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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-10-27 Daily Xml
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30-YEAR PLAN FOR GREATER ADELAIDE

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN (15:11): My question is to the Leader of the Government and Minister for Urban Development and Planning. Earlier the minister was kind enough to provide some details about the 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide. Can the minister explain how the principles and objectives for guiding growth in the next three decades will influence the plumbing industry?

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) (15:11): I thank the honourable member for his important question. As I said, I am quite happy to help the Leader of the Opposition in a map interpretation course, if he has trouble understanding maps.

The 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide is a high-level strategic vision for our city and surrounding townships, and it will guide the planning and delivery of services and infrastructure during the next three decades with the aim of concentrating development along key corridors, shifting the balance away from development on the urban fringes. We want to put people's homes closer to their jobs, closer to transport and closer to everyday services.

In devising the plan, we have a reasonable expectation that people will want to live and work here in the years ahead and that will inevitably lead to an increase in population, and consequently, a demand for affordable housing and job opportunities. It is only prudent, as a government, that we plan for that eventuality. Under the plan, in the next 30 years we expect a steady population growth of 560,000 people requiring the construction of 258,000 homes, demand for an additional 282,000 jobs and creating about $127.7 billion of economic growth.

In the past, this pace of growth has happened but without a long-term plan to manage it. So we see the outcomes across the city that have led to much of the complaints that we hear about traffic, urban sprawl and inappropriate development. The 30-year plan is a milestone document because we have set ourselves the challenge of addressing these problems as they arise and in a way that improves the liveability of Greater Adelaide, its competitiveness, sustainability and resilience to climate change.

The plan is being updated annually, so that implementation is closely monitored. The 30-year plan guides changes to the way land use is managed to create a more compact city and a city that is more efficient and can better meet the needs of a growing and changing population. Density along major corridors will increase and this will create a new urban form. New urban villages will be developed near transport infrastructure.

The new Bowden Village, planned for the former Clipsal site, will adopt a higher density through a mixed use development that integrates residential, commercial and retail uses in a design that encourages cycling, walking and access to our upgraded and electrified rail services. Bowden Village provides the opportunity to set a benchmark for similar development in Adelaide, setting new standards in urban revitalisation and transit planning, together with world-class design.

Bowden Village will be a liveable community, providing access to employment opportunities, housing choice, open space and connections to public transport. It will also incorporate—and this is the important part of the question—world-class water sensitive urban design.

From a water management perspective, this government has promoted water sensitive urban design as its policy focus. It will help to capture and re-use more water that would otherwise run out to the gulf. We have four water sensitive urban design goals, which are: reducing mains water usage, improving the quality of run-off, managing the rate of run-off and managing the volume of run-off.

I am sure that you are aware of changes that have occurred during the past few years inside buildings with the advances made in dual flush toilets, low flow showerheads, more efficient and effective hot water services, evaporative air conditioners, and so on. The 30-year plan allows the government to move more into the public realm and better manage urban design to capture water.

We need to continue to find ways to reduce our water usage in and around buildings in the future. In the public realm, controlling run-off is particularly important, and there are already many good examples of new development where run-off is well managed. New developments such as Mawson Lakes use recycled water for toilet flushing, gardens and so on.

We want the local plumbing industry to work with water and civil engineers and government to develop new ways to capture, clean and re-use as much urban water as we can. This issue is important to the community. The take-up of rainwater tanks, assisted by generous government incentives, is clear evidence of the public support for this approach to water management. New developments, therefore, will need to show clear evidence of good public water sensitive urban design.

During the coming years, the move to higher density development will inevitably impact on the plumbing industry, and so this form of development will require considerably more complex plumbing solutions than does broadacre housing. That is why we are keen to work with the industry to ensure that we have those skills.

The government has set out ambitious goals for better management of urban water. We will be introducing targets for better urban water management that will require new industry practices from a development, engineering and technical perspective. We will need to work closely with industry to make sure that our goals are understood and are practically achievable and that there are enough people trained to design, construct and manage these new systems.

These changes will present the plumbing industry with interesting challenges, as well as many opportunities. It is my wish, and that of my colleague the Minister for Water, to work closely with industry and local government to make sure that these important goals for South Australia can be achieved.

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