[COM] Victoria Park Redevelopment

[rhino]

Adam Todd wrote:
As part of its agreement to leave the former racecourse, the South Australian Jockey Club (SAJC) agreed to pay for the demolition of the non-heritage grandstand, stables and the jockey and stewards rooms as well as the removal of track railings and judges tower

As you may know, Adelaide is stuggling to keep the Adelaide International Horse Trial (3-day event) because of a lack of sponsorship this year. This is one of only 6 Olympic-level horse trials in the world. One new problem they have is stabling. I was listenning to Gillian Rolton on the radio yesterday, and she mentioned that, while they used to use the old stables at Victoria Park, and get a return which helped to fund the event, they now have to hire temporary stables from interstate, so a money earner has become an additional cost. I have no idea about the standard or the quality of these old stables, but if they were good enough to be used for a competition of this standard last year, why are they being removed this year?

[Paulns]

[quote="Ben"]Simply STUNNING!!! Did we expect anything else honestly. I'm sure we can look forward to some new trees and Grass as part of the "Bold" Victoria Square proposal too. I'm so sick of things not being done properly. If you can't afford to do it properly put it on hold until you can! Stop this band aid job of every single project the council touches: grote street upgrade, North terrace upgrade, rundle street upgrade, victoria park, victoria square. JUST BITE THE BULLET and do it properly in it's entirety the FIRST TIME!!!!

Couldnt agree more. This whole Victoria Park has turned into one massive embarrassing shame for Adelaide.. Typical, typical, typical. Here we had the opportunity to develop this area into a mixed use horse, motor racing and general usage area and now even after all the councils consultations and crappy plans we're still stuck deep down on square one. What an absolute joke.

The post-Clipsal 500 clean-up has also taken longer than expected, with the last remnants of the V8 Supercar racetrack expected to be removed by next week.

For the cost of putting this up, storing it and then within 3 months latter erecting it again in the same place they could have built a brand new perminent stand by now. It annoys the crap out of me everytime I drive past Victoria Park.

[Shuz]

Just went to check out the State Government's DTEI Website; apparently it appears that their intentions for Victoria Park appear alive still?

I suspect so, because they've integrated it into part of their stylish new infrastructure layout; which appeared quite some time after the whole debacle fell through between the State and ACC - and the latest update is as of June 26th 2009.

http://infrastructure.sa.gov.au/major_projects > Follow through the link on site.

[AtD]

If you take a closer read you'll see it's for the temporary stands.

[Wayno]

first time i've driven down fullarton rd in 10weeks and all the old vic racecourse buildings are gone! just the grandstand and gates remaining - actually starting to look like parklands now...

[Wayno]

From the Independent Weekly

Rare parklands plants face bulldozers

grass.jpg (27.77 KiB) Viewed 2966 times

Rare species of grass and flowers are under threat from an Adelaide City Council development in Victoria Park, the Adelaide Parklands Preservation Association says.

Association member Michael Sando has conducted a study on the parklands and found examples of flora which no longer exist through¬out the Adelaide Plains, including a species of speargrass currently on the state conservation listing.

He said many of the species were concentrated in an area where the grass will be removed by the Adelaide City Council as it redevelops sporting fields.

“This is probably the most valuable site for indigenous flora in the whole of the parklands,” he said.

SA Nature Conservation Society conservation ecologist Dr Tim Milne said much of this historic remnant would be lost if current proposed development of recreation fields in the area is allowed.

Adelaide City Council Mayor Michael Harbison said the plants were in an area which needed remediation.

“The fields aren’t a problem to play on now but we do have quite a bit of work to do in terms of remediation,” he said.

Mr Harbison said the plants would be removed for the remediation process and then replanted on the site.

Mr Sando was not confident the removal process was safe.

“We don’t know of any successful translocations of these plants. There’s probably two of them that can be transplanted successfully,” he said.

Parklands Association president Kelly Henderson said if the park¬lands were heritage listed then issues like the indigenous flora would have to be considered before development occurred.

“Ideally this site should have already received protection under the nomination that was made in February, 1986,” she said.

The parklands were first nominated for heritage listing over 23 years ago.

[Hooligan]

There's just no pleasing some people

[Wayno]

and a bit of action too...

City Messenger:

WORK has now started on the northern loop of Victoria Park as part of Adelaide City Council’s multi-million dollar east parklands overhaul.

Expected to cost about $250,000, the works involve replacing parts of the old ambulance and horse race tracks with a rubble running track, as well as planting more than 70 native trees and grass.

The work, due to be finished in November, is part of the City Council’s wider Victoria Park project, which aims to transform the 72 ha east parklands site into “one of the great urban parks of the world”, featuring a plaza, wetlands, walking and bike trails, sports fields and a refurbished heritage grandstand.

Lord Mayor Michael Harbison said he was pleased the Victoria Park masterplan was starting to take shape.

“We’re very happy to see work commence in Victoria Park and soon walkers and joggers will be able to enjoy a track lined with native trees,” he said.

“The parklands are one of Adelaide’s greatest assets and it is important that we continue to invest in and improve these great public spaces.”

[Wayno]

From the APLA 24/6 board meeting - victoria park master plan progress

http://www.adelaidecitycouncil.com/Netc ... _24APA.pdf

Page 34

Remediation work on the former SAJC building site is nearing completion.

The northern extent of the running loop (a 700m long soft surfaced track) has been completed along with the planting of approx 70 Eucalyptus trees.

The remainder of the works scheduled for 2010:
• contamination remediation;
• completion of the remainder of the 2km running loop;
• creation of nine sports fields;
• extensive additional tree and shrub planting;
• enhancement of the remnant plant area; and
• redevelopment of the Grant Avenue to Halifax Street pathway with an associated entry statement at the Halifax Street end and tree planting.

[PJK1]

Re -Remediation work on the former SAJC building site is nearing completion

What about the 'heritage' grandstand and the gates? The grandstand appears to have had various 'leen-to's' attached over the years. Surely remediation does not include retaining them? The grandstand is barely worth keeping IMO in any case, there are far better examples around (Uni oval etc).

[Waewick]

hopefully this starts a complete overhaul of the parklands through to Anzac Highway.

I jog through Vic Park and really like what they are doing, I think the Grandstand will be retained as part of the all the sports stuff they are doing in that area?

[Wayno]

I jog through Vic Park and really like what they are doing

hey capitalist, been through VP lately? i believe significant work is underway - maybe you can do a run-by report for us

[Waewick]

sounds fair

i'll be going for a job tomorrow night so i'll let you know

[stumpjumper]

“The parklands are one of Adelaide’s greatest assets and it is important that we continue to invest in and improve these great public spaces.”

Well said, Harbo. Too often the media presents the Park Lands as vacant land being fought over by the property development industry and its ally the government on one side, and NIMBYS and the Park Lands Preservation Society on the other hand.

A more productive and more accurate approach is to treat the Park Lands as an under-used asset, not simply as a bank of superbly located, cheap (or free) development land, but as a whole entity. That entity could be described as one of the world's great urban parks, on a par with Central Park in New York or London's great urban parks.

Development is definitely an option - there's almost nothing in the world that can't be improved - but development in the Park Lands should be focussed on increasing the use and amenity of the asset to locals and visitors. This could mean sporting facilities and other active recreation options. It could also mean areas for passive recreation, wetlands, ecological preserves for indigenous flora, and so on. Sensitively designed tourism facilities such as dining facilities and interpretive areas could be developed and more could be made of the Torrens Lake as an easily accessed city asset.

Consider the wall of government sponsored buildings separating the city from the river on the city's northern edge. Why was there not, say, a 30 metre gap between them to promote access to the river? Because the builders wanted the (former) Hyatt as close to the casino as possible; land area is floor space is money, so the Exhibition Centre fills its site. Free land is too good not to build on, so the Riverside Centre (a boring government office - what is that doing there?) is cheek by jowl with the other buildings. The development along the city's northern edge wastes much of the potential of the site by optimising use for a few commercial users only, entirely ignoring the potential of the site as part of a globally-considered Park Lands.

I suggest a persuasive business case could be made for better use of the Park Lands along the lines proposed above. There was certainly no assessment of such alternatives when the government virtually handed the river precinct to ACER/Kumagai Gumi (I think they were the players) back in the 1990s.

The Park Lands is potentially far more than a handy site for government utility buildings such as a hospital. I'm not arguing specifically against the proposed new hospital, just using it as an example. No-one's going to cross the planet and spend money here to see a government building built on free land. But travelling to see one of the world's greatest urban parks, with the wineries, Flinders, KI etc all thrown in - that's a different question.

Let's open up the options for the future of the whole Park Lands and get away from the case by case, government/developers versus Park Lands zealot scenario.

[rev]

That entity could be described as one of the world's great urban parks, on a par with Central Park in New York or London's great urban parks.

Bollocks. There is nothing great about the parklands that surround the CBD. Certainly not on a global scale that would make them comparable to Central Park beyond the fact they both have grass and trees.

entirely ignoring the potential of the site as part of a globally-considered Park Lands.

No-one's going to cross the planet and spend money here to see a government building built on free land. But travelling to see one of the world's greatest urban parks, with the wineries, Flinders, KI etc all thrown in - that's a different question.

One of the worlds greatest urban parks?
Not many people travel to see our wineries or the Flinders, or KI as it is now. Sprucing up the parklands isn't going to change that.