News & Discussion: Other Metropolitan Developments

[ChillyPhilly]

Good example of the fucking idiotic bad faith that both sides of politics use when it comes to urban planning:https://indaily.com.au/news/2023/08/10/ ... velopment/

It would be good to see the portfolio moved on from Nick Champion. A highly capable Minister and MP, but he does not understand modern planning and its 21st and future needs sufficiently.

[Nathan]

What the fuck is all this "Manhattan in Magill" hyperbole?

[gnrc_louis]

I think the problem for Champion or any other Planning Minister under this Government is that all policy is either a) driven by the Premier or b) has to go past him first for approval, it's not how the cabinet system is meant to work or has traditionally worked. Due to the Premier seemingly being broadly anti-density (at least judging by his past actions / language around it), I can't see any change happening for however long he's in office.

[rev]

So you're saying we've got own dictator Dan, just a nicer version that doesn't look like he's a hunched over troll under a bridge?

[rev]

What an absolute shit show this one is.
How in the hell do they do a development without any roads built or utilities ready to be hooked up to?
How is shit like this allowed to occur?

SA government agrees to build road at Felmeri housing development at O'Halloran Hill
Posted Yesterday at 1:57pm, updated Yesterday at 3:27pm



The South Australian government will build a road on a long-running housing development in Adelaide's south, after pleas from homebuyers left in limbo.

Premier Peter Malinauskas announced the government would step in to finish the internal roadworks at the O'Halloran Hill development, where about 20 homebuyers were left with half-built properties on a site without an access road or essential services after the builder, Felmeri Homes, went into liquidation in July.

Mr Malinauskas said homebuyers had not been able to use funds from mandatory building indemnity insurance to finish their properties due to the unfinished access road.

"Builders can't get access to actually do the work to fix these houses up because there's no way to get access," Mr Malinauskas said.

Mr Malinauskas described the "particularly unique" situation as an "unacceptable state of affairs".

"Ordinarily these types of community roads are completed in advance of the housing construction itself," he said.

"For whatever reason, that hasn't occurred at this development.

"And that's left families ... without their dream home, or even able to continue to build their dream home because builders haven't been able to get access to those properties."

Building inspector Mike Pearl had called for local or state government to step in and build the road.



"I don't see any other way around it," he said.

Mr Pearl, who has worked in the industry for 25 years, agreed the situation at O'Halloran Hill was unique.

"I don't know of a development that's had this happen previously," he said.

Mr Pearl said internal roads and essential services were usually built at a subdivision first, before the houses.

The site has a trench down the roadway, and essential services have not been fully connected.

Opposition Leader David Speirs, whose electorate sits on the boundary of the development, had also called for the government to fund the road.

He said he was grateful a solution had "finally" been found for the "unique" situation.

"These are largely first-home buyers, people in their 20s and 30s who cannot borrow any more because of interest rate rises to finish these projects themselves," he said.

"They need the government to step in and provide solutions."

Jess Harrison said she signed a contract in June 2020 and described the "overwhelming experience" in the years since.

"My house is basically at completion and has been since December 2021, with about three or four weeks to completion, I was told then," she said.

"But because there hasn't been a road ... [and] we don't know what services we have, my house hasn't been liveable.

"I've purely been waiting for this road."

Ms Harrison said she was grateful for the government's support, allowing her and the other homebuyers to "start to feel excited again".

"We can start to move on now after more than three years, and there's a light at the end of the tunnel now," she said.

Ms Harrison said she had been paying a mortgage on the unfinished property as well as rates on top of rent.

"Financially it has been a big burden," she said.

The state government said an initial cost estimate for the works was more than $1 million, but it was "examining cost recovery options from the developer and associated entities".

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-13/ ... /102724218

[flat04]

How in the hell do they do a development without any roads built or utilities ready to be hooked up to?

It's like every other Community Titled development in Adelaide isn't? I can't think of one where they build the driveway (road...) before construction has finished.
Torrens Title development I agree with your question but not this one.

[rev]

How in the hell do they do a development without any roads built or utilities ready to be hooked up to?

It's like every other Community Titled development in Adelaide isn't? I can't think of one where they build the driveway (road...) before construction has finished.
Torrens Title development I agree with your question but not this one.

Granted I don't go around checking out every housing development in Adelaide, but I've never seen a development large or small that hasn't had the roads and utilities completed before construction on homes starts.

[flat04]

Here's a couple of Community Title developments near me. Cross Rd the tradies get to slodge around in the mud, at least on Fullarton Rd they get looked after a little bit better.
The thing that surprised me with the O'Halloran Hill development was how big the site was for Community Title. I would have assumed they would get a better return getting them split up 'properly'.

[ChillyPhilly]

The latest from Nick Champion:

What he is saying is getting a bit tiresome and, quite frankly, insulting and embarrassing to anyone who understands modern planning.

“I think the era of targets has kind of gone by the wayside,” the minister told InDaily.

“Most other cities would give their right arm to achieve 70/30 (infill/greenfield), and we’ve achieved it all the way along.

“Melbourne’s doing the reverse. They’re doing 30/70 for the last 10 years; so, it really has been a spectacular effort by Adelaide to have that mix.

“Setting it at 85/15 was trying to engineer an outcome for a particular set of reasons, which I don’t think works.”

...


But the Planning Minister hit back at critics of greenfield development, saying there’s a “limited number of opportunities” in the inner city for new housing.

“There’s some people in the community and in the planning academia world who like to say, ‘Well (greenfield’s) not good, it’s high cost and you shouldn’t do it’,” Champion said.

“My challenge to them is to say, well you identify the area where you’re going to provide the housing.

“Don’t give me some sort of academic lecture about it… I’ve read all the same material, I understand absolutely the argument.

“But those people never ever ever say, ‘Well, we’re not going to have greenfield community 10,000 allotments X, but here’s where we should have it’ – they never tell you that bit of it.

“And the onus should be anybody who comes up and says, ‘shouldn’t have greenfield, should be 100 per cent urban infill or 85/15’, the onus is on them – you can’t just come up with some sort of magical outcome, you’ve actually got to tell me where else you would put the houses.”

...

“I think we’re just going to have to have a more honest conversation about public transport provision. I think there’s been this sort of idea that if you go out to a peri-urban community – I’ve seen this plenty of times and I’ve represented peri-urban communities federally – people say, ‘oh, well when am I getting a bus?’

“But you’ve gone out to a place which has a particular lifestyle and has a particular feature, but one of those features is… there’s some communities where it is not economical, and will never be economical, to provide public transport, and people just have to accept that.

“We don’t just want to run empty buses around, which is what happens sometimes – I’ve seen it happen.

“So, we want good efficient public transport that reaches communities, as part of this (discussion paper) that’s comprehended, but we also have to have an honest conversation about what can be rationally and economically provided to communities in the way of public transport.”

https://indaily.com.au/news/2023/08/22/ ... he-houses/

[whatstheirnamesmom]

It's so clear he just doesn't understand anything beyond 'status-quo' planning, which is a huge part of what has gotten us into this housing mess.

It is going to be painful to watch the next 3 years (or longer...) of this government. Champion should retire or resign if he doesn't want to lead in his role.

[Llessur2002]

It is going to be painful to watch the next 3 years (or longer...) of this government.

I've been a Labour/Labor voter forever and I'm thoroughly underwhelmed to be honest. The Gather Round was a nice coup, and I do believe Mali played a big role in securing it but other than that I'm finding it difficult to think of a single other thing that I'd praise them for to date. Disturbingly I've got fonder memories of Marshall's handling of the COVID period than I have of Labor's current term to date. There's just no vision. Bring back the Weatherill/Yarwood era...

[rev]

It is going to be painful to watch the next 3 years (or longer...) of this government.

I've been a Labour/Labor voter forever and I'm thoroughly underwhelmed to be honest. The Gather Round was a nice coup, and I do believe Mali played a big role in securing it but other than that I'm finding it difficult to think of a single other thing that I'd praise them for to date. Disturbingly I've got fonder memories of Marshall's handling of the COVID period than I have of Labor's current term to date. There's just no vision. Bring back the Weatherill/Yarwood era...

I feel like them getting booted for a term has rattled them and they're playing their cards closer to their chest, as opposed to announcing grand plans like AdeLINK.
I don't think the whole economic/inflation/cost of living situation is helping either, when their going to be spending $10 billion on a motorway.
The whole thing of if they announce too many big spend projects, they'll give the opposition and NewsCorp ammunition to tear them down and they wont retain government at the next election. A bit of self preservation has kicked in I think. I wouldn't worry if I was Labor, opposition leader Spiers and others like Tarzia aren't that appealing to voters. Spiers is like an annoying weasel who hasn't got a clue, and Tarzia comes across as a sleeze stuck in a 1950's American greaser movie set, he's just missing the sleeveless denim jacket.

[Llessur2002]

I feel like them getting booted for a term has rattled them and they're playing their cards closer to their chest, as opposed to announcing grand plans like AdeLINK.
I don't think the whole economic/inflation/cost of living situation is helping either, when their going to be spending $10 billion on a motorway.
The whole thing of if they announce too many big spend projects, they'll give the opposition and NewsCorp ammunition to tear them down and they wont retain government at the next election. A bit of self preservation has kicked in I think. I wouldn't worry if I was Labor, opposition leader Spiers and others like Tarzia aren't that appealing to voters. Spiers is like an annoying weasel who hasn't got a clue, and Tarzia comes across as a sleeze stuck in a 1950's American greaser movie set, he's just missing the sleeveless denim jacket.

I wasn't expecting fully-funded glamorous projects to be rolled out and given the climate I understand why this hasn't happened, but some of the wholesale change in rhetoric around key policy areas like public transport, urban planning etc doesn't feel like cards are being kept close to chests, it feels like the vision has gone.

[Mpol02]

It is going to be painful to watch the next 3 years (or longer...) of this government.

I've been a Labour/Labor voter forever and I'm thoroughly underwhelmed to be honest. The Gather Round was a nice coup, and I do believe Mali played a big role in securing it but other than that I'm finding it difficult to think of a single other thing that I'd praise them for to date. Disturbingly I've got fonder memories of Marshall's handling of the COVID period than I have of Labor's current term to date. There's just no vision. Bring back the Weatherill/Yarwood era...

Wetherill had such wonderful ideals. He wasn’t in long enough to really see them come to life and after that we got Liberal who halted a lot of transport infrastructure and now this. It’s a shame. Adelaide was really starting to turn a leaf. Shame

[[Shuz]]

Mali has lost my vote.