Sensational-Adelaide.com

Hahaha Mushroom cloud explosion, nah that isn't an EPA problem, its a "OMG we're all going to die" problem.

What a terribly written, fear-mongering article. Got to love this though:

He said the Government may consider putting up money to help industries move out of Port Adelaide.

"Let's do the case first," he said.

"It may well be actually be much, much cheaper to relocate the houses rather than the factories.

What's the point of an industrial port without industries?

If the SA government (as the Land Management Corporation) was aware, at the time of sale of a property at Newport Quays and as a beneficiary of the sale, of facts which it knew would depreciate the value of the property if widely known, and those facts became known, then I would expect property owners to be thinking about suing the government.

i'm NOT suggesting this is a SA only things

The State Governments however seem to always find a way to stuff things up. Saying that it wasn't the best idea in the first place so these problems are hardly suprising.

Perhaps now the Governmnt will focus on the old Port Adelaide Centraland try and revive that

Am I missing someting here?
Seems to me that the New Port Quays vs Old Port Adelaide debate is now a petty diversion when compared to the long standing and until recently ignored industrial pollution issues currently facing the Port Adelaide area.
Did anyone attend the public meeting a few weeks ago on Semaphore Road where the recent publicity on Dock One and Air pollution was discussed?
It was pleasing to see representatives of the LMC and EPA in attendance who were prepared to face many difficult questions from residents.
Here are the bigger issues presented at that meeting.
1/ There is an immediate potential for fire and explosion centering around the activities of Incitec Pivot and other fertilizer makers and affecting the current residents of Gilman, Port Adelaide (East)
2/ There is an immediate and ongoing potential for fire and explosion centering around the activities of the Fuel Storage faciltiy and affecting the current residents of Peterhead, Birkenhead, Largs North.
3/ There is an immediate and ongoing potential for air borne and odour pollution centering around the activities of Adbri, Fuel Storage Facility, Viterra, Penrice and affecting the current residents of Peterhead, Birkenhead, Largs North, Draper, Taperoo, Osborne, Midlinga.
I listened symathetically to statements from residents and schools(some of who live within in 100 metres of these polluters) who have to tolerate the endless fumes and air pollution emanating from local industry.
The king hit of the night for me was when one astute audience member managed to get the EPA to admit that in addition to issuing EPA permits to operate in the area, some local industries(polluters) are also issued with EPA exemptions at certain times of the day to operate outside the permit terms. Pity no one for EPA lives in the pollution zone.
This means that they have authority to operate outside their pollution targets. I call it a get out of gaol free card.
To my surprise, expansions are planned for the fuel facility,Adbri and Penrice.
One wonders, what other secret deals with industry the goverment is hiding from the public.
I suggest that industry pollution is the main issue of the decade, not New Port Quays

Hi all,

Just got an email from someone at Woodhead (who were involved in this development) asking if they can borrow images from this thread. I said they're in the public domain so i don't see a problem but as a courtesy i would post in here just so our members are aware and can claim credit if they wish.

Cheers

Howie

Did they say which ones?

Just returned from a trip to the Port. The Newport Quays sales centre looks sad and derelict - posters faded, weeds growing around the front door etc. From where I stood on the Birkenhead Bridge I couldn't see a sign of life around the Inner Harbour.

Along Jenkins St at Birkenhead, where the state's sea-going timber boat building industry used to be, the land is covered in weeds. The boatyards were removed a couple of years ago at the command of Kevin Foley, to make way for the next stage of Newport Quays.

On the other hand, I drove back through Kilburn. There's a redevelopment within a former Housing Trust area which looks superb. Kids playing on the central park area. It looked just like the brochures, unlike the sorry scenes at Port Adelaide.

Real estate slowdown forces 'massively reduced prices' at Newport Quays

APARTMENTS held out as the future of metropolitan living are being sold at discounts of up to 59 per cent.

Advertisements for penthouses at Newport Quays at Port Adelaide trumpet "massively reduced prices", and a penthouse originally selling for almost $900,000 has sold for around $400,000.

The $2 billion Newport Quays project was launched in 2002 with the aim of revitalising a languishing Port Adelaide. But reports of quick sales have since been beset by legal challenges to sales, environmental concerns over some parts of the development and the slowdown of the property market.

Brock Harcourts Semaphore director Steve van der Borch said developers Urban Construct and Multiplex Living had decided it was time to sell apartments that had been vacant since the first residents moved in 2007.

more

Total revision of the masterplan for Newport Quays/Port Adelaide town centre- according to this article in the Portside Messenger.
Now there might be some redevelopment, rejuvenation more in sympathy with, and integrated into, its historic surroundings.

There will be wider consultation with the community as the masterplan is developed.

Govt ends Newport Quays contract
Portside Messenger (31 Oct 2011)
THE State Government will take control of the Port Waterfront Development as part of a new masterplanning process to include the whole of the town centre.

Premier Jay Weatherill today announced the government was ending its contract with the Newport Quays consortium, after the $1.5 billion project stalled last year.
Mr Weatherill said the government would work closely with Port Adelaide Enfield Council and consult the community to come up with a new masterplan for the waterfront and town centre.

“Our new approach to the Port’s revitalisation will build on the connections between the Port centre and the waterfront, and masterplan the entire precinct in order to bring economic and cultural renewal to the Port centre,” Mr Weatherill said.

More here.
http://portside-messenger.whereilive.co ... -contract/

Further evidence that Urban Construct is in trouble.

Adelaide City Council needs to do the same with 'The Precinct' development.

Very glad to hear this.

Much better to include both the waterfront and town centre in the same masterplan.

Well. It looks as though the ALP under Weatherill will be as slippery as it ever was under Rann.

There’s a bye-election coming up in the Port, so the Labor heads get together and decided that dangling the bright jewel of a re-visited Port redevelopment might pull votes.

Booting out the current development consortium, led by the Rice family’s Urban Construct, would cost. Cost the public – not the government.

Under the government’s usual developer-friendly contract, the consortium does not pay for the land until it has sold and settled the apartments it builds. Further, it has the right to declare a halt to the development and to wait for three years before starting again, say when prices rose after a poor sales period. It’s otherwise called a free option.

In recognition of this the public will pay the consortium $5.9 million in compensation.

Ironically, it was the poor development model put forward by the developers and approved by the government that is at fault.

The losing development proposals in the race before the Urban Construct/Multiplex won the day were in planning terms better – they provided a broader mix of uses, involved the existing older buildings and provided public space and facilities.

Urban Construct’s proposal was narrowly focused on residential apartments. It treated the Port simply as a waterfront site like any other in Australia.

The resistance to the Urban Construct of the government’s urban design experts was ignored. After all, Urban Construct’s proposal beat the competition largely because if successful it would have returned more property taxes than the others.

In addition, the Rices, father and son, were on the government’s A list, and had donated almost $50,000 in cash to the ALP’s SA Progressive Business. The Rices are quintessential capitalists, but in SA many such businessmen find it rewarding to donate regular parcels of cash to the government.

Two of the government troika pushing Newport Quays are leaving the scene, but the third, Pat Conlon, is a born again proponent of a fresh start. Ignoring his previous close involvement in the failed Newport Quays development, Conlon is now earnestly pushing for a community-centred process which respects the Port’s history and so on. Conlon’s hypocrisy is staggering. So is his knowledge of recent history – what did for Newport Quays, he says, was the Global Financial Crisis. The same one that the rest of Australia missed.

Exactly what ‘starting again’ means is unclear. I suggest the vagueness is deliberate because the whole concept is merely a prop for the bye-election.

Why not immediately convene a panel of expert planners to see where the weaknesses of the existing plan are, then act to remedy them?

Why not free up the constraints on redevelopment of the Old Customs House, the wool stores and so on?

Why not promote the ‘working port’ by reinstating the timber boat building industry in Jenkins St?

Why not get behind the ‘historic Port’ and promote the area as a tourist destination? Use the ‘City of Adelaide’ ship, and in particular stop the self-interested opposition to the project of the Maritime Museum.

I don’t think any real steps forward will be taken by the government.

The highly successful Mystic Seaport in the US grew organically from its original museum and tourist attractions – it now has residential, educational, commercial retail and other uses in full swing.

Other maritime developments around the world (as opposed to waterfront developments) respond to all the assets of their environment, not just the waterfront.

We should ensure that the next moves in the Port, despite the corrupting influences of the government and its developer lobbyists, should build on the best the Port has to offer, and benefit the whole community.

To have the old red brick mill towering empty and unregarded over the failed Newport Quays development is a joke.

The empty mill is an emblem of the failure of narrowly-based developments in areas offering rich and diverse choices, and of the failure of a government to promote the public interest in the face of a disinterested developer determined to produce only the product felt most likely to deliver it maximum profit.

I dont know of what other way they could have done it though, other than just subdividing it into more boring low density housing. There was nothing apart from an empty parcel of dirt before Stage 1, so there was not much of any environmental or heritage that needed to be taken into account. And I didnt see an issue with focusing on more higher density housing, and I dont really mind what they have come up with so far. The developer was a bit greedy with the price setting, and there was not the demand for the apartments which were at the time overpriced and is why it collapsed. But tell me stumpjumper, what were these other plans like?