[VIS] Gifford Hill City ($7.5bn)

[PeFe]

Seriously what is this about?

Is it just a "cheap land" development next to Murray Bridge?

Why does it pretend to "not be Murray Bridge"?

Adelaide doesn't need a second airport....well not until about 2150.

I hope this is not a "projection of the future" where instead of building suburbs on the outskirts of Adelaide developers build " new cities" on cheap land within 90 minute commuting distance to the Adelaide CBD!

[Algernon]

Seriously what is this about?

Is it just a "cheap land" development next to Murray Bridge?

Why does it pretend to "not be Murray Bridge"?

Adelaide doesn't need a second airport....well not until about 2150.

I hope this is not a "projection of the future" where instead of building suburbs on the outskirts of Adelaide developers build " new cities" on cheap land within 90 minute commuting distance to the Adelaide CBD!

When developers are pumping up their developments, they of course envision that it "could" have an airport... a rail link... a university... a stadium... a disneyland. Nothing they will build themselves, pay for or incorporate into their design in any way......... but damn it would be nice for your buyers to be thinking it while you're selling it, right?

Despite decades of lead up discussion, planning and eventually building, Sydney technically still hasn't (quite) reached the point of outright "needing" a second airport.

[PeFe]

Sydney's second airport, 2 years away from opening, actually makes a lot of economic sense compared to a secondary airport at Murray Bridge, servicing Adelaide.

The 2nd Sydney airport will be open 24 hours a day, with freight being the major economic component from the beginning.

Gifford Hill is just "pure fantasy" pushed along by lazy media who are encouraged "not to ask hard questions".

[Algernon]

Sydney's second airport, 2 years away from opening, actually makes a lot of economic sense compared to a secondary airport at Murray Bridge, servicing Adelaide.

The 2nd Sydney airport will be open 24 hours a day, with freight being the major economic component from the beginning.

Gifford Hill is just "pure fantasy" pushed along by lazy media who are encouraged "not to ask hard questions".

Sydney's second airport makes a lot of sense, of course. But the question of needing a second airport is a pretty high bar. Upon opening the new WS airport, that's bang on 40 years since they first started talking about Badgerys Creek. Since then, the business case and "need" (logistically) for a second airport has been a moving target. The business case has stacked up for a very long time. But the logistical need kept pushing out because of technological advancements in air traffic control always pushed that date out. Right this instant, Sdney Airport still isn't technically running at full capacity and that could push well into the 2030s.

I only mention it to kind of put the focus on just how unrealistic a second Adelaide airport is. As rightly said here, it would probably be a freight airport, in which case, if we're counting airports of all uses, this wouldn't be Adelaide's "second" airport, but rather it's 3rd.

[Hooligan]

I first opened this thread and wondered, how long until someone dreams about trains?

Only 3 posts, good work guys

[abc]

I first opened this thread and wondered, how long until someone dreams about trains?

Only 3 posts, good work guys

people on austim spectrum love trains

maybe there should be a railpage subforum

[VinyTapestry849]

I first opened this thread and wondered, how long until someone dreams about trains?

Only 3 posts, good work guys

people on austim spectrum love trains

maybe there should be a railpage subforum

No need to be so mean abc lmao

Its a genuine question if this Gifford Hill will need rail

[VinyTapestry849]

Surely you don’t mean the proposed airport is to fly people between Murray Bridge and Adelaide?? If anything, development of a second airport in this location would increase the need for a rail link, not remove the need entirely. I imagine any second airport would be freight based, but as a lot of manufactured goods come out of Adelaide, the road link alone will not suffice, let alone workers commuting from Adelaide to new distribution centres.

Rex can probably provide a double-daily service from Gifford Hill to Adelaide. (Yes I know about what's going on with Rex, their regional services seem fine)

The cost of rail is humongous. Inconceivable price. Victoria has gone broke with rail. A small airport is much more viable and cheaper if we can secure rex to service it daily with human traffic.

Any cargo can just go to Adelaide airport by truck. Its not like Gifford Hill will be a factory/industrial area pumping out goods. Its just residential.

The Princes Highway is more then sufficient to service that new area.

[VinyTapestry849]

“This is not Monarto 2.0", Developers say huge Murray Bridge project won’t repeat Mt Barker mistakes - Indaily
https://www.indaily.com.au/news/2024/08 ... r-mistakes
A $7.5 billion plan to open up a huge land parcel at Murray Bridge for 17,000 new homes will be better coordinated than the controversial rezoning of Mount Barker, say developers and the local council.


Victorian developers Costa Property Group and Grange Development on Wednesday afternoon revealed plans to deliver 17,100 new homes, seven schools, a new town centre and six “neighbourhood activity centres” in Gifford Hill, located about an hour from the Adelaide CBD.

The proponents say the development, to be staged over 40 years and worth $7.5 billion, will be spread across 1860 hectares of rural land immediately southwest of Murray Bridge. Around 360 hectares is already zoned for residential purposes.

The developers and Murray Bridge Council have touted the plan as “the largest single development in the state’s history” and forecast more than 44,000 people will live in the new precinct when complete.

“This is not Monarto 2.0,” Murray Bridge mayor Wayne Thorley said, referencing former Labor Premier Don Dunstan’s failed 1970s vision for a satellite city with 200,000 residents outside Murray Bridge.

Gifford Hill Murray Bridge
A render of the town square in the new GIfford Hill development. Image: supplied

The first homes are scheduled to start construction in the fourth quarter of 2025.

The scale of the Gifford Hill proposal is enormous. The development area is larger than Walker Corporation’s 1340-hectare Riverlea housing estate, which is projected to deliver 12,000 new homes in the far northwestern suburbs.

It is also much larger than the controversial Mount Barker rezoning.

Mount Barker is just a 30-minute drive up the South Eastern Freeway from Murray Bridge and has become a case study in poor infrastructure coordination with new housing.

In 2010, former Rann Government Minister Paul Holloway made 1300 hectares of rural Mount Barker land available for housing. Only a year later, Holloway’s successor, John Rau, expressed dismay about the lack of infrastructure planning for the area.

Mount Barker District Council has since been warning the Malinauskas Government that it is “imperative” the mistakes of the Mount Barker rezoning are not repeated. The council has expressed frustration about incomplete road projects, pressure on local transport infrastructure and unmet infrastructure spending promises.

But Murray Bridge Council and the Gifford Hill developers say they are confident those problems will not occur in their plans.

For one, they argue a lot more planning work has been done in Murray Bridge than Mount Barker.

“Mount Barker was, to be fair to the council up there, rushed through on them,” Mayor Thorley told InDaily.

“The land acquisitions was done and the zoning was done really quick without any clear thought to what comes next.

“With us, we’ve had a long time to be clear in our mind what we needed to do.”

Thorley said the development consortium understands that “they will have to pay for things as things develop”.



“This will be staged, the infrastructure costs will be picked up as the show goes, not one of leaving it to after the event,” he said, later adding that they were currently working out the cost breakdown between local government, state government and the developers.

“It’s been made clear to us in the past that trunk infrastructure is the responsibility of the state government.”

The developers and council also say that Murray Bridge is a different proposition now to Mount Barker in 2010, pointing to the council area’s existing population of more than 23,000 people supported by seven schools and a hospital.

“All those things are there ready to progress,” Thorley said.

“This is not like out in the boondocks, it’s right out adjoining a significant regional centre.”


A render of the proposed development. Image: supplied

The Gifford Hill development comes at a time when the Malinauskas Government has raised significant concerns about “underinvestment” in water and wastewater infrastructure across metropolitan Adelaide.

Premier Peter Malinauskas told a developers forum in June that thousands of planned homes in new greenfield developments were “at risk” without a $1.5 billion program to increase SA Water’s spending on new infrastructure.

But the Gifford Hill developers say they will not face the same water connection problems that are being felt acutely in Adelaide’s northern suburbs.

A $52 million wastewater treatment plant was completed near Murray Bridge four years ago, and Gifford Hill’s proximity to the River Murray lends easy access to mains potable water, the developers say.

“Mount Barker is geographically a lot more challenging,” said James Dibble, managing director of Grange Development.

“It’s a lot more undulating, it’s tighter and it’s a beautiful part of South Australia but it does cause friction points in terms of traffic engineering… and that’s obviously what’s somewhat playing out.”


New housing development on the fringes of Mt Barker. Photo: Tony Lewis/InDaily

Dibble argues that Gifford Hill will have fewer infrastructure problems because it will be better coordinated between landowners.

He said the development venture has spoken to all the landowners in the precinct and they are on board with their plan to stage the development.

“When you have a growth area that has lots of developers, lots of developer interests, then you end up with multiple development fronts,” Dibble said.

“That does cause some complication in terms of a proper and orderly roll out, and therefore the flow on effects to infrastructure because those developers need temporary pump stations to service their own developments, they’ve got to get access agreements through land that might not be having development intended in the short term.

“All those complications mean that you have more disruption to the road network, you have more disruption to the SA Water network.

“That is very different in the Gifford Hill context: the topography is a lot easier, it’s got obviously the Freeway, it’s got mains potable water [and] trunk infrastructure in its north.”


A “concept masterplan” for the Gifford Hill project. Image: supplied

Murray Bridge Council also anticipates more traffic along the South Eastern Freeway as the development progresses.

Murray Bridge Council CEO Heather Barclay said the state government’s Department for Infrastructure and Transport is “absolutely across our structure planning” as well as “the scope and scale of a fully developed Murray Bridge”.

“They have taken that into consideration with their transport planning,” she said.

Only 23.3 per cent of Murray Bridge residents commute outside of the local council area for work, according to a recent council study.

That’s much lower than Mount Barker, where around 60 per cent of residents make the daily trip down the South Eastern Freeway. Murray Bridge also has several major local employers, including Thomas Foods, SunPork Farms and Costa Mushrooms.


The South Eastern Freeway. Photo: Tony Lewis/InDaily

Asked whether the new Gifford Hill development would necessitate a rail link to Murray Bridge, Mayor Thorley said: “I don’t think anyone’s going to build a new railway line anywhere.”

“The cost of that is enormous. The only way something would happen like this is if an outside party did it,” he said.

“I think the current rail system is the one that’s there and that will be the only one for some time to come, but obviously public transport and use of the South Eastern Freeway will probably expand.”

Urban Development Institute of Australia SA division CEO Liam Golding said he expected demand for houses in Murray Bridge to be similar to Mount Barker’s.

“Murray Bridge’s approach to the growth area is it’s understood a lot of what’s worked well at Mount Barker, while avoiding the few little issues that have been issues for the quick delivery of homes at Mount Barker,” he said.

Planning Minister Nick Champion said Murray Bridge has “enormous potential”.

He also confirmed that houses in the Gifford Hill development will be subject to the state government’s new $10,000 water augmentation charge to help fund water infrastructure.

“As the project develops, the Government will continue to work with the local council and project partners to unlock this housing opportunity by assisting with land rezoning and infrastructure planning,” Champion said in a statement.

[Eurostar]

Neighbourhood Centre

An OTR doesn't count as a Neighbourhood Centre

[dbl96]

Surely you don’t mean the proposed airport is to fly people between Murray Bridge and Adelaide?? If anything, development of a second airport in this location would increase the need for a rail link, not remove the need entirely. I imagine any second airport would be freight based, but as a lot of manufactured goods come out of Adelaide, the road link alone will not suffice, let alone workers commuting from Adelaide to new distribution centres.

Rex can probably provide a double-daily service from Gifford Hill to Adelaide. (Yes I know about what's going on with Rex, their regional services seem fine)

The cost of rail is humongous. Inconceivable price. Victoria has gone broke with rail. A small airport is much more viable and cheaper if we can secure rex to service it daily with human traffic.

Any cargo can just go to Adelaide airport by truck. Its not like Gifford Hill will be a factory/industrial area pumping out goods. Its just residential.

The Princes Highway is more then sufficient to service that new area.

There's a reason why planes are not used for short, high capacity routes. To provide a meaningful commuter option for tens of thousands of passengers per day, you would need to be shuttling multiple 747s back and forth. A couple of Rex turboprops isn't going to cut it for connecting what will essentially be a satellite city/exurb of Adelaide to the main urban area.

The advantage of rail is that it can carry large volumes of people efficiently, which is what is required for satellite city/exurb of this scale. You can hope that they are all going to work locally as much as you like, but at the end of the day, a development like this is inevitably going to massively increase the need for transport - not only from Murray Bridge to Adelaide, but also from Adelaide to Murray Bridge, and between Murray Bridge and Mount Barker. People travel for all kinds of reasons, and work is only one of them. Murray Bridge is, and will increasingly be, part of an interconnected metropolitan region.

At the very least, the freeway is going to need another lane. This is a seriously big development we are talking about, and it will most likely catalase a lot of other development elsewhere in Murray Bridge. If this all gets built, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that Murray Bridge as a whole might be home to close to a hundred thousand people in the second half of this century. That's a Ballarat or Bendigo sized city, so to say that rail wouldn't be a sensible idea is just silly.

Anyone with the mindset that rail is some kind of impossible pipe-dream on this route needs to get out and see what's been done elsewhere in the world. Yes, the route has its challenges, but it is relatively small fry compared to the engineering feats which have been accomplished elsewhere. Of course it would be expensive, but not inconceivably so. The government's own report costed a new rail alignment via tunnel from Mitcham to Stirling and then following the freeway at 5.8 billion. Expensive, but in the scheme of things these days, not absurdly so. A lot less than the South Road tunnels.

You could add a couple of billion at least to extend the corridor to Murray Bridge, but once you do so, the benefits of the line as a whole start multiplying. Not only would it directly double the commuter pool, but it would make relatively rapid service of other large markets like Melbourne and south-east SA viable for the first time.

https://www.infrastructure.sa.gov.au/ou ... rected.pdf

[[Shuz]]

Who the hell wants to live in Murray Bridge?

I really can't see this taking off at all. White elephant.

[VinyTapestry849]

There's a reason why planes are not used for short, high capacity routes. To provide a meaningful commuter option for tens of thousands of passengers per day, you would need to be shuttling multiple 747s back and forth. A couple of Rex turboprops isn't going to cut it for connecting what will essentially be a satellite city/exurb of Adelaide to the main urban area.

The advantage of rail is that it can carry large volumes of people efficiently, which is what is required for satellite city/exurb of this scale. You can hope that they are all going to work locally as much as you like, but at the end of the day, a development like this is inevitably going to massively increase the need for transport - not only from Murray Bridge to Adelaide, but also from Adelaide to Murray Bridge, and between Murray Bridge and Mount Barker. People travel for all kinds of reasons, and work is only one of them. Murray Bridge is, and will increasingly be, part of an interconnected metropolitan region.

At the very least, the freeway is going to need another lane. This is a seriously big development we are talking about, and it will most likely catalase a lot of other development elsewhere in Murray Bridge. If this all gets built, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that Murray Bridge as a whole might be home to close to a hundred thousand people in the second half of this century. That's a Ballarat or Bendigo sized city, so to say that rail wouldn't be a sensible idea is just silly.

Anyone with the mindset that rail is some kind of impossible pipe-dream on this route needs to get out and see what's been done elsewhere in the world. Yes, the route has its challenges, but it is relatively small fry compared to the engineering feats which have been accomplished elsewhere. Of course it would be expensive, but not inconceivably so. The government's own report costed a new rail alignment via tunnel from Mitcham to Stirling and then following the freeway at 5.8 billion. Expensive, but in the scheme of things these days, not absurdly so. A lot less than the South Road tunnels.

You could add a couple of billion at least to extend the corridor to Murray Bridge, but once you do so, the benefits of the line as a whole start multiplying. Not only would it directly double the commuter pool, but it would make relatively rapid service of other large markets like Melbourne and south-east SA viable for the first time.

https://www.infrastructure.sa.gov.au/ou ... rected.pdf

On thing is for certain. Not even the consideration of rail going out to murrary bridge is going to happen before even 2031. Torrens to Darlington is costly enough as it is.

And that's not even considering the government's staunch ill-will towards a heavy rail link to the airport. Our transport minister Tom koutsantonis ... the man hates rail with a passion.

In terms of transport, I sea rough waters ahead for this development. It really could be the death of it. I hope that the property developer has done his research on this or it will be Monarto 2.0 ...

[abc]

Murray Bridge is the Davoren Park of the riverland... who would want to live there if they had a choice?

[rev]

There's a reason why planes are not used for short, high capacity routes. To provide a meaningful commuter option for tens of thousands of passengers per day, you would need to be shuttling multiple 747s back and forth. A couple of Rex turboprops isn't going to cut it for connecting what will essentially be a satellite city/exurb of Adelaide to the main urban area.

The advantage of rail is that it can carry large volumes of people efficiently, which is what is required for satellite city/exurb of this scale. You can hope that they are all going to work locally as much as you like, but at the end of the day, a development like this is inevitably going to massively increase the need for transport - not only from Murray Bridge to Adelaide, but also from Adelaide to Murray Bridge, and between Murray Bridge and Mount Barker. People travel for all kinds of reasons, and work is only one of them. Murray Bridge is, and will increasingly be, part of an interconnected metropolitan region.

At the very least, the freeway is going to need another lane. This is a seriously big development we are talking about, and it will most likely catalase a lot of other development elsewhere in Murray Bridge. If this all gets built, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that Murray Bridge as a whole might be home to close to a hundred thousand people in the second half of this century. That's a Ballarat or Bendigo sized city, so to say that rail wouldn't be a sensible idea is just silly.

Anyone with the mindset that rail is some kind of impossible pipe-dream on this route needs to get out and see what's been done elsewhere in the world. Yes, the route has its challenges, but it is relatively small fry compared to the engineering feats which have been accomplished elsewhere. Of course it would be expensive, but not inconceivably so. The government's own report costed a new rail alignment via tunnel from Mitcham to Stirling and then following the freeway at 5.8 billion. Expensive, but in the scheme of things these days, not absurdly so. A lot less than the South Road tunnels.

You could add a couple of billion at least to extend the corridor to Murray Bridge, but once you do so, the benefits of the line as a whole start multiplying. Not only would it directly double the commuter pool, but it would make relatively rapid service of other large markets like Melbourne and south-east SA viable for the first time.

https://www.infrastructure.sa.gov.au/ou ... rected.pdf

On thing is for certain. Not even the consideration of rail going out to murrary bridge is going to happen before even 2031. Torrens to Darlington is costly enough as it is.

And that's not even considering the government's staunch ill-will towards a heavy rail link to the airport. Our transport minister Tom koutsantonis ... the man hates rail with a passion.

In terms of transport, I sea rough waters ahead for this development. It really could be the death of it. I hope that the property developer has done his research on this or it will be Monarto 2.0 ...

I don't think there's anything to worry about with this development with regards to rail or no rail affecting it.
It is essentially just a really large housing development on the outskirts of a regional city, being marketed as a satellite city. Strip away the marketing and promotion bla bla, and it's a housing development. Like the many popping up on the outskirts of Adelaide.
What will determine its success or failure is the market. If it is commercially viable to proceed with it, with the whole thing or part of it. In the current climate, with no sign of the housing demand being eased because governments are hell bent on creating their "big Australia" via artificial population growth, it should do well.
If it's built to a quality standard, it should transform Murray Bridge and will probably push other parts of the town to be redeveloped, may even seen more property investors/small time developers looking at the area.