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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-11-14 Daily Xml
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HILLS FACE ZONE

The Hon. M. PARNELL (14:56): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning a question about protection of the Hills Face Zone.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The Hills Face Zone, which stretches almost 90 kilometres from Sellicks Beach to Gawler, provides an important and distinctive backdrop to Adelaide. As members would know, this area has also been somewhat of a magnet for controversy—especially in relation to housing and other development in the zone, particularly as those developments impact on biodiversity and visual amenity.

In 2002, the government announced a review of Hills Face Zone policy and set up a Hills Face Zone Review Steering Committee. In February 2004, the government responded to the recommendations in the report of the Hills Face Zone Review Steering Committee by developing an implementation strategy. Key action arising from that was the authorisation of 'an initial ministerial PAR to facilitate a stronger control regime for the zone—as a holding measure—until a stage 2 PAR is introduced to refine policies and provide a clear long-term framework for the assessment of development in the zone.'

The stage 1 PAR was gazetted on 24 February 2005 but since then there has been no public announcement about a stage 2 PAR. I understand that a draft PAR, or DPA (development plan amendment, as we now call them), has been prepared by Planning SA but that it is awaiting ministerial approval. Another recommendation was the establishment of a Hills Face Zone regional development assessment panel, but that is yet to be established. My questions are:

1. When will the Hills Face Zone regional development assessment panel be established, and how will it be resourced?

2. When will the stage 2 development plan amendment be released?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Police, Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning) (14:59): It is important to remember that the stage 1 plan amendment report (as it was then) does give significant protection to the hills face—indeed, since that particular development plan amendment came into effect I have been lobbied on a number of occasions (including, I must say, by some members of parliament) to try to relax restrictions in the Hills Face Zone. I have consistently resisted those because I believe it is important that we do protect the Hills Face Zone.

Of course, the boundary of the Hills Face Zone was devised some 40 years ago. It is not necessarily the most perfect boundary; as I understand it, it was based on where water distribution could be made available. I believe that was the original motivation, rather than any aesthetic protection; nevertheless, it is important to protect the backdrop for the city.

Unfortunately, just before the Hills Face Zone originally came back into effect in the 1960s, as I understand it, a significant amount of subdivision took place. It has been in only fairly recent times that the vast majority of those subdivisions have been taken up. I believe that perhaps a few hundred still remain without dwellings but, by and large, most of the massive subdivision that took place in the 1960s has pretty well been taken up. As I said, there is often pressure to relax those rules in relation to one dwelling on those blocks, but I have strongly resisted that.

When the Hills Face Zone review was undertaken in 2002 (and I have seen the report), there were a number of matters involving agriculture and a few other areas which raised further issues. However, I believe that the essential protection necessary to protect the Hills Face Zone is in place as a result of the stage 1 development plan amendment. The honourable member asked about the regional assessment panel. He would be aware that, subsequent to that review, we changed the Development Act. We have changed the membership of the assessment panels for development, and we have also allowed for regional assessment panels. Because of his interest in planning, I am sure that the honourable member would be aware that a number of councils, including some of the eastern suburbs councils, for example, have been looking at forming joint regional assessment panels.

As I have indicated recently, I know that the planning review is also looking at a more regional approach. This state really needs a more regional approach to planning, not just in the country and rural areas of the state but also within the metropolitan area. A number of councils are looking at taking a more regional approach to both their planning and the assessment of those decisions. That is a very good thing, and this government thoroughly encourages it. So, that could well supersede the need for any particular regional assessment in the Hills Face Zone.

Whatever happens up there in relation to assessment, as long as I am Minister for Urban Development and Planning I will insist that very stringent controls are kept on any subdivision or development within that region.

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