Wednesday 20 June 2012 ESTIMATES COMMITTEE B Page 3 [extracts]
The Hon. P.F. CONLON: The Urban Renewal Authority is a broader housing urban renewal arm of the government. It holds some stock that would formerly have been held by Housing SA, some items of property. It holds those landholdings that the Land Management Corporation used to have, and it holds the holding—at least I believe they have been transferred—of the former Defence SA, which also held substantial land down at Port Adelaide in particular.
The area of overlap with the social housing minister is in the development of those areas of stock and land held by the former Housing SA and in other developments that might ultimately provide some new stock to the department (but I am not actually quite sure what the department is called, forgive me). Any aspect of the development that might in the past have been undertaken by Housing SA would now be with us.
I think, from memory, there is the Woodville West and Marden developments. If there is something that is a development that Housing SA used to do, in short we probably are now doing it. There may be developments that we do that will provide stock to either community housing or to the housing minister. I am quite relaxed about your exploring what it is, and I will let you know if we are responsible or someone else is.
To be fair to you, as an explanation, we are in a transitional process at present. I should explain who we have with us. We have Fred Hansen, the Chief Executive, formerly of Portland, Oregon. He has travelled further than Lewis and Clark to get to his position. We have Michael Buchan, formerly of the Land Management Corporation, who is Major Projects. We are just settling down all the new directors and all the new lead people in the agency because it is entirely new and brings three together. Back behind me somewhere, you will find Phil Fagan-Schmidt, who still works for Housing SA but is here because of that overlap with developments done by Housing SA, and I think we have Warren Smith, formerly of the Land Management Corporation back there.
We are still in the process. We have not finalised the board of the new authority. We are still in the process of setting up those structures and transferring some items. You will find that we have some property transfers already, but there might well be property still held by Housing SA where we have taken over, if you like the leadership role in managing the future strategy and direction. It will probably take a good year to finalise all of the different holdings and such like.
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The Hon. P.F. CONLON: We believe that home ownership is an essential element of our culture in South Australia. When South Australia was created in 1836, it was essentially a land deal. People came out here to secure a new way of life. People have been coming out here since then to secure a new way of life, and owning a home is a very important part of it. We want the Urban Renewal Authority to try to connect up those aspirations with modern realities. We cannot keep going out north and south. We have to do urban renewal and we will have to do good design and higher density with high amenities.
We have to do all those things but, make no mistake, we do not want to manage a decline. We want this agency to do things that have not been done before to create more opportunities to connect people up with the aspirations we believe are a central part of why people want to live in this wonderful country. So, we will not be losing what we consider to be an extremely important instrument in that regard.
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We are not rushing to, if you like, grab land from the Housing Trust. What we want to do is identify the role we could play as a development agency assisting the Housing Trust in their goals and ambitions and, more than just the Housing Trust, the housing minister and the government in providing as much stock as is possible for those who need to get a roof above their heads. We do not see it as a one-only shift: we see it as a relationship that will operate over time with the housing minister and the social housing agencies.
Wednesday 20 June 2012 ESTIMATES COMMITTEE B Page 11
Ms CHAPMAN: For the affordable/social housing required component of these developments, is there any proposal to replicate the proposed 30 square metre dwellings that were published to be part of the Bowden program in these other new developments, the 30 square metre units?
The Hon. P.F. CONLON: We have no specific targeted stock of those dimensions. That was merely part of a broader implementation—
Ms CHAPMAN: I appreciate that you have a new Chief Executive, someone who has come with some new skills.
The Hon. P.F. CONLON: No, it has nothing to do with the new Chief Executive. It was always something that was—
Ms CHAPMAN: I understand that—
The Hon. P.F. CONLON: —taken and misread.
Ms CHAPMAN: Well, that published material predated his appointment.
The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Yes, that may well be, but what I am explaining to you is that the published material did not require people to build 30-square metre dwellings.
Ms CHAPMAN: No, it provided a design option. In any event, that is something you will consider for the future?
The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Fred has exactly the same view as I have and exactly the same view Wayne Gibbins had, and that is that what we do at that Bowden Village will be excellent in design and excellent in outcome. There will be nothing we seek to do down there but does anything but convince people that this is the right way to develop in the future. I say clearly that, if you are not looking to urban renewal and urban infill, with higher density around good design now, you will be at some point in the future, and the sooner you realise that it is the future of development in urban settings, the better.
The reason we purchased the site in the first place, the reason we have invested so much of our time and effort, the reason we took developers overseas to look at transport-oriented development, the reason we have worked so hard to include others in the master planning process is that everything that occurs at Clipsal we want to be an advertisement for the future of urban development, and building unattractively designed small places will not be part of that. The truth is that you can have very good living in smaller built form with very good shared open space. There are a few very nice cities in the world built around those ideas, aren't there Fred?
Mr HANSEN: Yes.
The Hon. P.F. CONLON: See—Fred said yes.
Ms CHAPMAN: It might be a good apartment for your retirement, minister.
The Hon. P.F. CONLON: I keep hearing from you people that I am going somewhere. I have no intention—
