News & Discussion: Adelaide City Council

[david]

Final list of Candidates - ACC Elections

Posted by David Plumridge
VOTE 1 for DAVID PLUMRIDGE

how to vote20062.JPG (125.68 KiB) Viewed 2645 times

[Wayno]

Final list of Candidates - ACC Elections

hi david, excuse my ignorance - how many area & ward councilors get assigned?

[david]

Hi Wayno,

There will be 5 Area Councillors to be elected from the 7 nominations and 2 Councillors for each of the 3 Wards, North, Central and South. I think overall there are 31 nominations for the total of 12 positions on the ACC.

Cheers, David

[david]

Notes from Cllr David Plumridge
- Constititional Recognition for Local Government
- The Power of 10
- Making the right choices (for Council members)
- DAP and Council decisions

[Wayno]

- The Power of 10

hi David, this is interesting - what do you mean by "and get behind the dead-hand of the Development Plan"?

THE POWER OF 10
The Power of 10 is a concept the organisation “Projects for Public Spaces” uses to highlight principles of the Placemaking Process. The basic idea is that it’s not enough to have just one great place in a neighborhood—you need a number of them to create a truly lively neighborhood. And it’s not enough to have only one top-notch neighborhood in a city—you need to provide people all over town with close-to-home opportunities to take pleasure in public life. And then it’s not enough to have a single livable community in a region—you need a collection of interesting cities and towns to offer a high quality of life the wider area. We need to be creating Great Places. (such as our laneways !)

Any Great Place itself needs to offer at least 10 things to do or 10 reasons to be there. These could include a place to sit, playgrounds to enjoy, art to touch, music to hear, food to eat, history to experience, and people to meet. Ideally, some of these activities are unique to that spot and are interesting enough to keep people coming back. Local people who use the space most regularly are the best source of ideas for what uses will work best.

How many quality places are located in the City, and how are they connected? Are there other places that should be more meaningful but aren’t?

Answering these questions can help residents, businesses and stakeholders determine -both individually and collectively- where they need to focus their energies. The Power of 10 offers an easy framework that motivates stakeholders to revitalize urban life, and shows that by starting efforts at the smallest scale you can accomplish big things. The concept also provides people something tangible to strive for and helps them visualize how to make their community great. For details go to: http://www.pps.org/the-power-of-10

It’s the Placemakers’ role to encourage everyone to think about what’s special in their communities and it will be a challenge for the new Council to make Places happen. In my opinion, we have to unlock our creative skills and get behind the dead-hand of the Development Plan. This is what I hope and believe will be the most rewarding outcome of the Integrated Design approach to the future form of Adelaide.

[david]

Hi Wayno,

What I am trying to say is that Development Plans are wordy documents written in the dead language of planning lawyers which cannot convey vision and creativity which is what I think city planning should be about! The Plan is essentially reactive (to applications from developers) rather than proactive from urban planners. (And this often is how assessment planners use the plan!)

It is also geared up to deal with aan pplications for development approval in isolation and without proper regard to its surroundings and how it contributes to a sense of Place. I would like to see a Plan that was illustrated with drawings of desired building envelopes, perhaps the way to integrate listed heritage buildings and to show in graphic form, desired precinct character as was done, I am told, in earlier iterations of the City of Adelaide plan.

David

[Wayno]

Hi Wayno,

What I am trying to say is that Development Plans are wordy documents written in the dead language of planning lawyers which cannot convey vision and creativity which is what I think city planning should be about! The Plan is essentially reactive (to applications from developers) rather than proactive from urban planners. (And this often is how assessment planners use the plan!)

It is also geared up to deal with aan pplications for development approval in isolation and without proper regard to its surroundings and how it contributes to a sense of Place. I would like to see a Plan that was illustrated with drawings of desired building envelopes, perhaps the way to integrate listed heritage buildings and to show in graphic form, desired precinct character as was done, I am told, in earlier iterations of the City of Adelaide plan.

David

ok, got it - thanks for clarifying and yes it's certainly an issue. The immovable fact is that individual property owners are only willing to do so much to accommodate the broader sense of place without overtly impacting themselves (blame our western market driven culture). This can somewhat be alleviated by enhancing the Dev Plan as you suggest - but would also require a well published incentives mechanism, otherwise you are left with no choice but to reject all non-compliant applications.

The former approach (incentives) could for example involve granting additional height (providing a better $ yield to the developer) in exchange for increased architectural aspects and more contribution to the urban landscape. The latter approach (block non-compliance) could also work but experience shows that it hurts the council (diminished reputation) mainly because the 'urban planning vision' is not widely communicated nor appreciated by the general public.

Then there's the vision itself that needs to be agreed upon (with all the regular minority groups having their own agenda & opinion).

So please work to resolve everything above - end of next week is fine. Thanks

[Clr Yarwood]

Hi all,

Quick update is that I have been quiet here because I have been so busy. I am door knocking every day now and learning a great deal about how the city lives and ticks.

I’m also receiving a huge number of emails, surveys and phone calls…its hard work but great fun.

The Yarwood camp is really busy too – my wife is amazing…working really hard behind the scenes to make everything else go smoothly.

Lets see if it works in a few weeks!

Cheers

[ghs]

THE city skyline is set for significant change now that Adelaide City Council wants to increase maximum building heights in the city centre.

Lord Mayor Michael Harbison confirmed the council had been looking to increase CBD building heights but a backlog of other changes to its development plan had slowed progress. The issue will be put on the agenda for the new council, which will be elected in November.

Each of the three frontrunners in the council's lord mayoral race - Ralph Clarke, Francis Wong and Stephen Yarwood - said they would support increasing building heights and believed changes would pass through the future council.

This confirmation follows council chief executive Peter Smith's submission to a review of the planning system by the Productivity Commission, where the council's willingness to look at increasing building heights was identified.

The statement said the council had flagged its intention to investigate amending its development plan to increase development potential, including raising maximum building heights, with the State Government.

"As this change may involve increasing the height by which builders can build, the investigations will also consider impacts from additional overshadowing on pedestrian amenity, implications for demand for additional movement, and the interaction of additional height with airport operations associated with Adelaide Airport," the submission said.

Property Council of Australia SA executive director Nathan Paine said the discussions were a welcome signal from the council, which he said had presided over contradictory population and building height-restriction policies.

"If you want to get more people to live in and work in the city you need to allow developers and investors to build the buildings that people are going to live in and work in," he said.

"I would expect to see building heights in critical areas go up around the squares and terraces."

Todd Brown, chief executive of Urban Construct, responsible for the development of the Balfours site, said the height review was "long overdue".

A spokesman for Urban Development and Planning Minister Paul Holloway said discussions on the council's proposed rezoning were at a preliminary stage.

"Before any Council DPA can be initiated, agreement must be first reached with the Minister on the subject matter and the scope," he said.

[Isiskii]

Is it just me or does this thread seem very quiet on what has always been a contentious and debatable issue within these forums? Where's everyone jumping up and down with messages of praise?

Having said that, I'll believe it when I see it.

[SRW]

It's not really news, is all. Most of us here are aware that the council is undergoing a development plan review, and that increasing allowable building heights is upcoming on the agenda. We won't really hear anything more about it until next year, so reserve your excitement for then.

[crawf]

It's the first time we have heard that all three candidates support relaxing height restrictions

Theres even a construction photo of State Bank/Westpac House

[spiller]

^^ thats a really cool photo. Looks like NYC in the 1930s if you look at a glance. Sad that ive never seen the construction of a build of significant height in Adelaide (Westpac would count but I was too young to remember it going up). Exciting times ahead for the CBD anyway.

[metro]

In Adelaide we already have buildings that go higher than the councils restrictions, Westpac and Altitude are two that come to mind.

Unfortunatly, i dont think Adelaide will get anything taller than 150m because of that flight path, which is probably beyond the councils power anyways. We can only hope that stupid flight path is changed or the powers that be make Adelaide CBD a 'no fly zone' or something

[rev]

Is it just me or does this thread seem very quiet on what has always been a contentious and debatable issue within these forums? Where's everyone jumping up and down with messages of praise?

Having said that, I'll believe it when I see it.

People have day jobs.
Big deal anyway, at this stage it seems they are just considering it, along with lots of other changes.

Any development of a significant height, will cost well beyond the 10 million dollar mark, so the decision on whether it would go ahead is already out of the councils hands.
I don't know if the government panel(DAP?) takes into consideration or abides by the councils height restrictions.

In Adelaide we already have buildings that go higher than the councils restrictions, Westpac and Altitude are two that come to mind.

Unfortunatly, i dont think Adelaide will get anything taller than 150m because of that flight path, which is probably beyond the councils power anyways. We can only hope that stupid flight path is changed or the powers that be make Adelaide CBD a 'no fly zone' or something

What's stupid is the council's "pyramid" idea for the skyline. The majority of the CBD is flat.

The occasional aircraft might over fly part of the CBD. By several KM's in altitude at least.
Think about it this way. If the risk is acceptable for the suburbs that surround the airport, particularly Mile End etc, which are directly on the flight path for landing aircraft, then the risk should be acceptable for the CBD where the aircraft coming in to land are at least several KM's to the west of the CBD, and when over flying at least several KM's over head.