[COM] Victoria Park Redevelopment

[Isiskii]

There was always people enjoying Veale Gardens during the day. Especially on the weekends.

You would know something about that, right?

[Waewick]

There was always people enjoying Veale Gardens during the day. Especially on the weekends.

You would know something about that, right?

i'd be careful about saying shit like that on a public forum

[mooshie]

I used to live on East Terrace near Bartels road until 6 months ago, and I can tell you on a nice summer weekend day there would have to be at least 100-150 people in Rymill Park alone mostly just around the lake. They are all scattered around and picnicing or whatever so it doesn't look like that many.

The parklands are a wonderful thing, problem is they are separated from the local residents by major roads on most sides, east and south of the city and also on the inside around North Adelaide being the exceptions, these are also probably the best parts of the parklands and most well kept.

[AtD]

Another cause for the parkland's woes is the users are different from who pays for them. In your normal suburban park the users are the residents, who pay for their upkeep though council rates on their higher property values or higher rents. The difference for the parklands is many of land owners around them are not in the ACC and therefore their higher rates aren't received by the ACC. There are seven other councils that border the parklands and as far as I'm aware none of them contribute to their upkeep or to any developments.

It is unreasonable to expect the ACC to wear all the costs when a large portion of the land owners don't pay rates to the ACC. Therefore it's inevitable that the parklands will not up to the standard expected given their location and surrounding population. (In economics jargon, the other seven councils are effectively free riders, resulting in under-production of the public goods)

This could be solved by our favourite policy of council amalgamations.

[stumpjumper]

Precisely AtD. An alternative is to vest ownership of the Park Lands in the entire state, with a board of management comprising experts in park management and usage, representatives of sports and cultural users, and representatives from government, Council and the public. If every South Australian felt they were an owner of the Park Lands, then the future use of the land might be less troubled.

The Park Lands are, and have been since European settlement, legally the property of the residents of the City of Adelaide (ie North Adelaide and South Adelaide), held 'in trust' by the Crown (ie the government) for their enjoyment. There is no title or land grant relating to the Park Lands, but there are letters and other documentation from the early colonial era which clearly establish the ownership of the land. This situation is a legal and historical fact which causes a few problems today.

The Park Lands are managed by Adelaide City Council at, the council says, a cost of about $12 million per year or about $30,000 per day which comes from rates, so the cost is actually borne by the residents of the city (whether they are owner-occupiers paying rates or tenants paying rates through their rent).

The Park Lands measure about 7.6 sq kilometres or about 1900 acres.

During consultation in 2002 - 3 for the future management of the Park Lands, the preference was overwhelmingly for management by a board of experts, contracting the physical work to ACC.

However ACC refused to take on the work without having effective control as well, so a compromise was announced by the government with the Adelaide Park Lands Act 2005, which makes the Minister for Environment and Conservation (at the time, Minister Hill) ultimately responsible for the land with the help of the Adelaide Park Lands Authority which the Act identifies as a subsidiary of Adelaide City Council and which comprises the Mayor and four council appointees and five appointees from the Minister. Adelaide City Council has day to day control of the Park Lands.

Although the Park Lands were placed on the Australian National Heritage List in 2007, and are the subject of ongoing moves for World Heritage listing, the state government, which continues to propose development of the choice inner city land, has to date failed to proceed with 26 separate applications from a variety of applicants over the last 25 years to have the Park Lands placed on the State Heritage Register. The reason given is always the same - lack of resources to assess the Park Lands for listing, despite the extensive existing historical and other data on the area.

Any development at Victoria Park should be as widely based as possible. Not (to use an example that the government was pushing hard) a combination of a private bar for the SAJC and lavish entertainment venue for the government and Clipsal 500 proprietors and sponsors for four days a year, funded by the public to the tune of $55 million (without the public having access to the facility), but year round, accessible facilities that everyone can use.

[Prince George]

When I think about the parklands, or Rundle Mall, or Victoria Square, or the Central Markets, or the Torrens - in fact, just about any of the "problem areas" of inner Adelaide - I just keep coming back to the thought "would we even be having this discussion if there was another 20,000 people living in town?" One of the things that Mono might have charted was the percentage of households in the area that have backyards - Adelaides would be something over 75%, NYC less than 25%. Back in Seattle, we noticed how heavily used their numerous (very fine) parks were; we have a suspicion that a large part of the reason was that when the weather's fine over there, you really have to leave the house to enjoy it; what would have meant backyard cricket over here means heading down to Green Lake with several thousand other people instead.

The simple presence of people solves so many problems, I wish we could embrace it more often. Yes, there are infrastructure limitations to be solved; yes, there are affordability problems to be solved; yes, there are heritage or character issues to be addressed; but when I think about what the payoff could be, I'm ready to start working on them.

[Wayno]

Here's a couple of docs focused on Parkland statistics - unfortunately they only show a % breakdown, not the actual number of visitors/users.

factsheet_parklands_09.pdf

(131.15 KiB) Downloaded 173 times

Active City - Park Land Use Fact Sheet.pdf

(254.47 KiB) Downloaded 171 times

As Clr David Plumridge recently informed us, the ACC set aside funds in their latest budget to formulate a 'parkland marketing strategy', and he's pushing for usage metrics to be part of that initiative. As they say, what gets measured gets improved!

Oh, and Prince George hit the nail on the head with his post above!

[monotonehell]

There was always people enjoying Veale Gardens during the day. Especially on the weekends.

You would know something about that, right?

Note I said "during the day" very much purposefully.

[stumpjumper]

Apart from physical usage, there are other values to assets like the Adelaide Park Lands. For example, Ayers Rock and the Sydney Opera House have a 'value' to all Australians, in that all of us would feel loss if those items were suddenly removed from the world. There's a name for this value - I can't remember what it is.

Anyway, I suggest that the Park Lands have this value at least for South Australians.

But firmly in the real and practical world, we must arrive at some view of the value of the areas of the Park Lands, certainly of those areas most subject to development (which means most at risk of being taken up by the government for its various purposes).

Among examples of government-sponsored development of the Park Lands over the years there have been Adelaide High School, the National Wine Centre, Next Gen and recently the new RAH. No-one mentions the value of the land beneath these developments. It's not free land, despite the view of some politicians. In the case of the new hospital, aside from any monetary value, the alienation of Park Lands at the main north-western entry to the city for a public utility like a hospital could be a mistake which we'll regret in the future.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of the usage measuring exercise.

[stumpjumper]

Prince George - I've just returned from a few days in Sydney. Admittedly I spent time in some of the more pleasant areas - Balmain, Manly, Curl Curl, Forest Lodge and Glebe, but for all Sydney's famous problems (one being the expense of real estate in those pleasant places), the inner city was packed on Saturday night and trade generally looked brisk. In short - buzzing. I find myself asking, as I do every time I wander away: how are we going to attract people to Adelaide, or keep the ones we've got?

[AtD]

The Parklands are also a valuable place to keep horses and park cars...

Stumps, I don't think the Parklands are deserving of that level of romanticism. I can't see how arguments for the importance of preserving the Parklands can carry any weight given their rampant underutilisation anywhere away from North or East Terraces. It is not an argument to say "The Parklands are important because they're The Parklands."

It's fitting you chose the Sydney Opera House as an example, considering the huge level of politics and controversy during its construction. Likewise Uluru is not without controversy.

I wish people would stop talking about the "threat of development" and instead talk about appropriate development. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the Parklands to remain untouched considering their size and location. I don't think it's reasonable to prevent civic facilities being constructed on the Parklands when that is their intended purpose. I don't think it's reasonable to accuse the state government of using Parklands as "free land" and expect taxpayer funds be used for acquisition of expensive inner-city property. I don't think it's reasonable to prohibit high density development around the Parklands when they're ideal for it.

For as long as I can remember, people have always talked about what they don't want done with the Parklands. No one seems to talk about what they do want done.

Finally, I wish people would stop pretending that the new RAH is on Parklands and the railway yards never existed.

[rev]

Among examples of government-sponsored development of the Park Lands over the years there have been Adelaide High School, the National Wine Centre, Next Gen and recently the new RAH. No-one mentions the value of the land beneath these developments. It's not free land, despite the view of some politicians. In the case of the new hospital, aside from any monetary value, the alienation of Park Lands at the main north-western entry to the city for a public utility like a hospital could be a mistake which we'll regret in the future.

If it wasn't for Adelaide high school, most of the surrounding playing fields would barely be used. The school buildings them selves take up very little room over all. Same with the Wine Center.

Next Gen? I'm pretty sure where Next Gen sits, it was associated with the tennis. The site for the new RAH..is not park lands but a rail yard with contaminated land.

[Prince George]

Prince George - I've just returned from a few days in Sydney. Admittedly I spent time in some of the more pleasant areas - Balmain, Manly, Curl Curl, Forest Lodge and Glebe, but for all Sydney's famous problems (one being the expense of real estate in those pleasant places), the inner city was packed on Saturday night and trade generally looked brisk. In short - buzzing. I find myself asking, as I do every time I wander away: how are we going to attract people to Adelaide, or keep the ones we've got?

I'm a little confused by this comment, SJ: you were in the most densely developed downtown in Australia and it was buzzing. If Sydney had a 7.5 sq km parkland consisting of largely cricket and soccer pitches surrounded, and penetrated, by roads ranging from 4 to 12 lanes wide, and that was buzzing, this would seem more germane to your argument.

[Wayno]

drive past earlier today - lots of excavation (ground levelling?) is underway in the area adjacent to Fullarton Rd immediately south of the old grandstand...

[stumpjumper]

AtD, maybe we don't think enough of the PLs because we don't value them enough, if you know what I mean.

Think of them as a unique, world-class (sorry... no 'vomit' smiley) asset that we haven't worked out how to exploit fully. I agree that we should use the PLs more, including building on them, but 'use', in my opinion, should not mean 'build anything we like'. Recreational buildings such as the old rotunda or a new grandstand would be acceptable, but not public utilities (power stations, new hospitals etc) or government office buildings such as the Riverside Centre.

The PLs are not just a ring of empty paddocks around the city (although that would be remarkable enough and worth visiting to anyone who hadn't grown up with them). They are an asset with World Heritage potential. World Heritage listing alone, going by other remote World Heritage sites, could be worth millions to our economy. Even without that, we could be getting a lot more out of the PLs for ourselves anyway.

So the argument as I see it is not whether to allow any development of any sort in the PLs, it is what kind of development is best for now and the future.

As conductor Sir Thomas Beecham said of a female cellist in his orchestra: 'Madam, you have between your legs one of God's greatest gifts, and all you can do is scratch it!'

We should use the PLs - we are are the custodians of a unique legacy, and we should consider our use of it very carefully.

Adelaide High, rev, is probably not a serious abuse. As you say, its ovals etc are a good use of the land. After all, the PLs were 'set aside for the recreation of the citizens'.

However, the railyards - the contaminated former Trans Adelaide site, is in fact Park Lands. The land was leased to the predecessors of TA well after the establishment of the city. No railways were envisaged by the colonists. If they had thought of rail, Light might have done the smart thing and put the central station in the centre of the city, and helped to keep the centre of gravity where it was designed to be, instead of it becoming hostage to the price of carrying water and making the narrow residential streets of Hindley, Rundle, Waymouth and Pirie the commercial centre instead of the wide Wakefield and Grote Streets around Victoria Square. These days, too, the TA lease would have contained a clean-up clause at the end of the lease, and in any case the contaminant diesel etc would not have been dumped on site today.

Consider the scheme put up a few years ago by architect Rob Cheesman and Mayor Mike Harbison - replacement of the railyards with lakes and parks stretching from UniSA to the river, with a shuttle line going to the central rail station. The idea that somehow the land between North Tce and the river is a government development site has no basis at all in law, history or good urban planning.

A holistic approach to the future of the PLs would consider the release of the railyard land together with the disused Adelaide Gaol and the likely release in the near future by SAPOL of the Thebarton Police Barracks. The use of the railyards for the government's hospital and a medical research centre is 'selfish', isolated planning, if you could call it planning at all. Apart from its economics and the problems it creates for the re-use of whatever is left of the old hospital, the proposal effectively cuts off access from the city to the historic gaol site and the police barracks site.

Here's just one alternative use for the railyards - a level site for visiting temporary attractions, something like the old Exhibition Building oval that a lot of Adelaide Uni is built on. A site for the circuses that now use Bonython Park, or Cirque du Soleil which used land south of Adelaide High. The transport connections are superb, and the proximity to the entertainment and accommodation precinct of the West End is ideal. No significant trees either. In between entertainment uses, there are several thousand UniSA students who might appreciate a sports ground or canoodling park. Despite UniSA's business-like approach, I'm sure that a few UniSA sports teams would not go astray.

Prince George - central Sydney is surrounded in a way by 'wasteland', some might say. I'm pretty sure that many of the people thronging the city during the evening were the same people packing the public transport to the outer suburbs later in the night, going home. In any case, Adelaide has grassy Park Lands; Sydney has a watery harbour. If we made as much of our Park Lands as Sydney makes of its harbour, I think we would be some of the way to where we could be.