News & Discussion: Adelaide City Council

[Wayno]

Rev & Metro, the issue is emergency flight paths. Large aircraft departing AO must be able to safely "circle back" should problems be encountered soon after take-off, and dodging super tall buildings in the CBD is a complexity most pilots could do without.

That being said, we (S-A) strongly believe there is scope for increasing CBD height allowances, hence our submission to the ACC 18 months ago: http://www.sensational-adelaide.com/for ... 135#p59130. Please read.

[SRW]

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.

Both the DAP (the council's development approval body) and the DAC (the State's) assess applications against the ACC's development plan, which is currently being reviewed. The suggestion is that the prevailing view among councillors involved in the process is to increase allowable building heights in any revised plan.

[iTouch]

In The Vines of Barossa Valley Posted at 9:52 AM Today
Adelaide / South Australia does not have the population to warrant high rise buildings. Better of fixing what we have now and addressing real problems like south road and freight routes. Who's going to afford to live in condo's / town houses / apartments in Adelaide when they are asking Sydney prices. The only view you get is looking at Colonel Light pointing his finger at you.

someone be trolling

[david]

Councillor's Notes - Issue 57 from Cllr David Plumridge

- Our City Needs People
- How will changes Come About?
- DAP Decisions
- Recent Council deliberations

Notes from Councillor Issue 57.pdf

(264.55 KiB) Downloaded 229 times

[Prince George]

Our City Needs People

Hearty, vociferous agreement from this quarter, councillor. Your newsletter said many things I wish I heard more often from people in positions of influence.

[Benski81]

Our City Needs People

Hearty, vociferous agreement from this quarter, councillor. Your newsletter said many things I wish I heard more often from people in positions of influence.

Ditto! I just wonder though is 20,000 people added to the CBD over 20 years ambitious enough? That's 1,000 people per year or about 0.06% of the state population. I think we need to want to do a lot more than that and set higher targets! Come on!

[JamesXander]

Now, perhaps its a silly idea, but me thinks it would work. Say the state government put aside 100m to encourage apartment building within the city. That could be through grants, but I would say perhaps the most effective way would be to back financing of the construction of these apartments etc.


Increasing the rate of population growth in the CBD would do wonders for the city and slow down the housing growth outwards. The money spent on encouraging inner city living would probably be saved by the reduction/potential savings in the outer suburb infrastructure costs.



so my question from this is, has anything like this been attempted before? on a large scale...

[ghs]

Yes, Uno Apartments.

[stumpjumper]

One way of increasing the amount of affordable housing in Adelaide is to allow medium density across the city rather than allowing towers for some allotments and virtually no development for others.

At present, we are in danger of developing a patchwork of high and low development across the city as powerful developers put together parcels for what is effectively spot rezoning.

[stumpjumper]

Council elections:

I have nothing against Cr Wong, but can find little substance in his policies. I've distilled the policies on his website (see following), looking for some substance, such as a commitment to a number etc. There is not much there, it seems.

I think it's a concern that Wong is being backed by the 'Shoppies' - the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Assoc, SA's most powerful union, who are dead against the extension of trading hours in the city. Without extended hours, how can traders take advantage of the city's events - as suggested by Wong?

I'd also like to know Wong's attitude to development, given that among his backers is Nick Bolkus, who successfully lobbied the government to rezone Mount Barker for the developer clients of his lobbying firm Bespoke Approach. It's a pity, on that score, that the affordable housing the government is now forcing on an unwilling community in Mount Barker could not be build as higher density development in the city, which is crying out for more residents.

Here is my analysis of Wong's mayoral pitch:

Residential policy

Adelaide is a pleasant, well-serviced place to live.
The weather is good and we are culturally diverse.
We need more people and more business.
Rates, of which business pays 80%, must be fair, and we must help the disadvantaged.
Adelaide can be a better place to live.

Business Policy

I am in business in Adelaide.
Business is important, especially to Adelaide.
If elected, I will tell as many people as possible that Adelaide is a great place to do business as I travel the world.
Adelaide has unlimited potential if the council listens to business.
There is too much red tape and not enough promotion of business by council.
Business pays 80% of the rates - business owners should vote.

Retail Policy

There are many shops in Adelaide and they all deserve support.
There is retail competition elsewhere in the city.
We could do more to attract tourists to shop in the city and to capitalize on the city as the gateway to tourist destinations.
Adelaide should be the state’s main shopping destination.
Council’s carparks should help retailers in a more tangible way.
??We should spend much more to market Adelaide as a shopping destination.
Adelaide hosts many events, and shop owners must do more to benefit from them.
Adelaide can be better from a retail point of view.

[Nathan]

Thanks for the summary stumpjumper.

What I find slightly irritating, is that Cr Wong seems to be getting a fair amount of press (more so than other candidates), but nowhere in that press does it really go into his policies. I'm worried that people will just vote for him, because he's the name/face people recognise.

An anecdotal example is my father, who said he'd likely end up voting for Wong - until I showed him Cr Yarwood's site. Knowing where my fathers preferences lie, I knew that he'd agree a lot with what Stephen is proposing, and I was right. He's now reconsidered his vote, but how many other people won't go to the effort or looking at what different candidates are proposing and just choose on familiarity? I think this is where Stephen's idea of not using election posters around the city might back fire - I know he's particularly environmentally conscious, but to implement his environmental policies he needs to be elected first. (Plus those posters can be printed quite sustainably, using vegetable inks and coreflute made from sustainable material.)

[stumpjumper]

In answer to the question of Wong's publicity, Wong's PR managers include Bespoke Approach (Nick Bolkus' firm as mentioned) as well as kwp!, which has managed recent Labor campaigns.

Wong's most immediate PR contact seems to be Charlie Helen Robinson, an extremely active 'new media' marketing specialist whose personal emblem is the butterfly. Anyone interested in Charlie Helen Robinson's views on life, business, politics, society, money, work, happiness, wine, coffee etc can find plenty of them by following Charlie on FaceBook, Stumbleupon, Tweet, Flickr, LinkedIn, Ping, Plurk, Digg, Reddit, Twitter and YouTube as well as her various blogs which include Charlie Robinson Says http://charlierobinson.wordpress.com/charlies-media/, Charlie Design: Let's Engage Socially http://charliedesign.net.au/, Social [Media] Butterflies http://socialmediabutterflies.blogspot.com/, and edible365 http://edible365.blogspot.com/

Charlie Helen Robinson works with another PR consultant, Karen Foster of Foster Hill Lifestyle PR and Marketing, and has good connections with the SA government.

It's probably no surprise that Francis Wong says:

Importantly I will work very closely with the State Government. I am well known by many State Government politicians (of all parties) and I can talk to them easily and openly. Make no mistake; for Adelaide to reach its full potential we have to work with the Government of the day, not be odds with them.

As with Mr Wong's mayoral pitch, it's very hard to find on Charlie Helen Robinson's web pages any solid facts, numbers dates or dollar amounts among the new age poetry and urges to get together and celebrate life itself.

If Mr Wong is successful, let's hope that there is some substance beneath the joyful warmth and togetherness.

It's disappointing that after agreeing with Yarwood and Clarke not to use posters, Wong has now plastered Adelaide with them. If they are made of organic corflute and vegetable dyes, the disadvantaged could always eat them, I suppose.

[JamesXander]

Not suggesting anything but I personally cannot wait till our ICAC is set up to investigate these shadey links between developers and politicians of any level of government.



Anyway back onto the election I think Downer has a slight dig at the Wong in todays paper.

[stumpjumper]

Not suggesting anything either, but I second Mr Xander's remarks.

The nexus developer - political donation - spot rezoning - windfall profit is an insidious one and is destructive to good planning.

The solution is not so simple. The suggestion that applications for non-complying development should be removed from council control (notwithstanding the '$10 million rule' applying to the ACC) and dealt with by a panel of disinterested experts more or less describes the DAC - the Development Assessment Commission. However, the statutory DAC as present is effectively a government body. Further, there is the option of Major Project Status, which in practice puts the decision at the Minister's discretion. The question is then, unfortunately, how expert and neutral is DAC, or the Minister, for that matter?

Over to you, JamesXander...

[Will]

One way of increasing the amount of affordable housing in Adelaide is to allow medium density across the city rather than allowing towers for some allotments and virtually no development for others.

At present, we are in danger of developing a patchwork of high and low development across the city as powerful developers put together parcels for what is effectively spot rezoning.

So you would be comfortable with 10 level buildings on East Terrace, around Hutt Street and near St. Andrews hospital?