#248
Post
by stumpjumper » Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:20 am
"over the top" - because the building is not just slightly outside but way outside the allowances of the development plan in a number of respects.
"Why would the Rann govt bend over for developers?" - because the issue, to the delight of the Makris group has become political. Apart from bread and circuses, the Rann govt believes in the simple formula that development = votes. So, it bends over.
As for an ad hoc rewriting of the planning rules so that very large developments are allowed on small sites in North Adelaide because North Adelaide is so close to the CBD... why not allow industrial development in West Lakes. It's fairly close to some other industrial sites, after all.
The root cause of the O'Connell St debacle is the historic tendency of local govt to let developers bend the rules. It has become a game of ambit claims for say 100% overdevelopment, followed by argument, leading to people breathing sighs of relief when sites are only 50% overdeveloped. The developer walks away with a super profit, and the community has to put up with not ony a massive construction and its implications for traffic, noise, overshadowing etc, but the precedent set by the overdevelopment in their area.
If you want to see the Le Cornu project finished, btw, go to Auckland and have a look at the Chancery development, fionished in 2002. Site vacant since 1980's, developer takes advantage of public dissatisfaction and rams through with government support a development which exceeds the planning rules. The result is a massive project. It is now generally admitted that the rents were set too high, and the development is still plagued by a high turnover of tenants and vacant shops, especially on the upper levels. A common criticism is that the development was overscaled, adn was not built in response to any actual need for more retail floor space, but was supposed to suck tenants from traditional tenancies in the vicinity. The high rents got in the way of that process. In my opinion something like that is likely to be the future of 88 O'Connell St.
Chancery was designed by Makris's architects, the NZ outfit Ignite. It is identical to the O'Connell Street proposal in many ways, so we are not even getting anything unique - just a rubber stamp of drawings for an underperforming NZ centre. The design team of Grant Harris, Ricky Do and Jeremy Whelan are responsible for the same slottted walls and towers with domes and needles on them. The design style could be called a sort of miniature Las Vegas 1985 meets Portman hotels with a dash of Dubai. Just right for a declared Heritage Conservation Zone in South Australia. But why should those considerations, and the planning rules, apply here? Makris wants a big profit, and the Rann govt senses votes in gettign this development up despite opposition (not to development per se, but to the scale of this particular development which is far outside the planning allowances) from the local residents and the Adelaide City Council.
Which wouldn't be a bad idea considering climate change.
