#649
Post
by stumpjumper » Mon Aug 30, 2010 12:43 am
My point has been that if we took politics away from this and sat the 'stakeholders' (not including governments trying to win elections) around a table with a few planners, we might have had a cheaper, better proposal that had wider support. In other words, it's about quality of planning rather than the actual design - wasting a fantastic gateway site on a hospital, for example, and disregarding or destroying obvious synergies - Uni of Adelaide medical school and the RAH; Uni SA sports sciences and a new stadium. The present proposal has numerous inherent and unnecessary bad fits that have to be expensively dealt with: the synergies mentioned, the need for the new bridge and the lack of mass transport at AO.
It's also about value for money. We have a series of solutions which are a poor fit to the problems. The result is unnecessary expense and no net expansion of facilities.
Regarding the on again/off again West Lakes tramline, apart from the uncertainty for landowners along the route caused by the government's day to day, politicised planning processes, Conlon himself has made it quite clear that the proposal is intended to boost the value of SANFL's West Lakes landholding.
As to the question of sustainability (let alone poor long term planning) involved in knocking down and converting to landfill the 7-year-old Chappell stand and the 19-year-old Bradman Stand, I suppose then that I should also send to landfill the piles of bullsh*t I receive from time to time from the government on 'sustainable practice' in the building industry.
The $2 billion is my guesstimate of the accrued cost of every patch on patch the government has had to announce since it first rushed out the decision to rebuild Adelaide Oval as a counter to the Lib's stadium on the railyards instead of a hospital idea. So, allow $1 billion for the AOSMA development including car park and transport facilities. Then there's the share of the sudden '$1.1 billion' Riverbank Precinct' redevelopment which is due to the AOSMA redevelopment. Then add the cost of the West Lakes tram, until recently unaffordable if the AOSMA proposal went ahead. My guess is heading for $2 billion all up. Time will tell.
As to the drawings, all I requested was a look at them in order to write an article including the building's energy saving features such as rainwater recycling. Considering that the AOSMA project is a huge, publicly funded project enjoying wide support, if the government is to be believed, then why is the design a secret?? If the drawings are 'only conceptual' as I was told by one flunkey, then how have they been costed??
Finally, how does building a huge carpark at Adelaide Oval draw footy goers into the city? A stadium on North Tce and a carpark, if necessary, between Hindley Street and North Tce would not present that problem.
Well, that's all from me. I thank the other readers here for their polite patience. I'd hate to repeat myself.
