is not just places like Seacliff where there is significant infill but also suburbs which are not experiencing that, including Hallett Cove, Marino and Sheidow Park, where concerns have been raised about the number of cars that are on streets. That has to do with changes in society but also clearly, as others have articulated, that preference around bigger cars that just do not fit in existing houses.

The bill will help reduce congestion and improve amenity by specifying a minimum number of car parks that must be provided for new dwellings based on the number of bedrooms and having a scheme, to be specified by the Minister for Planning, for the minimum dimension requirement for proposed car parks. I am sure we could certainly all think of times when we have parked somewhere where the car parks are just too small. The draft currently says it will be 3.5 metres wide and six metres in length, and this is a change from currently three metres wide and 5.4 metres in length to allow for the bigger vehicles that people are choosing to drive.

Additionally, the bill seeks to include a minimum garage door size of three metres, which is beyond the industry standard of 2.4 metres. The bill makes amendments to the Planning and Design Code to reduce impacts on the cost of new housing, including removing a requirement to have a habitable room that is 2.5 metres in width with a two-metre window facing the street. This will now be replaced with a requirement of a one metre by one metre window facing the street. That is to provide some flexibility in the way that our houses are built. It also removes the requirement for garage door widths to not exceed 50 per cent of the allotment frontage for single-storey dwellings.

This legislation reform aligns with the Greater Adelaide Regional Plan and the Housing Roadmap. It helps to support high-quality infill development by making new homes have larger garages, which will help to reduce on-street parking congestion, a key concern in places where there is higher density. It will enhance urban design and neighbourhood amenity, aligning with a focus on liveable, well-designed communities. It helps to ensure increased housing supply does not compromise our neighbourhood functionality. It helps to address community concerns about parking stress in high-growth areas. It supports affordable housing delivery, because it sets parking standards, and provides certainty for developers, assisting with more streamlined approvals and reducing some of the delays.

I am conscious that I have not necessarily had a chance to speak before about our initiatives to address housing supply, which is why I want to take the opportunity to do this. The Malinauskas government, through the Greater Adelaide Regional Plan, through the Housing Roadmap, through this legislation, is helping to ensure that this side of the house is using every lever to increase supply and doing it in a way which helps to maintain a sense of social cohesion for our existing and future suburbs.

Access to housing, whether through home ownership or ability to rent, is creating a significant imbalance in our society, which is why the Malinauskas government is leading the largest-ever land release, expanding the number of public houses, coordinating infrastructure to support those new developments and tackling infrastructure constraints, as well as proposing legislation like this which helps to allow for infill in a managed way.

Whilst the bill goes a significant way to addressing some of the concerns around car parking, it is important that we emphasise that local government plays a key role in responding to the concerns of the community. It certainly has been a frustration raised with me by residents that local government at times seems to ignore their responsibilities regarding street parking. This is an important bill. It is going to make a difference to our neighbourhoods by ensuring that future developments and rebuilds fit the needs of our growing community. I urge all to support this legislation.

Ms O'HANLON (Dunstan) (11:53): I rise today to speak in support of the Statutes Amendment (Vehicle Parking and Urban Renewal) Bill 2025. This bill is a practical response to a problem that has been raised with me over and over by residents across my electorate of Dunstan. Our streets are becoming clogged with parked cars, creating frustration, blocking access for service vehicles and eroding the character and liveability of our suburbs.

Ever since I began knocking on doors in our community five years ago, and even more recently at street-corner meetings and through contact with my office, people have been telling me about the cars lining both sides of the typically narrow streets, leaving no room for rubbish trucks or ambulances to pass and no space for friends, family, trades or home-care workers to park when visiting.

In suburbs like Payneham, St Morris and Norwood I have on multiple occasions seen for myself how precarious it can be when an emergency vehicle is forced to crawl down the street because cars are parked bumper to bumper on either side. A key contributor is that garages in many homes are too small for today's vehicles.

Yes, people have more cars—our children are living at home for longer and both parents usually work—and nine out of 10 of Australia's top-selling cars these days are SUVs or dual-cab utes, yet many garages were designed decades ago for smaller sedans and hatchbacks. Instead of accommodating vehicles, garages are increasingly used as storage, gyms or extra bedrooms, pushing more cars onto the street. As we move towards denser housing, we must tackle these issues head-on to preserve what we love about our streets and our communities.

This bill provides a balanced solution. It amends the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016 to insert new section 127A, establishing mandatory vehicle parking conditions for designated developments. New dwellings within Greater Adelaide must provide at least one space where there is a single bedroom, and at least two spaces where there are two or more bedrooms. Those spaces must meet new minimum dimensions of 3.5 metres by six metres, and garage doors must be at least three metres wide. These figures reflect the reality that nine out of our 10 bestselling cars are SUVs or dual-cabs and not the small sedans for which many existing garages were designed.

The bill also introduces new section 200A, establishing a vehicle parking fund. Where onsite provision is impractical, developers may contribute to the fund instead. The fund will be used to create or improve public parking, maintain bicycle infrastructure and upgrade related amenities such as lighting, line marking and pedestrian links.

The legislation is not one size fits all. Certain classes of housing, including retirement facilities, residential parks, co-located ageing in place dwellings, workers' accommodation, and housing in the CBD will have reduced or no minimum parking requirements. Strategic infill sites near high-frequency public transport will also have reduced obligations, recognising that private car ownership is often lower in those locations and, where it is not, it is something we ought to be encouraging.

Another important element is the bill's connection with the Urban Renewal Act 1995. It streamlines the way parking can be planned across an entire precinct rather than lot by lot. This allows a master-planned community to provide shared solutions such as underground parking stations or landscaped communal areas with integrated bays while still meeting overall supply targets. It also gives the Treasurer or the responsible minister, with the Treasurer's approval, the ability to grant concessions or vary charges on land inside a precinct, providing flexibility for innovative developments.

The government released a draft scheme and undertook an intensive consultation over two weeks earlier this year. Councils, developers, industry bodies and residents gave detailed feedback. Their advice helped refine dimensions, staging and exemptions, and ensured construction costs remained modest with no loss of housing yield. I commend the Local Government Association, the Property Council, the Master Builders, the Urban Development Institute and the many individual builders and home owners who made submissions.

The bill also sits alongside forthcoming amendments to the Planning and Design Code, for example, removing outdated facade requirements that forced wider house frontages, and adjusting rules about garage door widths, to keep housing affordable while delivering functional parking. To allow a smooth transition, the vehicle parking provisions will commence 12 months after the bill passes parliament, giving the development sector time to adjust and for the code amendments to be finalised. In greenfield areas the start date is deferred until 2028, aligning with SA Water's next regulatory cycle and preventing unnecessary cost imposts.

The benefits of this bill will be tangible. Streets will be safer because sightlines will improve and emergency vehicles will be able to pass unhindered. Rubbish and recycling collections will operate efficiently. Friends and family visiting relatives will find somewhere to park and home care providers, cleaners and contractors will reach clients without risking fines or lengthy walks carrying equipment.

The appearance of our streets will improve as fewer cars sprawl across verges and footpaths. Importantly, we will protect the principle that increased housing supply should not erode the qualities people value in their communities: greenery, walkability, and the sense of order and safety that comes when vehicles are housed appropriately.

State legislation alone cannot solve every aspect of parking. Local councils retain the vital role of managing on-street parking, issuing permits and enforcing time limits or clearways. After the bill is enacted, the minister will write to metropolitan mayors and CEOs encouraging complementary strategies so that local policies reinforce state standards rather than undermine them.

This bill is part of a broader commitment by the Malinauskas government to provide more homes, while protecting neighbourhood character. We cannot meet housing demand by freezing development, nor can we allow uncontrolled spillover parking to compromise safety and liveability. By insisting that garages are big enough for the cars we actually drive, and by creating mechanisms to fund public parking where needed, we are tackling the issue with common sense.

I particularly want to acknowledge residents who shared their experiences: the Norwood family whose ambulance was delayed because a narrow street was blocked by parked vehicles; the Firle tradie, a woman, who routinely carries heavy ladders halfway down the street to reach a client's house; and the Trinity Gardens grandparents who told me how they invite friends around, but there are often no spaces for visitors outside their townhouse. Their stories underline why this bill matters.

By not supporting, or refusing to support, sensible measures to ensure garages are built to fit the cars people actually drive, the opposition is effectively endorsing a future of choked residential streets and rising frustration for residents. Their position would leave neighbourhoods without the tools to manage parking pressure as density increases, forcing families, carers and emergency workers to navigate ever-narrower corridors of parked vehicles.

It would push the cost of solutions on to councils and ratepayers, or require expensive offsite parking facilities, which ultimately add to the price of housing. In short, they are choosing to ignore a practical fix in favour of a policy vacuum that will leave our communities paying the price in safety, amenity and affordability, and demonstrating once again that they certainly have not listened to our community, because if they had they would know that this has been a solution that has been called for time and again by many, certainly many in my community of Dunstan.

The Statutes Amendment (Vehicle Parking and Urban Renewal) Bill 2025 is thoughtful, evidence-based legislation. It respects the need for more housing, safeguards affordability and ensures that cars are stored more safely in appropriate, practical spaces, rather than congesting our streets. It integrates planning and urban renewal tools, provides a funding mechanism for public infrastructure and reflects the realities of modern vehicle ownership.

It also represents the kind of collaboration that produces good law—consultation with residents, councils, planners, builders and researchers—attention to housing supply and an unwavering focus on community amenity. I commend this bill to the house and thank the minister and his team for all the work they did to respond to this call from certainly my community.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Housing Infrastructure, Minister for Planning) (12:02): Thanks to the member for Dunstan for her contribution and her thoughtful contribution on planning more generally. Of course, the electorate she faithfully represents does have its share of challenges, being such a beautiful place, so well located to the city and such a vibrant and interesting part of our city.

I was struck by all members' contributions and the thoughtful way they talked about parking. It is true that nothing excites in planning policy as much as parking. The deputy leader talked about Abundance, Mr Klein's book. As Keating would have said: if you go into the pet shop, the resident galah is talking about abundance.' He did have a very interesting podcast—I was a little ahead of the curve too—about a toilet block in Los Angeles, I think it was. It was a small public toilet that took US$1.3 million to build and some extraordinary amount of time because of the contested nature of planning acts in places like Los Angeles and California. Make no mistake, all of those things have a very real effect on housing supply, as does zoning.

Parking and zoning are the two elements that have quite an effect on housing supply, and that is why we get such passions, both from local members of parliament, who are representing their electorates, and from people often feeling the effect of general infill. It is particularly general infill; I might talk about strategic infill in a moment, but it is particularly general infill.

We have seen it particularly in the inner south, around Marion, but also increasingly in other parts of the city. Because of the renewal of housing we have seen old houses built postwar demolished, and often it is not a one for one replacement but quite significant, with two for one or three for one. Sometimes the ratio gets even higher, depending on the application of community title blocks and also the affordable housing provisions.

If you look at the sorts of parking regimes that have been put in place under the PDI Act, leaving parking, to a large degree, with local government, we have had a bit of a mismatch between our desire for housing supply and getting housing renewal and housing supply. In South Australia, particularly Adelaide, we typically had small houses on big blocks, so there was quite a capacity to renew, but with our desire to have that housing supply we did not quite get the handle on parking that we should have had.

One thing I want to reiterate in this debate is that this bill assists councils; it makes single garages bigger, and it puts in place a whole lot of arrangements that will ultimately assist people getting into garages. However, the only way we can really encourage people to use their garages is for councils to do the really difficult job of engaging with their communities about the management of parking on public streets.

That is a role for local government. It is not a role for MPs, it is not a role for state ministers, it is not a role for the federal government. It truly is one of the jobs of local government, and there are some councils that do a terrific job managing these concerns. It is labour-intensive and it requires lots of consultation, but there are some councils that have not had sufficient attention on it. Typically, where we have the sorts of problems that members are experiencing it is because we are not doing that job, that local job, that important job, of councils managing on-street parking. It is not that hard.

I think I have referred to Playford council, so I will give them another shout-out. I have had differences of opinion with Playford council at times, but the one job they do do is manage on-street parking. Sometimes that requires people getting the odd fine, and that is a difficult thing for a council to do, but it is really the only way to change behaviour. Adelaide City Council does a good job of managing parking, and I think Norwood and Unley are trying to both manage on-street parking and manage commuters coming in from other suburbs parking in their streets so they might walk or ride through our beautiful Parklands to get to work. It is understandable that people would want to do that, but it is not necessarily desirable for local residents and local councils.

We have to encourage councils, and I will be writing to councils saying that we have done our bit, legislating sensibly to make sure that new development is fit for purpose in regard to parking ratios, that we are not going to add to some of the issues they have been experiencing, and to make sure that they then take up the mantle and challenge of engaging with local communities. You do have to engage street by street, suburb by suburb—it is not easy—about timed parking, residents' parking, yellow lines, making sure people do not park opposite each other in suburban streets. All that is the work of local government.

As I said before, there are some councils that do it well, some councils that do not do it so well, and there are some councillors who stand up and give a lecture or two—and I have had this myself; I have been given a lecture or two in public by a councillor. They asked what I was going to do about parking in local streets, and I pointed out to that councillor that it was a responsibility of local government and only they had the powers to do so. I have subsequently found out that the state government does have some powers to direct councils in this regard.

My colleague, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, has those powers and so in the first instance, we will be asking councils to do it; and in the second instance, I guess we will look at our alternatives. Members have all made great contributions about the impacts on their particular local communities.

I note the opposition is interested in thinking about this issue a bit more. No doubt we will get into some of the details during the committee stage, but principally I should say to the member for Bragg, in urban renewal areas that are adjacent—and it does not matter if it is Bowden or Southwark or Glenside, if you are very close to the city, very close to public open space, very close to good public transport links (and there are some really good public transport links, and Keswick will be coming along, and you can see it emerging in the future)—these are communities where people do avail themselves of the Parklands and do avail themselves of living near the city but not in the city.

Those central living districts—and that is really what they will be—will have their own character and their own amenity and they will be very, very desirable places to live. We are seeing that happen organically in Kent Town with a bit of help from zoning but basically driven by the market, and the council being quite supportive of development in Kent Town. We are seeing it happen in Bowden, and we are going to see a big arc of growth through Hindmarsh and Southwark.

We are seeing areas where there will be more density and so, inherently, cars and parking will have to be managed in other ways. One of the key bits of this bill is the precinct powers under the Urban Renewal Act which will allow for better, more well thought-out precinct parking, and I think that will be a big benefit to the communities that are living in those central living districts in particular. But also, I think the member for Playford made a submission to the GARP around the sorts of developments we might see around train stations in the north and in other areas.

I guess this is all intimately linked to things. The Greater Adelaide Regional Plan, a 170-page discussion paper that went out for six months' consultation or so, had 700 or so submissions, and had a lot of thoughtful planning work done, which was basically about two things: we wanted to plan for growth and we wanted the state, community, councils, interested parties, agencies and infrastructure providers to see a clear picture of how South Australia was going to grow because ultimately that lets us lower our infrastructure costs by doing it sensibly at scale.

I have to say, the Greater Adelaide Regional Plan has already prevented some mistakes in infrastructure provision. We have already seen it change the way infrastructure provision is occurring. We have already seen its effect begin to open up employment lands, we are seeing its effect open up new residential subdivisions, and those new residential subdivisions will rebalance Adelaide's growth.

I heard the member for Bragg talk about the Labor Party's general infill, and that his electorate felt the great brunt of it. Let me tell you, that is complete nonsense. It is complete nonsense, and it needs to be called out as nonsense. The places where growth has been felt in terms of greenfield has been in the northern suburbs. The place where general infill has been felt most keenly is in places like the City of Marion: basically from the top part of Anzac Highway through to the inner south there has been a broad redevelopment and renewal of housing stock.

We have to say that has been a good thing because it has given a whole lot of people homes—excellent—but we also have to acknowledge that in many streets we have seen such a rapid replacement of housing and such a rapid increase in housing. A little bit of general infill perhaps is low cost. A lot of general infill starts to cost the community in amenity and in stormwater and it costs the council in parks and pressure on their services. Sure, it creates a rate base as well, but it starts to put pressure on sewer systems and on public and other forms of road transport.

If we look at 30-year plans from a decade ago, there was a thought that general infill was a cheaper form of development—I think the figure given at the time was $100,000 per block—than greenfield. I think what we will find in the future is that is actually not the case, and that as general infill accelerates, its cost benefit to the community lowers over time because of the provision of infrastructure. As it becomes more intense, the cost difference between greenfield and general infill starts to equalise.

What the government has done in terms of the Greater Adelaide Regional Plan and the provision of infrastructure, in particular in the northern suburbs of Adelaide and what will come in Murray Bridge and the last remaining greenfield and brownfield developments in the outer south, is reorientate the ratio of general infill to greenfield to a more manageable level for the city. That means that because general infill will be competing against really good master planned neighbourhoods, I think we will find that there will be less intensity felt by some of these other suburbs. Certainly, that has been our game and our policy aim.

Previous governments, including the previous Liberal government, adopted 85 per cent strategic general infill to 15 per cent greenfield. That was the position of the previous Liberal government, because they did not change it. They kept it in place. They could have changed it when they came to government. They could have called a review, but they kept in place the Weatherill government's aim. We did not agree with that, we have made it clear and we have got rid of those sorts of targets because we do not think they are helpful. We think they are actually quite unhelpful.

What this government wants to do is provide housing supply in as many places and as many forms as we can and let the market and, most importantly, citizens choose how and where they live. We are trying to accommodate for a diverse range of housing needs. Some people need a suburban house, some people need an apartment, some people need retirement living, some people need boarding houses, some people need shelter and services, some people need public housing, and some people need luxury market apartments because they can afford it and want to downsize. All of these things will provide the housing supply that helps the housing market function.

We have to remember that we are reliant on private developers, private builders and private industry to provide the vast amount of our housing. The government then has to plug in affordable rental and public housing, which is a really important factor. Increasingly, we want to do rent-to-buy as well to make sure people have a pathway, particularly people in the working class, people in the lower middle class and young professionals. We want to make sure they have some pathway into housing if they do not have the benefit of the bank of mum and dad or some family wealth. There is an important equity issue in this and there is a whole range of other important issues in terms of what we are doing.

Strategic urban renewal is absolutely critical and, as I said before, these areas of strategic urban renewal are by design more dense—by design they have more vibrancy, more density and more diversity. I went to a meeting with the Premier last night, a community meeting at Bowden with 300 people or so, at Plant 4. It was a really spirited debate about parking—about precinct parking, about parking on the street—with all of the challenges that has.

Bowden suffers from an influx of people coming in because it is unique. I think the small square in Bowden gets as much of a workout as any park in Adelaide. It is vibrant, and people are going there for coffee and lunch at Plant 4, or for Cirkidz or for social events and to just sit in the park. Of course, if you look at Bowden at the moment, there are four cranes in the air. We are cracking on with that development, and that is before we even get to The Gasworks, but that will come as well, and that is before we get to Southwark.

I think what will happen is that, over time, as Bowden matures, as Southwark comes on and as many of these other central living districts or these urban renewal areas sprout out of the ground around the Parklands, we will find that it changes the nature of the way people use the Parklands and we will find that it changes the nature of housing. But in these areas we are going to be less prescriptive about parking and more flexible about parking, because we have the capacity to be more flexible about parking.

I guess one of the learnings out of Tonsley, and out of Bowden in particular, is that we have tended to use empty allotments as free car parking for people as we are building. This is a mistake, and if I were to point out to the parliament something not to be repeated, if there are any future ministers listening, or if they go back and look at Hansard: do not ever use an empty allotment as free parking, because it is a fool's errand. What happens is that people get very used to free parking, and as you get to the back end of the development of course you run out of empty allotments and then you have to build a car park.

So it would be better, I think, to build mobility hubs—car parks with other features, bike storage, rental cars and a whole range of other features. It would be better to build them in the first third or so of an urban renewal project than it would be to build them at the end, because I think you need for people to understand the deal or the offer on parking very early on in an urban renewal project. Invariably—and I am not criticising this—if you move into a place and get used to a stage of development and then another stage of development comes on it is challenging.

I suppose one of the issues of planning is that there has been a bit of a—and the book Abundance shows this, and there are many other books on zoning in particular that show this—predisposition to oppose the unknown. Then what happens is that the project is actually built, and there it is. The project is built and everybody suddenly loves it because of the diversity and the new people—it is not an unknown and there are suddenly people you like and see at the coffee shop. Often density brings a very real and big dividend. I know, Deputy Speaker, that you have done plenty of work around Gawler, which has such a vibrant and active main street. Why? Because when you were mayor you thought very carefully, I think, about how you might attract people to the main street and make it a vibrant and interesting place.

So parking, cars and transport are very closely linked to a strategic infill, and particularly to the use around train stations and shopping centres, and we want to think very carefully about what we can do there to improve people's experience of that.

Parking is a contentious issue. If I was to think about all the issues that were brought up with me as part of the expert panel, or as part of any code amendment, parking is one of those. In this, probably the biggest change will be in the affordable housing category at the moment. In the past, there was a 0.3 park for every house. That clearly sets up affordable housing retrofitted into suburbs in an invidious position. Basically, you are forcing cars onto the road, because you know that a good number of those people, unless it is very, very close to public transport, will have cars. As a result, if there is only one car park for every three houses that will cause a problem.

So we want to recast that. I have been spending an enormous amount of time with my department thinking about how to better recast affordable housing. We think we can do that, and it is important that one of the things we intend to change as part of this bill is that for the last little while—and it probably went on before the PDI Act—we have been requiring people to build garages.

The humble carport is what you might find in plenty of heritage homes riddled through the inner ring of Adelaide. You will find carports in many, many heritage homes, or you will find an open car space, a driveway. That is perfectly sufficient for most people. Most people actually do not mind leaving their car out. If it gets a bit of rain on it, they are not fussed, or if they are fussed it is not the end of the world. What we are saying in this bill is that you do not have to build a garage. If a builder comes up with a parking space, that is sufficient as well. That will be the ultimate cost saving, I think.

Certainly, if you look at previous waves of growth, if you look at many of the Housing Trust developments or if you look at many of the 1960s and 1970s walk-up flats, which were the affordable housing of their time, they often just have either a carport or a car space, and that is sufficient to get cars off the street. They are probably less likely to be used for storage or for some other purpose, which I note was an issue in the submissions by many councils.

There is a frustration, I think, in the community, that even if we provide bigger garages we might just be providing a bigger home gym, a bigger home office or perhaps a bigger bedroom. There are many people—and everybody is, I think, probably guilty of this at one time or another—using their garage for some form of storage. It is an entirely understandable thing to do.

I recently met two young people out at Playford Alive. They had just purchased a block. They were really lovely young people. One was a butcher, working down at Costco. She was an administration worker. They had saved, obviously, to purchase the block and they were living in their parents-in-law's garage in Gawler.

That is a good story on the one hand, because those young people are building a home—they are taking advantage of the government's incentives in terms of stamp duty, they are taking advantage of the government's land release in Playford Alive, and they are freeing up the garage ultimately—but the fact that they were staying there gives you an idea of just how desperate the housing market has become for so many young people. It is not just the bank of mum and dad. Sometimes it is mums and dads giving up space in the family home longer than they would otherwise like, to accommodate young people's desire for stable housing.

We have worked really hard as a department. I would like to thank my department, the Housing Trust, councils, industry—the UDIA, the Property Council, the HIA and others—who have given us the benefit of their thoughts. I have taken this to my ministerial liaison group and we have had a couple of good discussions about it. It has been circulated on YourSAy. We think this bill has had a pretty fair workout, in terms of public submissions and the like, and so we think it stands better for that. Of course, as we move into committee, no doubt there will be a few questions. I can see the deputy leader getting ready, limbering up as it were, and so with that I will commend the bill to the house and we will go into committee.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1 passed.

Clause 2.

Mr TEAGUE: I have one question in terms of commencement that goes to the principle perhaps more broadly. There have been lots of references in the course of the debate to the housing affordability crisis and difficulties in terms of both construction costs and the high price of existing dwellings. What consideration, if any, has the government given to consideration of deferral, commencement and consequences more broadly on housing affordability, the result of these new rules?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: The government intends to do a parallel code amendment, which we have flagged, to deal with some of the more narrow blocks. Principally, there is essentially a whole lot of stuff in the code at the moment. If you make the garage bigger, you will run into other elements of the code, principally in regard to having a habitable room at the front of the house and that garages are not to be bigger than 50 per cent of the frontage. They are somewhat old-fashioned rules that have entered our Planning and Design Code via the rules that were in place for councils prior to this—pretty common zoning rules that have been put in place—so it would be our intention to run that code amendment. That will take a year, which will roughly bring us into 2027, and then that would be when we commence most of the housing.

For master-planned neighbourhoods in greenfield, because we want the greenfield growth front to continue to grow and we think stability and confidence is pretty essential there, we have aligned greenfield master-planned neighbourhoods with the 2028 regulatory cycle for water. Principally, we want to give a really clear window for our greenfield front because there is so much civil infrastructure that has to be put in place and because, generally speaking, there are fewer issues—they are not unknown, but there are fewer issues. So it is a sequenced implementation.

Mr TEAGUE: Separately in relation to commencement, is there a case in this clause or subsequently for statutory review in the context of what I understand to be an anticipated new national parking standard—and I have reference to AS/NZS 2890.1, which is in the works—and is it not desirable to align with that standard and therefore build some flexibility to be able to do that, rather than lock us in now?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: That is why it is in the scheme rather than in the bill. I would say on the Australian standard that it has been coming for probably the entire time you were minister and I was minister. But yes, if this is a slow-moving freight train, we are waiting a long time at the station.

Mr TEAGUE: So it has been thought about, anyway, and it is not needing to be the subject of amendment for the bill.

Clause passed.

Clause 3.

Mr TEAGUE: This bill has been couched in terms of minimum requirements for parking to be mandated. In circumstances where we have a trend towards moves to public transport and all the rest, is there any case for focusing on the other end of the spectrum and maximum off-street parking capacity for new development? Addressing minimum is enough from the point of view of the act. Has the government turned its mind to questions of maximum capacity for parking with new housing?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: Not in this bill. Typically, that would be an area where you have urban renewal and you have the capacity to build, as I said before, mobility hubs or car parks or park-and-rides. It is either a feature of urban renewal, transport-oriented projects or the private market: they are the three things, but they are not countenanced in this bill.

Mr TEAGUE: We obviously see a change to increase the size of garages and reflections on the cause for that, but if we can just focus on the requirement for more off-street parking dictating that becoming a larger component of the built space, is there a direct consequence on private open space and therefore overall impacts on greening requirements, and how is that going to be offset, if at all directly, through the bill?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: That would be principally the job of the code amendment—if you look at what the State Planning Commission has done in terms of driveway crossovers and open space on particularly these more dense blocks. So the code amendment would do that, and we would just have to work with home builders and the industry when we are doing the code amendment to make sure we can get the balance right. That is for the most narrow blocks and terrace homes. The larger the property the easier this proposition will become, and because it does not affect double garages it will not be an issue there. So really what this bill does is, particularly where we have density and very narrow single garages, to make the garage bigger and the garage door bigger.

Mr TEAGUE: I have a follow-up question. We have bigger garages and then, to talk in terms of the pragmatics, we are so often seeing garage space used as storage space. Should the committee read the minister's contribution, perhaps, in closing the second reading debate as signalling to the local government, 'You've got to do your bit to contribute to those cars actually making their way off the road.' Is that where the dynamic is? We bear in mind market forces in terms of the demand side for those off-street parking spaces for reasons that the buyer and builder are going to want them.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: Local government is a vital partner in the housing supply picture. I think this is quite a difficult area of public policy. I did notice that I think they made a submission on YourSAy where they wanted some provision to be able to mandate people using garages for their appointed purpose. I think that might be a step too far, but I do think what councils do have the ability to do is to manage the public realm, in which public roads are. They are the ones with the power to do so, and many of them do.

That does not mandate that people park in their garages, but if you have a narrow street you can pretty easily stop people parking across of each other by the use of a yellow line, and there are a range of other measures. You can have residents' permits; you can do a whole range of things, which councils are doing. So we just want to see that process extend.

The LGA I think came out some time ago and wanted bigger garages, and we agree with them. But, if you like, I think governments of all persuasions have perhaps been—councils have tended to blame the planning system or blame the government of the day rather than perhaps have some of the tougher or more complex discussions with their own communities about how to deal with parking. I understand this: there is a phenomenon where everybody wants to park out the front of their house but are less keen on their neighbours or their neighbours' visitors doing the same thing.

This is a complex area of human behaviour. People can often use their garages for purposes that are not garaging their cars. We just want to make sure that we are managing this issue as best we can. It is a big problem in some places and not so much in others, so that can be managed by the local government authority.

Mr TEAGUE: It is directing attention to what will be new section 127A(9). The question is: can the minister share with the committee criteria that will be used when deciding to exempt or vary the scheme by notice? Does the government have any particulars in mind?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: It is just there to provide some flexibility for the CBD, which we think sensible to rule out given the public transport at retirement facilities where you might need fewer cars, residential parks, co-located housing and workers' accommodation. It just gives the minister some ability to be sensible, to sensibly apply changes.

Clause passed.

Clause 4.

Mr TEAGUE: I might just flag that this might be the subject of some further interrogation between the houses in another place. I might just ask the minister to address and put on the record for the purposes of this committee the grounds for the establishment of those particular contribution amounts: $45,000 for the CBD, $35,000 for metro, $25,000 for out of metro, and $10,000 for regional as those alternatives to provision. Are they arbitrary? Are they about cost recovery? Is there some other measure for having adopted them?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: They are simply the cost of a car park in those relevant areas as analysed by the Department for Housing and Urban Development.

Clause passed.

Clause 5.

Mr TEAGUE: I might wrap up part 3 as best I can. I will just flag that if it is convenient. I just flag wrapping up a treatment of part 3, because these are the amendments that affect the Urban Renewal Act. Starting at clause 5, I am interested in the practical effect of the changes to section 7G. Are the changes going to enable future strategic infill sites that have been the subject of some consideration from the minister, and how are these provisions going to interact with cost recovery and concessions later on in part 3, just to make sure that there is sufficient clarity for landowners before a precinct is declared?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: To save time, in clauses 5, 6, 7 and 8 we have looked quite a bit at the precinct powers, which have not been used under the Urban Renewal Act. They have been sitting dormant for some time, in part, I think, because the judgement that has been made is that they are quite cumbersome. You can see section 7G just deletes the definition of 'planning minister' because it had the Minister for Urban Renewal consulting with the Minister for Planning. It is just that in this case—

Mr Telfer: Split personality.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: Yes, that is right. I am confident I could consult myself and my department could consult me, but there might be another government in the future, and you might have those roles split, as they have been in the past, and that makes it cumbersome. Then, you will see we have made a range of changes which are all about making the precinct power one that is more user-friendly for governments of a persuasion, but, if you look at the precinct powers, you still have to go through a process in regard to that.

Principally, it would be used where you had urban renewal areas like Bowden, as the obvious example, where you are planning for a high degree of density. It helps you manage car parking in the street, and it helps you manage what you might do about more centralised parking. The only thing I have done on this is I have looked at Tonsley and I have looked at Bowden and I have looked at the housing.

Nightingale Housing, which was a good initiative put in by the previous government, does not have any parking because they say to add a park to their apartments will cost $50,000. I do not know if it is quite that high, but it is substantial in Adelaide, and what they do in Brunswick is they charge the people living there and the people have to get a car park space from somewhere else.

At the moment, we are making an apartment developer put the parking underneath the apartments, essentially. If you could dislocate or separate the parking from the actual housing—that is, put the parking in somewhere central and put the housing elsewhere—you would probably lower the price of the cost of providing a car park because you are just building one central car park in an urban renewal area. So it would allow you to do this. It would actually probably be better for developers and better for the precinct or the urban renewal project because you could drive down the cost of parking because you would not be digging as much underneath each apartment block. I hope that answers that accurately.

Mr TEAGUE: I appreciate that answer from the minister. As I have flagged, there is perhaps just one more question in relation to the part that probably goes more directly to clause 6, but, if it is convenient, I might just ask it here. Clause 6 in particular, and the amendments the subject of the part, as the minister has already adverted, are in ways removing some of the existing structures, processes, for the establishment of precincts.

We see in clause 6 a repeat of the removal of the requirement to consult with the planning minister, for example. It is also going another step in abolishing advisory panels. Put it this way: what transparency and accountability measures are going to abide and/or replace those safeguards, and what public consultation is going to occur before a precinct is declared?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: You can still set up a design reference panel and a community reference panel, but it is discretionary. Ministers can still do that. The Minister for Urban Renewal would make that judgement at the time depending on the precinct.

Clause passed.

Clause 6.

Mr TEAGUE: I think the minister has already referred to it actually, but there has been an indication about the series of code amendments that are to be released to go with the bill. I am just interested in timing for those code amendments.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: We think that the code amendment will have to be sufficiently broad; it will have to be a broad code amendment. We anticipate it would run for 12 months, and that is generally the time it takes to go through all the investigations and do the public consultation, which I think generally is six weeks, which is one council meeting cycle. The deputy leader will be remembering that particular provision, waiting for local government to be able to properly consider these things.

If you look at what the code amendment is looking at, many of these rules have been put in place in our code, in the zoning, for some time, and I think some of them are perhaps a little outdated anyway. If you look at many of the beautiful heritage homes, you cannot see the door because they are return verandahs. A return verandah was very popular. There would be many of them in the country, and there are plenty of them in Mile End. The return verandah was a bit of a fashion in prewar homes, where you had your front door off to the side.

You cannot do that at the moment. Why? Because some well-meaning, no doubt, but perhaps overly officious town planner or set of town planners—it was principally in the fifties, sixties and seventies, in this very suburban period—designed a whole lot of rules that I am not sure really reflect contemporary life.

The same one is the habitable room at the front of the house. Certainly when I lived in the suburbs, if you went out into your front yard at about 5 o'clock on a summer's evening you could fire a bow and arrow across many front yards and not hit a soul.

The CHAIR: Minister, we need to either report progress or wind up, one of the two.

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION: We will finish it off.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (7 to 9) and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Housing Infrastructure, Minister for Planning) (13:00): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.

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HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT