The state government should implement something like that for the Cbd/City/North Adelaide. So should the council.Prodical wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 3:49 pmI agree that there are many heritage buildings in Adelaide that are abandoned and prone to vandalism.
My pet gripe is the Newmarket hotel. It is a beautiful building, slowly getting wrecked and covered in graffiti. It is really bad for our city.
The site has an approved plan for 32 levels of accommodation, so I emailed the developers (Future Urban) to ask what is happening but no reply.
I understand that in Europe there are penalties for developers that get approval and do not proceed, or who hold sites for extended periods without doing anything. There seems to be a lot of that in Adelaide - often with development approvals granted and then the site is put up for sale.
Not sure of the answer - but I would support a % levy for those sites that have a development approval and then sit vacant for years.
Leave a building to decay and be used by squatters, and don't clean up the graffiti and maintain the building within a set time frame - then you get a penalty on your land tax bill. Council should impose higher council rates. Dependent on how many weeks or months a property owner didn't take action. The longer it goes on, the higher the penalties.
Get development approval and you don't proceed with the development within X months, financial penalties should be imposed. Put the property up for sale while development approval is in effect, then approval is revoked and hit with a financial penalty.
It shouldn't be targeted at small time property owners. Example some of those small houses behind the big Toyota dealership on West Terrace. Might be a private citizen, not a property developer or anyone major. Might be something they bought decades ago or inherited, they might not have the financial capacity to get graffiti removed or hire private security to keep the homeless away. Those sorts of property owners shouldn't be punished, nor should they be forced to sell because they can't afford to constantly get graffiti removed.