Notes on the Bowden Urban Village and Environs Development Plan

Notes on the Bowden Urban Village and Environs Development Plan

Amendment

The Plan seeks to facilitate private-sector infill-housing development in the Charles Sturt Council area.

It is open ended with regards both volume and timing of land supply, since the major development industry players require government assurance on the availability of development opportunities

compatible with their 15 year project development cycles.

For this reason, the Plan foreshadows, and in some aspects, preempts,

principles and objectives for infill development which are City wide in their application.(“As much as it takes, when we need it”)

PRIVATE SECTOR HOUSING DEVELOPMENT.

It is generally accepted by the industry that there is considerable difficulty in predicting and efficiently matching housing supply and demand in any straight forward way. Reasons for this are easy enough to guess at – the variable availability and cost of finance being one, and in the case of the Australian experience, the long term government and social preference for home ownership as the predominant form of tenure being another important factor.

The Bowden and Environs DPA put forward by the Minister, because it aims to implement the SA Governments goal of providing target volumes for housing production from existing urban locations, adds another layer (or “Overlay”) of uncertainty to the fundamental problems the housing industry has in meeting demand. Not only because (in comparison to greenfields development) the meeting of targets via urban infill is far less predictable, but also because infill housing involves -potentially at least- a transfer of value between pre-existing housing users and new-housing developers. This transfer can take the form of the appropriation of public space – the St Clair development is the prime example of this - but as well necessitates relaxed development controls on overlooking, site areas, car parking, rubbish collection and other aspects of housing sustainability - as for example in the Brompton City Edge infill project, which shows fine grained examples of the problems.

The level of expropriation of value depends upon the relative use-value of the existing development and the infill which is inserted into it. In the case of the Bowden Village site, this is largely a positive transfer,flowing from the developer to the surrounding area since the site is presently vacant and contaminated. At the other end of the spectrum, negative transfers of value can be significant.

The crucial factor here is the conflict between the economy wide incentives for housing production, which are primarily not location specific, and the Governments proposed Development Plan Amendments, which are highly locational in their effect.

It has been reported that the various subsidies for home ownership are of the order of $65 billion Australia-wide per year.* These take the form of first home owner grants, negative gearing and capital gains provisions, and exemptions from GST payments. They are available independently of the geographical location of the housing produced with this assistance. (Hence the experience of recent years of housing production being roughly comprised of 30% “second” homes – holiday houses and speculative investments. The 2006 Census for example reports that 10% of housing in South Australia, at any one time, is unoccupied. These houses in aggregate could be regarded as a “Ghost City” in that their economic reality is divorced from any actual human inhabitation.)

China now has an estimated inventory of 64 million vacant homes. It is building up to 20 new ghost cities a year on the country’s “vast swathes of free land.”

What effect will these changes have? While the economic incentives for higher density housing construction are 'in step' with and re-enforce the property value increases of recent years, the resultant expropriations of amenity could be presented as a win win situation, at least for those able to take advantage of Commonwealth Government subsidies to home owners. This seems to be the position of the State MP Mr Atkinson, who is on record as encouraging people to sell their homes to the developers and trade up to a new home on the St Clair site – outside of his electorate.

Should the unthinkable happen, and the $65 billion subsidy is not sufficient to maintain the housing asset bubble, then with the new development controls in place, the housing industry will require more and more density, and less and less amenity, in order to go ahead at all. In short, there are no funds available for Keynesian 'counter cyclical' stimulation of demand.

The Plan establishes a category of infill development (“Affordable Housing”) which is exempt from all or most conditions of development control. The Plan points to Brompton policy area 20 - and the exemptions established by precedent in that area bordering the Bowden site - as an example which should be emulated elsewhere in relation to “affordable” housing.

By resident “d”

* Reply to criticism: The figure of $65b results from an attempt to update the figures presented in the 2009 AHURI Yates Report. I include an estimation of the present day value of superannuation fund housing investment which attracts taxation benefits (contrary to all economic orthodoxy, but in line with the pro cyclical impact this has on the existing housing market)

Yesterday, upon the stair…

 COUNCIL TO SEEK APOLOGY?

A well placed source within the Charles Sturt Council, who I will refer to  as “Councillor B” in accordance with Council procedures, said that the trivial nature of the Ombudsman’s findings in  relation to suggested “Code of Conduct” violations has been underlined by Council’s dismissal of these recommendations.

(The  recommendations were lodged by the Ombudsman with the relevant Council Officer – the Mayor Kirsten Alexander – in “Opinion 5” of the Ombudsman’s Final Report and ‘named’  Councillors “K: “P” “B” and  “M”.
Council has resolved in an “in confidence” session to take no further action against three councillors. The in confidence session was chaired by Councillor Scheffler as noted in the minutes of meeting:

“Mayor Alexander, Councillors Fitzpatrick, Wasylenko and Agius disclosed an interest in Item 13.12 due to their involvement in aspects of the report to be presented and left the meeting at 11.53 pm.
In absence of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor the CEO took control of the meeting until the appointment of a chairperson.” –COUNCIL MINUTES

Of these four, only the mayor Kirsten Alexander was not a member of council during the time period examined by the Ombudsman.)

Councillor B also stated that the Council might well consider a motion early next year calling for costs to be sought in relation to the legal proceedings undertaken by the previous Council , which might amount to up to  $300,000 (A final tally on these costs had not yet been arrived at)

As part of this possible action regarding legal costs,  Councillor B suggested  that a letter might be drafted to the President of State Parliament’s Legislative  Council, calling for an apology.

Councillor B said that he was not able to disclose the contents of the transcript of his interview with the Ombudsman, and this  made it difficult for him to publicly contest some of the evidence relied upon by the Ombudsman. Councillor B denies forwarding an email from a member of the public to the local MP Mr Michael Atkinson, and added that Mr Atkinson’s staff only received such an email from “a former Councillor”

Suspension of the Charles Sturt Council?

RESIGNATION OF CR KENEALLY AS DEPUTY MAYOR.

Last Thursday night’s special Council meeting, which saw the Deputy Mayor submit her resignation from the position, indicates that the Council is experiencing difficulty facing up to the tasks set it by the Ombudsmans Final Report.
The report was publicly released earlier this month, but a draft had been circulated to affected Council members earlier in the year.

Councillor Keneally in her resignation speech to the meeting, indicated that she felt unable to carry out her duties in the position of Deputy Mayor. She made a  passionate declaration that she would continue as ward councillor:

" I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the community for their very warm welcome, support and encouragement during the period I have been involved in the Deputy Mayors' role, and I'd also note the value that they place, and the  respect that they have for the role of deputy mayor.  In the role of  elected member however, I look forward to the remainder of  the term of council.  I continue to focus on the core business of council, as well as look for as many opportunities to be accessible and available to the residents as I always have been. My passion has been, and continues to be "Keep rates low" and to ensure that  residents throughout the City of Charles Sturt are supported and well represented. Thank you, and I ask that this   be included in the minutes"

She told HI that her difficulties were more general than merely the arguments concerning the street corner meeting “Turf Wars” which had attracted high profile media coverage recently. Several councilors agreed during the special meeting that this was the case.
(The question of the  street corner meetings organised by the local state member were examined in depth in the Ombudsmans Report)

Tensions boiled over during the debate on Councillor Agius’ motion which called for the Council to develop a policy on  “Street Corner Meetings” to include protocols and guidelines, and be adopted by the Finance Policy and Delegations Committee.

Councilor Randall opposed the motion, stating that Council needed to respond to the Ombudsman’s Report in a serious fashion, and that this would have to include questions of councilors participation in street corner meetings. He singled out Cr Keneally, who he claimed was not a team player on council:
“my suspicion is, Councillor Keneally, that you are seeking preselection for the Australian Labor Party as a candidate.”
He said that in his opinion, she would make a good parliamentary member, and he wished her every success, but that in this Cr Keneally  had received some very bad political advice.

Cr Randall quoted from page 63 of the Ombudsman’s Report, which section examines the testimony of Councilor “P” regarding street corner meetings and the involvement of the Hon. Michael Atkinson’s electorate office in organising these meetings.

Cr Randall stated:
“The Ombudsmans Report says where we should go.  If you're going to be a candidate, and you start to use member of parliaments’ offices you need to be very careful.
We shouldn't be doing it because it will get us involved in another inquiry.
It's not the way to go”

His peroration was interrupted by a series of points of order regarding relevance and probity, which for the most part were  upheld by the Mayor, who repeatedly warned the Councilor

Cr Keneally demanded that the Cr Randall withdraw imputations of  improper motive,

Cr Randall stated that he had not wished to make any such implication.
A division was called which showed Cr Randall  to be the sole opponent of the motion.

COMMENT
I attended this ‘Special’ meeting of the Council with the expectation that I might discover how well the Council had taken on board the Ombusmans Report. The conclusions I formed do not incline me to the view that the situation is in hand.

It was “business as usual” at town hall.

While it is true that feelings were heated, there can be no excuse for the disrespect shown for the Mayors’ role in chairing the meeting. At one point her activity  in  assisting a fellow councilor was challenged – a remarkable initiative for a councilor to make  given that the Mayor has the responsibility for considering the Ombudsman’s recommendation in relation to code of conduct violations against these same councilors.

If the council is dysfunctional, as Cr Keneallys’ resignation seems to suggest, then the Government will have no option other than to suspend it.

 By D

OMBUDSMAN'S FINAL REPORT

Submission to HI for publication 14th November 2011

The SA Ombudsman's "Investigation into the City of Charles Sturt - Final Report - November 2011" pays close attention to those issues of concern to all of us interested in local government affairs and the St Clair land swap imbroglio. The report can be accessed here:

http://www.ombudsman.sa.gov.au/Final%20Charles%20Sturt%20Report.pdf

It contains numerous quotations from the 118 hours of evidence taken from 28 witnesses, who included 16 councilors from the time in question, as well as the Council CEO and (especially interestingly) the local MP. 

Hopefully the evidence garnered by the investigation will one day be made public, because it will almost certainly provide historians of the future with a valuable resource.

If I had any quibbles to make with the Ombudsman's work, I would point to the sketchiness of the investigation of the relationship between the various development companies operating in the site, and the Charles Sturt Council. However, while Mr. Bingham has seen fit to examine background material from the ALP sub-branch regarding actions of Council and Councilors, for whatever reason no such evidence has been obtained from the developers of the site. 

I find it interesting to note in this respect that the three members of the Council's Development Assessment Panel declared a so called "conflict of interest"  by reason of their DAP membership at the formal vote on the land swap proposal taken in full council on the 28th April 2008. This was one month after the purchase of the Sheridan site by the Cheltenham race course developer, Woodvile JV. 

Prior to this date the development applications considered by the Charles Sturt DAP for the Sheridan site, had been for remediation and minor works and had been submitted by the previous owner, Stockdale. I find it impossible to conceive what conflict of interest the three Council members actually had – whatever was in their minds, they appear to have received no advice to the contrary from the Council CEO at the meeting and excused themselves one by one when a division on the land swap motion was called.

By resident "D"

TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT - NO LAUGHING MATTER

Todays ABC radio 891 discussion  concerning the proposed re-opening of Barton Road North Adelaide  gave the participants plenty to laugh over; but not so much mirth for people who are concerned with traffic management in Bowden Brompton, where a development plan for the Governments Bowden Urban Village is about to be announced.

Whatever ones’ views on the merits of the Government redevelopment of Bowden South, it is accepted by all that it will generate increased vehicle traffic in the area, on roads that are already expected to carry more traffic than their safe capacity, redevelopment aside..

So to hear  Michael Atkinson promote his  introduction of a private members bill into state parliament aimed at increasing traffic on Hawker Street has a sobering effect.
Quote: MA: "This is principally for people coming up Hawker Street, exercising their traditional right  which they had under Colonel Light’s  original plan for Adelaide until 1987 ..”[loud laughter ]”
(the full transcript can be accessed here”


 Mr Atkinson justifies his Barton Road   campaign (apparently) on principles of 18th century common law regarding traditional rights of way. No mention of the considerable improvement to the 18th century laws developed right here in South Australia  in the ‘Torrens Title’. But even more sobering is the lack of reference to a traffic management study proposed by the Charles Sturt Council., let alone any of the implications of the Bowden Urban Village development more generally. For example, it might be feasible, as the Hassell masterplan originally proposed, to have the tram extended northwards along Chief Street, with the possibility of restoring the original tram way up to North Adelaide, thereby reducing the need for private vehicle trips in the development area, as is Mr Atkinson’s own party policy.

Proposed Chief Street tram extension - artists impression