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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-04-30 Daily Xml
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Glenside Urban Corridor (Living) Code Amendment

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (15:16): I rise to speak about the Glenside Urban Corridor (Living) Code Amendment, the initiation of which was announced last week without any consultation with my local community. The effect of this code amendment, if approved, will be to dramatically increase the maximum building heights in our local area, particularly around the new Glenside development on the corner of Greenhill and Fullarton roads, and could see a series of towers built there up to 20 storeys tall, which is a significant increase on the eight storeys that is currently planned for.

I think it is fair to say that my local community was pretty surprised and shocked by this announcement. They have already raised some fairly significant concerns with me. I think unrestrained high-rise high-density urban infill in our local area will put undue pressure on public infrastructure around the area—everything from car parking to sewerage to our roads to our open space and tree canopy to our schools. This is all going to be happening while eroding what I think is the unique character of our local area.

Twenty-storey towers will dwarf the heritage buildings that are on that site. Twenty-storey towers will dwarf character homes in heritage suburbs like Eastwood. Importantly, 20-storey towers will dwarf the eight-storey towers that have already been built to the plan at that site.

Indeed, I think some of the people in my electorate who are most aggrieved by this suggestion from Labor's new super minister are the people who have just gone and bought at that strategic infill site on an eight-storey plan. They have sold most of that site already on a promise of eight storeys. What we see now effectively is the bait and switch: once they have had it sold to them at eight storeys we see what I think is just a greedy attempt to rack 'em, pack 'em and stack 'em in Glenside.

It is just not what these people signed up to, it is not what the people in the Glenside development signed up to, and it is not what my future constituents who will be living in the Bloom retirement estate have signed up to. They have parted with their life savings and bought off a plan which has now been fundamentally changed on them.

I have already taken the opportunity to raise these initial concerns with the so-called super minister. Over the coming weeks and months, I am going to do what the super minister did not do, which is go and consult and seek feedback from my local community. I will be holding a public meeting at the site this weekend to hear directly from those who will be impacted by this decision from the super minister.

I have passed on that initial feedback already. I do acknowledge that I did get a response from the minister just today, where he kindly sets out the process for the code amendment now. It importantly confirms that he is the sole decision-maker on this code amendment. The people in the eastern suburbs will know exactly who is making this decision and we want to make sure that this sole decision-maker, the super minister for planning, hears our concerns loud and clear.

The letter then goes on to state that given he is the sole decision-maker, he is unable to comment on the merits or otherwise of the code amendment at this time, which does seem very proper indeed, but also seems completely at odds with the front page of The Advertiser newspaper only a week or so ago where the headline was 'Housing minister Nick Champion backs 20-storey residential apartment tower heights for Glenside'.

We might explore in due course the inconsistency of those two positions. For now, we note that the super minister is the decision-maker and we indicate to him very clearly that we will be making sure our local community's voice is heard on his new plans for 20-storey towers in Glenside.

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