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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-09-14 Daily Xml
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Question Time

30-YEAR PLAN FOR GREATER ADELAIDE

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:33): l seek leave to make a brief—

The Hon. B.V. Finnigan: Forty-five seconds. We'll be counting.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I hope that the 45 seconds will stop the boofheads interjecting from the other side of the chamber, Mr President.

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: And that, if those changes were implemented, you would come down on him like a tonne of bricks, or perhaps two tonnes of bricks would be needed for Bernie. I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning a question in relation to the 30-year plan.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Last year, on Tuesday 22 September, I asked the minister a question in relation to the draft 30-year plan and, in particular, my concerns about the inaccuracies in that particular draft and that the maps were not drawn to scale and were, in fact, misleading. The minister's response was that it was not misleading. In fact, what I was referring to was that the plan talked about development within 800 metres of a transit corridor. When you draw the maps to scale, the corridors are no longer corridors but, in fact, morph into one particular large slab of Adelaide being subject to high-density residential development. The minister went on to say:

It is not misleading. How can it be? If the map did not indicate what the corridors were, it would be misleading. To advance debate on this, we have tried to illustrate the corridors. The policy that goes around the corridors is obviously a different issue.

I then said by way of interjection, 'It is 800 metres.' The minister replied:

What might happen within that 800 metres, of course, will depend on a whole lot of extra work to be done, but we believe we can accommodate the population in there. This is why it is out for discussion.

During the election campaign the final document was released by the minister and the Premier, and they very happily put their names to this particular document. I will quote one of the paragraphs in the minister's foreword:

By focusing on transit corridors we can ensure that we preserve Adelaide's distinctive urban character, leaving about 80 per cent of metropolitan Adelaide largely unchanged as a result of the plan.

Given that the plan speaks about 70 per cent of future growth within the current urban growth boundary, I have here today for the minister (and I will provide him with a copy of it) the maps which, when drawn to scale, are still not accurate. When drawn to scale, large swathes of Adelaide suburbs are now subject to high-density residential development under this minister and this Premier's plan. My questions to the minister are:

1. Why are the maps in the final document (the one that the Premier and the minister signed off on) not to scale and still misleading?

2. Can the minister confirm that it is the government's intention to allow high-density development within 800 metres of a mass transit corridor (the fixed corridors of the O-Bahn, train and tram) and within 400 metres of transit corridors?

The PRESIDENT: I am thinking seriously about whether I will be able to second Mr Parnell's motion!

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Assisting the Premier in Public Sector Management) (14:38): The first point that I make to the Leader of the Opposition is that high density and high rise are different things. One can actually have a high-density development which need not necessarily be high rise.

What the 30-year plan aims to do, as the honourable member said, is to concentrate 70 per cent of the future growth of Adelaide within the current boundaries by the end of that 30-year period. That can be achieved we believe (as the report points out) without affecting up to 80 per cent of the current metropolitan area of Adelaide. That can be done by having high density along our major corridors.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: If anyone does have a look at that development—and I hope the honourable member and this parliament should take the opportunity to go and have a look at some of the urban design—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: He is welcome to come along. There is another one being organised by the industry next year, and perhaps the honourable member should join it and have a look at some of the developments where there is high density. Here we are talking about perhaps four or five storeys along major roads, but it steps back fairly quickly into the suburbs. If one goes within even, in some cases, as little as 50 metres from the main road it is scarcely noticeable in the suburbs. You can get off the main road and within a very short distance there is that transition. The government is talking about looking at those distances from transport nodes.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: The ideal objective of any planning that is trying to concentrate development around transport is to have those people living within walkable distance, preferably 400 metres, of a transport corridor. What this government has been doing and will be announcing very shortly involves our first steps to extend the rezoning process to our major corridors. The department has already undertaken a lot of the significant work in relation to some of those corridors. It has begun particularly with the north-west corridor, which is along Port Road and the train line out to Outer Harbor to look at the opportunities there. If one looks at that corridor, one sees that there are many degraded areas, both urban and factory areas.

What one will do will depend on looking at the area. When we go through and do the exercise of having a look at the zoning, obviously some of those areas will be heritage areas quite close to the actual corridor. One does not deal with those. What one does is to look at the area within walking distance of the corridors and make the decision then as to exactly how one might rezone that. That will obviously depend on the areas concerned. What might work if one was looking at having some high density on Unley Road, for example, might be completely different from the situation involving, say, the Port Road corridor.

All that the 30-year plan really sets out, I think, is the guide about which ones we should aim to have. To have that development within that distance, one should aim to have the higher density to encapsulate the development we want within that particular distance of the transport corridors, because that will reinforce the role that public transport has; it will make public transport more viable, and you can have more frequent public transport. That in turn will make it more attractive and it will achieve a whole lot of other benefits in relation to reducing petroleum consumption, with commensurate reductions in carbon emissions, etc., as well as providing a more walkable city.

Essentially, the 800-metre zones are really just the guidelines, if you like, for where we will be looking for these specific policies, but it should not be taken to mean that in the case of Unley Road, for example, 800 metres each side of that road would somehow or other become available for change. In fact, most of that area has already been through the rezoning process involving Unley council and the government and has been set aside as character development. But that is not to say that one could not redevelop those major corridors and provide buildings of three, four or five storeys—whatever is more appropriate—and then stepping that back down into the surrounding suburbs. If there are opportunities to go further back from the road with the development because the properties in the area might be degraded, then one should look at that.

It is important to stress that the objective of the plan is to leave about 80 per cent—and that is clearly set out in the 30-year plan—of our current suburbs untouched. In other words, we are trying to manage our growth. The options for city growth are either fringe development (urban sprawl, if you like) or higher density in one form or another. The government has clearly chosen that we want to contain sprawl, so we will need to have some denser development, and that is best focused along transport corridors. That is exactly the direction that we will be moving in, and we believe that, from the work that has been done and as expressed in the 30-year plan, under that process 80 per cent of the suburbs will remain untouched. In these studies that will be done of our major corridors, we will be looking at up to 800 metres from the corridor for the possibility, but obviously the actual outcome will vary greatly depending on the nature of the suburbs and the opportunities available for development.

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