by Shane Sody

The City of Adelaide is seeking community feedback (by 9 August) on a major planning document - a new Park Lands Management Strategy: "Towards 2036".

The document is supposed to guide future decision-making by both the City Council and the State Government.

The Adelaide Park Lands Association has made a close study of the draft "Towards 2036" document, to save you the trouble.

We have looked at it, to see how it reflects our basic goals to "Protect" and "Restore" your Adelaide Park Lands as Open, Green, Public.

We have made a submission to the City of Adelaide. Here it is: (PDF, 4 pages, 1.4 Mb). You can endorse our submission, if you wish, or make your own.

Here are the dot points from our submission:

PROTECT

We had hoped to see, reflected in this document, an ambition to PROTECT your Adelaide Park Lands from repeated incursions of private facilities, including more and more State infrastructure, sports club function centres etc.

However, the draft Strategy calls for more "permanent infrastructure" in your Park Lands. There are suggestions for better "design principles" for new buildings, "redevelopment or refurbishment" of existing buildings, but there is no goal or strategy to limit the number or size of new buildings, nor discourage the provision of new private function centres etc, much less any ambition to remove or reduce any of the dozens of existing sheds.

Under the heading "Connections and Networks" there are references to the possibility of pedestrian bridges across some roadways but the document stops short of endorsing the concept of the Adelaide Recreation Circuit - a proposed unbroken, illuminated full loop running /cycling/walking trail.

RESTORE

The Adelaide Park Lands Association has welcomed one draft strategy to "seek opportunities to increase greening and tree canopy, including through community participation." It is hoped that this Strategy would lead to belated approval of APA's long-awaited ambitions to re-green one or more bitumen sites within the Park Lands.

This Draft Strategy has a wish-list of sites that might be returned to Open, Green, Public over the next decade or longer. It is pleasing to see at least eight sites identified for potential return as a "high priority" over the next "one to five years".

These sites (numbered 3, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, and 17 on the map above) are hard bitumen surfaces no longer needed for their previous purposes. However there are no buildings on any of these sites that are identified for removal and restoration.

Nevertheless, APA would be delighted to work with the City Council and other volunteer groups, to re-green one or more of the sites identified.

Omissions

Disappointing omissions from the Draft Strategy are:

• the abandonment of a previous ambition to reduce car parking on your Adelaide Park Lands; and

• no explicit commitment to progress long-delayed State Heritage listing of the Park Lands.

What can you do?

The City Council is offering several ways for you to respond to the Draft Strategy, such as completing an on-line survey, or by providing structured answers to an “engagement pack” by email, by post, or in person.

You can even apply to make a personal deputation to the next meeting of Kadaltilla / the Park Lands Authority, to be held at the Adelaide Town Hall on 25 July.

However, the simplest option is to advise the Council, by email, that you endorse the 4-page submission made by the Adelaide Park Lands Association.

Send your response, no later than 9 August, to: kadaltilla@cityofadelaide.com.au

What use is the Strategy?

The current version of the Park Lands Management Strategy 2015-2025 has not proved effective in protecting nor restoring your Park Lands. Multiple State Government attacks on your Park Lands in recent years were not part of any goals in the existing 2015-2025 Strategy.

For example:

• Re-zoning Helen Mayo Park (Park 27) as an 'Entertainment Zone’;

• Two new High School buildings in Park 11;

• A new Aquatic Centre in Park 2;

• A new Women's and Children's Hospital and eight-storey car park in Park 27

Therefore, it would require a leap of faith, or perhaps just unbridled optimism to believe that the proposed new Strategy "Towards 2036" might act as any brake or bulwark against a State Government or even a future City Council that might want to chip away more of your Park Lands.

One commentator believes that the ambiguity in this Draft Strategy is a deliberate ploy. Park Lands advocate and author John Bridgland has produced his own analysis (PDF, 4 pages, 2.5 Mb) which characterises the Strategy as “hollow in the middle” with “significant areas of ambiguity that fog its contents”.

Why has this taken so long?

The Adelaide Park Lands Act 2005 requires Kadaltilla /the Park Lands Authority to produce a Park Lands "Management Strategy" and review it at least once every five years.

The current Strategy ("2015-2025") was released in January 2018, so it has been more than six years since it was revised.

Two years ago, the City Council asked for your feedback before it even started compiling this new Draft Strategy. It’s unclear why it has taken two years to produce this Draft.

The author of this article, Shane Sody, is the President of the Adelaide Park Lands Association and the editor of the semi-monthly newsletter, "Open Green Public".

Subscribe here.

https://adelaideparklands.m-pages.com/YWRrGW/adelaide-park-lands-assn-mailing