Riverlea (Buckland Park) | 12,000 dwellings | $3b

[SBD]

And what is the PT strategy/plan for this 'satellite city' ?

Why just this new town? The question should be what's the plan for PT for all outlying towns around the metro area. Why isn't there an emphasis on building a regional rail network linking to Adelaide?

This could have had a train service, if the government had gone ahead with the original plan or idea for the northern connector which included a rail line through the middle of it, although I think that was for freight based on what the artists impressions renderings showed.
I'm sure they could have added a passenger line to it.

Also, the freight line which splits off from running parallel to the passenger lines at Salisbury, and runs through the heart of the areas that will be the new northern suburbs in a few decades, and on passed Virginia and Two Wells, couldn't they add a passenger line next to that running along same route? And then spur off towards McDonald Park and Angle Vale and spur to Buckland Park/Riverlea?

It's a state government issue (and fuck up), not the developers fault.

It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. If there is strong public transport linking Buckland Park to the Adelaide CBD (as most public transport seems to be focused), then what grows at Buckland park will become an outer dormitory suburb for people working in and near the CBD. Is that what we want? The alternative is that it becomes populated by people working in Buckland Park (the "satellite city"); industrial areas such as Penfield, Edinburgh North, Edinburgh Parks; Gawler; food industry around Virginia, Two Wells, Dublin. Many of those employees would not be served at all by buses or trains to Adelaide, and quite possibly not by services that run in what office workers think is "peak hour". If their shift starts at 6am or finishes at midnight, then typical Adelaide public transport is no help. Does Adelaide have good public transport to any industrial employment zones, or are those workers always assumed to use private transport?

The Northern Connector railway was intended to get the standard gauge freight out of the suburbs - Salisbury to Wingfield and perhaps (if an east-of-the hills route developed) most of the freight from Monarto to Port Adelaide or Dry Creek as well.

McDonald Park is around where the end of a spur line from Smithfield ran during WW2 to the munitions store. Part of the easement still exists along the north side of Davoren Road, but some has been built over by later development.

[rev]

Its eventually going to be another suburb of Adelaide, they can call it what they want for marketing purposes today.

[SBD]

Its eventually going to be another suburb of Adelaide, they can call it what they want for marketing purposes today.

That may be, but exactly what it becomes can be managed by what other planning decisions are made. Providing easy transport to the CBD will increase the propensity of people who want to work in the CBD moving to Buckland Park instead of Bowden or Lightview.

Providing local schools, employment, community facilities early might mean it has more people who are inclined to work locally, so the lack of convenient public transport to somewhere else doesn't matter.

[eKwatee]

And what is the PT strategy/plan for this 'satellite city' ?

An express bus from the new estate to Currie Street via Henley Beach Road work work an absolute treat. The bus would hardly stop. Be almost as quick as a car.

[ginzahikari]

And what is the PT strategy/plan for this 'satellite city' ?

https://cdn.playford.sa.gov.au/general- ... focal=none
I found this PT strategy published by the Playford council in 2011, which includes PT measures for the new suburb, but I doubt a large portion of this won't go ahead since it's looking too ambitious and unrealistic.

[Bob]

The developer is promoting a 35Km trip via a MW to the CBD which will take 35 mins by car, that comment says to me this is being positioned as nothing more than an outer suburb as Rev mentioned previously.

[Goodsy]

The developer is promoting a 35Km trip via a MW to the CBD which will take 35 mins by car, that comment says to me this is being positioned as nothing more than an outer suburb as Rev mentioned previously.

Good luck making it to the CBD in 35 mins with the traffic from Buckland Park, Two Wells, Virginia and the Salt Flats when they also get developed..

The Northern Connector is already bumper to bumper at 6am during the week

[SBD]

The developer is promoting a 35Km trip via a MW to the CBD which will take 35 mins by car, that comment says to me this is being positioned as nothing more than an outer suburb as Rev mentioned previously.

Good luck making it to the CBD in 35 mins with the traffic from Buckland Park, Two Wells, Virginia and the Salt Flats when they also get developed..

The Northern Connector is already bumper to bumper at 6am during the week

It doesn't say what time of the week the CBD is 35 minutes. Right now (Sunday night), Google Maps gives 28 minutes from the Angle Vale Road intersection to North Terrace near Adelaide Railway station.

The website is presently all about lifestyle and recreation. There's hardly even a mention of a house on it. There's a few large multi-storey buildings by the lake in the middle with no clue what they would be.

The Walker website is the one with the 35 minute claim, and has a wide view of a "msaterplan" that shows rows of houses, the lake doesn't have the big buildings or the ornamental bridge.

Neither website specifically addresses the Gawler River or the coast - will it have walking trails along the river to the beach, or access to a boat ramp? These seem like key points in the recreation narrative to distinguish it from Golden Grove and Mawson Lakes.

[rev]

Oddly enough Google Maps gives a travel time of between 35-50min for an arrival time from anywhere between 7am amd 9am for tomorrow, but 40min for a midnight arrival, and even a 3 am arrival.

These time things by developers would be under ideal conditions, or just a general estimate.

[PeFe]

Yes Buckland Park is back! And now it is called Riverlea.....with some concessions and design changes indicating the developers do realise they are building on a flood plain.

From The ABC

Walker Corporation pushes ahead with project to build new suburb at Buckland Park


An artist's impression of the Buckland Park development.(Walker Corporation)

A project to create 12,000 homes in Adelaide's northern outskirts will drive unnecessary urban sprawl, according to the SA Greens — but the billionaire developer behind it says it will help improve housing affordability at a time of record prices.

After more than a decade of planning, work is now going ahead on the Walker Corporation's Buckland Park project near the towns of Virginia and Angle Vale and their surrounding market gardening communities.

The corporation said the $3 billion project, called Riverlea, would create the state's "largest master-planned community" and assist with "post-COVID economic recovery".

But the project has attracted criticism since its inception, because of its proximity to the flood-prone Gawler River and concerns over urban sprawl.

Developer and executive chairman Lang Walker said the intention was to create a community that would drive economic growth outside of Adelaide's CBD.

"Not everyone's going to be working in the CBD. We've got another very large industrial estate out there in the vicinity," he told ABC Radio Adelaide.

"This will generate self-employment in that whole region itself. It's a community within a community.

"This project has a life of 20 years, maybe 25 years, and that brings shopping, it brings 10,000 jobs over the period of the house-building and all the trades."


The Walker Corporation says the project includes 450 hectares of open space.(Walker Corporation)

Adelaide property prices have hit record highs in recent weeks, and Mr Walker said house and land packages would be available for less than the price of "a block of land in Sydney and Melbourne".

"We're pitching into the affordable market and bringing in all the community benefits there," he said.

"It's a great opportunity to get people into houses."

But Greens MP Mark Parnell has previously labelled the project a "ghetto in waiting" and said planning experts had consistently flagged problems with it.

"They knew it was a rotten project 14 years ago, and it's still a rotten project," he said.

"This is a bit like a zombie movie. I thought it was dead and [then] you look and it's come back to life.

"There's a whole range of issues ... it's a flood-prone area."

Local teacher Robyn Lewis said some produce growers were worried about the impact on an area she said was "called the 'salad bowl' for a reason".

Buckland Park resident Robyn Lewis says the project will bring major benefits.(ABC News: Candice Prosser)
But she said the area was "blossoming" and that the project would deliver much-needed amenities.

"We don't have a lot of public transport out here and I'm sure, in the infrastructure [plan], that will be looked at," she said.

"Schools are going to be built in the area [which] is fantastic for parents — they don't have to load their children onto a bus in the morning, with all the worries that come with that.

"The fact that there's going to be shopping centres will be great."

Existing roads to be upgraded
Mr Walker said the project would include more than 450 hectares of open space and 50 hectares of lakes and waterways.

"There's close on 40 kilometres of bike paths," he said.

"We're investing $3 billion in it so we're very confident that this is what Adelaide needs."


The Gawler River at Virginia burst its banks and flooded in 2016.(ABC News: Tom Fedorowytsch)
But Mr Parnell likened it to the infamous Mount Barker development, which then-planning minister John Rau in 2011 conceded had been poorly handled.

"Mount Barker has now become a case study in appalling planning," Mr Parnell said.

"As a city, Adelaide — the idea that we've come to is that they're should probably be some limit to urban expansion on the fringe.

"Unless we want urban sprawl forever, unless we want Los Angeles and to be like that, we do need to have a containment boundary."


Developer Lang Walker says the project will create affordable housing.(Walker Corporation)
A spokesperson said the Department for Infrastructure and Transport would "continue to monitor population growth" and "assess public transport requirements" in the area.

"Roadworks are being undertaken to construct a signalised intersection at the junction of Port Wakefield Road and Angle Vale Road as part of the residential community development Riverlea," the spokesperson said.

"Traffic lights at the junction of Port Wakefield Road and Angle Vale Road are expected to be installed in mid-2021.

"The works will include some road and speed restrictions to facilitate construction."

Ms Lewis welcomed the installation of the traffic lights at the intersection.

"There have been a few accidents on that corner and with more traffic there's a possibility of more," she said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-26/ ... k/13195214

[ChillyPhilly]

'Riverlea' is a horrible, horrible idea.

It is the antithesis of modern, 21st century planning, and belongs in the 1960s.

[PeFe]

Even the renders bring up lots of issues......there are residents walking and bicycling.....even though there appears to be nothing to walk to.....lots of cars on huge empty streets......no sign of any bus stops. I doubt there will even be any public transport in the early days. An urban folly.

[AG]

Looks like only one major road in and out as well - fairly typical poor planning for a new fringe development. Hopefully there comes a realisation that one of the other roads connecting into the development from the western side of the Northern Connector will need to be upgraded as well as some public transport options.

[SBD]

Even the renders bring up lots of issues......there are residents walking and bicycling.....even though there appears to be nothing to walk to.....lots of cars on huge empty streets......no sign of any bus stops. I doubt there will even be any public transport in the early days. An urban folly.

The video has them walking and cycling for recreation - what was missing from the video was any hint of the houses they live in!

They are talking about first land settlement in Q3 this year. I guess many of the first purchasers will be the house companies, building new display homes. The developers could start on the first neighbourhood shops in that time too. I have seen large developments that have a large building for the land sales office which includes other offices and space for a restaurant (such as Fasta Pasta). At one point, the offices were used to establish the school so it already had a few staff and students to move into the school's first building.

The main road in and out has to be large, as it is the only access on to Port Wakefield Road/Highway, no bridge or ford over the Gawler River, not sure if there will be a road connecting to St Kilda (and hence the Northern Connector at Waterloo Corner).

If the target market is people who work in industrial areas, they will all have cars anyway as there are no bus routes servicing industry - look at the network map with huge gaps in the Penfield/Direk/Burton/Edinburgh areas, then realise that even the bus routes shown around the edge operate one or two services each way per weekday (and none on weekends). No Adelaide Metro buses to Two Wells, Dublin etc at all.

[rev]

The loser ABC and loser Greens collaborating..what a shock. Lol

Its a state and local government failure.
Instead off proper on/off ramps they're putting traffic lights in. That should spell it out.
The majority of residents will be travelling for work, obviously. They're solution is to slow and impede traffic flow, but further down the line they've spent billions and will spend billions more to create a non stop corridor.

This land and much more has been marked for residential development for ages and its been within the metropolian boundary for a long time as well.
They can call it a town, village, satellite city or whatever else they want. Within 30 years its going to be just another suburb of Adelaide proper. Just another post code.

It'll be 30, 40 years before they build proper on/off ramps for access via port wakefield rd, the sort we see say at PREXY/Hanson road. When 30,000 people live in this development, and God knows how many thousands more in the surrounding areas.

And new housing developments are needed whether a minority agrees or not, we cant all and more importantly the majority DO NOT want to live in a tiny box called an apartment.
There is huge demand for housing, ACTUAL housing not shoe boxes.
There's an undersupply. That might be great for my family with multiple properties, but it doesn't help first home buyers, young people or young families, new arrivals from interstate etc.