Developers welcome shift in planning policy, ‘cautiously optimistic’ about new park lands
A leading development industry body has welcomed plans to abolish South Australia’s infill targets and is “cautiously optimistic” about proposed park lands in the northern suburbs despite cost and zoning questions.
The South Australian branch of the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) supports changes announced yesterday by Premier Peter Malinauskas, its chief executive Liam Golding told InDaily.
The proposed changes would see South Australia’s 85 per cent infill target abandoned, urban growth boundaries expanded and new park lands established in the northern suburbs.
Golding said the removal of “artificial” urban growth boundaries is welcomed, and something the UDIA has been calling for.
“We see a restriction on market demand for growth as an impediment to growth, and we see what the government announced yesterday as a positive because it will start to put some downward pressure on land prices and assist with affordable housing,” Golding said.
Malinauskas announced the policy in front of a thousand attendees at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia’s State of the State conference on Monday.
The policy forms part of the government’s Greater Adelaide Regional Plan (GARP), which envisages the building of 315,000 new homes in South Australia over the next 30 years.
The Malinauskas government also announced on Tuesday a 10-hectare parcel of land has been selected as the site of a new $155.3 million secondary school to support the growing population of the region.
Under the plan, the area surrounding Gawler, which is currently zoned as rural living, would be rezoned to enable housing development.
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Golding said he did not view the policy as a shift away from urban infill but as an addition to it.
“Right now, we’re in a housing crisis and we need all the supply we can get, so that means that we need to continue to grow up, as well as removing restrictions on growing out,” he said.
“What we need is a diversity of opportunities for land development and providing the market with choice so that people can choose to live in a larger block further away from the city, or they can choose to have big city amenities.”
In terms of whether infrastructure will be an issue for the new developments, Golding said he expects to see GARP work alongside the government’s infrastructure plan, “to provision communities with first-rate infrastructure”.
“We know that getting the infrastructure right and getting it right early is a key element of liveability,” he said.
“There are some things that need to be in early so that the enabling works can happen and the houses can get built, and then, there are some things that need to follow at a predictable time, appropriately quickly, when there is growing demand.”
Premier Peter Malinauskas announced the creation of a northern park lands at CEDA’s State of the State conference yesterday. Photo: Charlie Gilchrist/InDaily
The Gawler development would require the removal of hundreds of trees but Malinauskas said the area “doesn’t serve any sort of unique biodiversity purpose”.
Other areas proposed for significant urban boundary changes include Roseworthy, Two Wells, Victor Harbor and Murray Bridge.
“If people want to live in high-density, high-rise in our city – great. If people want to live in medium density next to cafés and bars and being able to be close to town, then Southwark is for you,” Malinauskas said.
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“But if you want to be able to live in suburbia on a decent sized block, you should be able to do that too, and more than that, it is not reasonable for policy to deny working- and middle-class families an option beyond townhouses or gutter-to-gutter housing.
“Working and middle-class families should not be denied aspiring to a 700 square metre block with enough room for a pool and the kids to play hide and seek and it shouldn’t only be residents in Prospect or Dulwich or Unley that are able to walk to park lands.”
Photo: Supplied
New northern suburbs park lands
In addition to the zoning changes, Malinauskas yesterday announced the creation of new park lands in the northern suburbs, which will be established under the Northern Adelaide Park Lands Trust Act.
Malinauskas said that the new park lands would be around 40 per cent larger than the Adelaide Park Lands and would cover almost 1000 hectares of land.
It would include natural open spaces, new sports and recreation facilities, a new railway station, as well as three interconnected linear parks with shared-use paths that will provide a continuous loop around Gawler.
The Malinauskas Labor government has committed $53 million towards the first stage of the project, which is scheduled for completion in 2030, while the second stage will be developed between 2030-2040.
Golding said the UDIA is cautiously optimistic about the new park lands but that there are some “difficult questions” the government still needs to answer.
“It’s great to have a plan for useable open space that can make communities liveable and desirable to a world standard. What we’re interested in is the detail of how that’s going to happen,” he said.
“We understand there may be some questions about zoning and how the land is paid for to turn it into that northern park lands.
“We’re cautiously optimistic but we do believe that there will be some difficult questions that government will need to work through with industry to make sure that’s a success.”
The Malinauskas government will introduce legislation in parliament this week to amend urban boundaries, with legislation to establish the northern suburbs park lands expected shortly after.
Photo: Supplied
