[COM] COM/CAN: Aurora on Pirie | 54/57m | 14/15lvls | Office

[Will]

will

i have been a planner for ten years in adelaide and london and i would love for DAP/committees to be a rubber stamp. in some places i have worked officers recommendations were accepted less than 50% of the time! ( i wont mention names but you know them) Obviously the DAP (with professionals on board) has dramatically improved consistently with regard to this but there is still scope for DAP to depart from officer's recommendations.

Yes, replacing some councillors with expert members has improved consistency, as it has reduced politics interfering in the DAP decisions. The only significant decision made, from memory where the recommendation from the development officers contradicted the decision from the DA panel was in regard to the 400 KWS development. The development officers had made the recommendation for the DAP to REJECT the proposal, however in contrast, the DA panel actually approved it.

[stumpjumper]

At the risk of sounding like a heretic, I'd like to say that cities do not exist for the benefit of the development industry. For better of for worse (from that industry's point of view) the ultimate decision about built urban form must be made by the inahbitants of the city. That's democracy.

Rather than trying to cut these inhabitant stakeholders out of the planning approval process, the likes of Rice and co should be trying to educate people and to open them up to new ideas.

Pie in the sky you say? Maybe, but the fact that it isn't easy to get around resistance to change and other characteristics of local populations is no reason to demand preference over them.

In the property industry it is very easy to become focussed solely on profit and to lose sight of the fact that you are operating within a community - one in which the interests of property, while important, are not paramount. I know that from experience.

[how_good_is_he]

A very valid argument stumpjumper. However what should also be highlighted is how property owners rights have become more and more eroded by these "stakeholders" over the years. In short, it all comes down to money and do these stakeholders deserve to be considered on par with the property owner.
Developers would be happy to listen to other "stakeholders" if they were prepared to put up some of their own dough to achieve a better outcome for everyone.
From experience, it is hard to swallow being the developer - you take all the risk, you hope to improve whats there and you hope to make a living. While developers put up their hard earnt dough and pay interest every week [usually for years with no guarantee of success or return] the other "stakeholders" sit on sidelines and give advice/hurl abuse/object/stall the development with no financial pain or care. Tell these "stakeholders" they have to share paying the holding costs of the development until a mutually satisfactory agreement is reached and see if they object!

[stumpjumper]

I partially agree with you, hgih.

Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned 'stakeholder'. That word conjures up earnest librarian types revelling in their power over a developer as they attend council meetings in force.

You mentioned money. That's usually the goal of all but the most altruistic developer, and it must make people like Makris, Rice and co almost froth at the mouth that money isn't always the golden key that unlocks doors in the development process.

Good development is not solely about money, and neither should it be, no matter how much pressure moeny can bring to bear on decision makers.

Money can buy you a winning football team, and get you the biggest house in town - all you have to do is put more funds/assets etc towards the project than the opposition.

But it doesn't work for planning. Someone on here with some economic cred said that development was unusual in that its benefits were not private. That's true, but neither are its detriments. A community has every right to place limits on development within its boundaries, and it has every right to see those limits upheld by the planning apparatus (legislation, personnel etc) which the government has put in place.

That same apparatus must allow for change, but only with the approval of the community it serves.

Property is still king after all. A community has property rights and expectations within its borders, and it makes the rules, not the guys who come along once in a gernation and want to build high rise all along the beach or whatever the favoured location is. I'm not talking about just residents here, but the high proportion of resident landowners in most communities who have invested just like the developer wants to, and whose rights are to be respected too.

Merely arriving in a community with a barrow load of money and a plan, or even with a purchased site, does not confer property rights sufficient to overcome the rights of the community as a whole.

There is a way around this annoyance, of course - the developer can buy up the entire community then do what he wants.

[AtD]

stumpjumper: You're quick to condemn greedy capitalist developers over and over again, but you've yet to state who specifically loses from this development and how. This is a well designed proposal.

[how_good_is_he]

Stumpjumper, good development is a very subjective debate.
Even with so called planning controls, crap gets approved and built all the time.
You look back at buildings over the past 40 years - the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and many of them are crap. Yet this is with all the safeguards of more planning controls, more legislation etc.
I believe the community should not have the right to impose it's will on your property. Can I come to your established property and pass judgement and tell you what I want you to do - no.
Essentially a developer gets penalized because he/she is building something "new" and somehow this should trigger the right for the community/stakeholders to become judge and jury.

[Cruise]

Ok then HGIH, does that mean i can build a 50 metre tall skyscraper in the middle of suburbia? I mean its my house, my land so that gives me the right to build whatever the hell i want right?

[how_good_is_he]

Cruise control, this whole debate is based on the right of so-called "stakeholders" having a say...and your extreme example of an irrational development can conversely be compared to an irrational stakeholder who stops a development.

But do you know the difference? The irrational stakeholders are winning hands down in ACTUALLY STOPPING DEVELOPMENTS while I haven't seen ANY irrational developments getting approved!

The latest case is a "stakeholder" [a street behind] stopping a beachfront development as they may loose their view.
In this case, Aurora on Pirie was decided by some dumb-ass councillors [more "stakeholders"] with no formal planning experience.

My point is, what chance have we got now that anybody resembling a "stakeholder" can dictate a development when even the professionals [planners] haven't been able to get it right over the years.

[urban]

The latest case is a "stakeholder" [a street behind] stopping a beachfront development as they may loose their view.
In this case, Aurora on Pirie was decided by some dumb-ass councillors [more "stakeholders"] with no formal planning experience.

HGIH I understand that the one councillor who opposed the project is a trained planner and has roughly 40 yrs experience. The two other DAP members who refused are both registered architects who have dealt with development plans for a combined total of 60 or 70 years.

At a guess they probably have more planning experience than all members of this forum.

I have had experience dealing with developers from both the proposal and assessment point of view. I estimate that 1% of developments are undertaken to improve an area. The rest are undertaken to improve the developers bank balance. Developers will NEVER do any work on a proposal unless they can make money within the planning rules. After deciding the project is feasible within the plan they see how far outside the plan they can go and still get approval. It is here where the high profits are made. The role of the DAP is to make sure that the profits are not coming at the expense of the community.

If they had approved the Aurora design they would have put themselves in a difficult position if an appallingly designed building of the same height was proposed for across the road.

The beachfront development shows what happens when development is taken out of the development process and into the courts where money is much more powerful. The DAP in that case approved the development.

The 400 KWS and Aurora projects show that the development process is working. The Aurora project shows the Development Plan needs adjustment.

The planning officers recommendations are the opinion of only one person. Projects at the edge of the development plan are best decided by a panel following debate and review within the public realm. The requirement for a majority of expert panel members on the DAP takes the politics out of the approval process.

[AtD]

If they had approved the Aurora design they would have put themselves in a difficult position if an appallingly designed building of the same height was proposed for across the road.

Rather odd reasoning. "Lets block good proposals now, because there might be a bad one some time in the future."

[stumpjumper]

I knew I shouldn't have used the word 'stakeholder'...

[urban]

Rather odd reasoning. "Lets block good proposals now, because there might be a bad one some time in the future."

It only applies to non-complying development.

[Cruise]

Dont worry HGIH, I was being sarcastic to prove a point, I understand where your coming from but my point is that the Community must have input in surrounding devolpments. But the reasons for this one to be blocked does seem trivial though.

[Ben]

I went into sales office at lunch and spoke with one of the guys there. He told me they have scrapped the top floor and will now only have 13 levels and be approx 49m. This is still above the height limit but they belive it will be enough to get approved. He said ACC should have the revised proposal now and they still hope to have demolision commencing in October with completion March 2009 assuming this revised proposal is approved.

[crawf]

Its pathetic, they even have to cut it down. Especially when a 55m building is currently getting built next to Victoria Square.

Shame on ACC