Your views: on park lands sports hubs
Today, readers comment on modern replacements for old sporting clubrooms on city park lands.
Commenting on the story: ‘I’m actually shocked’: Lord Mayor reacts to ‘megalith’ park lands sports site upgrades
Much like the Lord Mayor, I am also in shock. Unfortunately, I am in shock that our councillors can continue to have such a hard-line stance against logical progress in the parklands.
To say that the footprint of these buildings needs to remain the same completely disregards the change that sporting clubs and communities have gone through since these buildings were established.
Female sport and the need for unisex facilities are a simple example of the urgent need to adapt to a new baseline when it comes to sports facilities and what is an acceptable standard, not to mention accessibility considerations and the need to locally store equipment so it can be easily acccessed.
As someone that has regularly used these facilities when playing sports against the clubs that call them home, I have been dumbfounded by the fact that they have been allowed to fall into this state. At a time when we want more people to into community sports and programs, providing adequate facilities that meet today’s standards seem like a reasonably straightforward solution.
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Good luck to Ray Schuobeck, he sounds genuinely invested in getting the best outcomes for the people who use the parklands regularly. Until then, I look forward to standing under a mouldy veranda on my next visit to the parklands sporting grounds. – Scott Vassal
I share Jane Lomax-Smith’s sentiments. When I was on the Adelaide City Council there was always a push for needlessly large and often two-storey sports clubrooms.
To one proposal, I remember saying that there were enough toilets proposed for every player on both teams to sit on the john at the same time.
The University of Adelaide facility near McKinnon Parade is a model for how such facilities should be done, whereby the change rooms are partially buried, and excavated soil used to form a sitting mound in front of the pavilion such that it has an elevated single storey pavilion appearance of reasonable size. – Sandy Wilkinson
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City councillors concerned at the huge sports pavilion upgrades proposed for Adelaide’s park lands should challenge their administrators.
What councillors are about to be dragged into is actually Phase 2 of a long-running park lands pavilion development spree benefiting private lessees. The Park 21 West proposal, under contemplation since 2018, was the last in Phase 1 and is only now coming up for rubber-stamping. In Phase 1, between 2011 and 2018, four other major private facilities projects at other sites were approved. Now more have emerged.
All of the proposed replacement clubrooms to 2018 featured grossly expanded footprints and bulk and scale well above the so-called like-for-like allowances, and the coming bids will seek the same outcome. It is simply not correct that private lessees must pay for their premises’ clubroom upgrades. During Phase 1, council sometimes discreetly funded concept plans and generous state government funding supported several others, with sums sometimes in the millions. The ‘co-investment split’ was largely worked out on the run between state and city council, and mostly behind closed doors.
My study of the pavilion expansion Phase 1 approvals trend (2011–18) explored a city council manufactured ambiguity about footprint expansion allowances, progress reports sometimes restricted under confidentiality order clauses (especially future pavilion lease negotiations which demanded guarantees of long occupation periods), and in some cases the triggering of procedural loopholes that blocked opportunity for public comment on large pavilion concept proposals.
The next phase (Phase 2) will become known as another great park lands project spree of benefit to private lessees. If it follows the 2011–18 trend, sports clubs and associations and private school lessees will see their park lands premises expanded (up and out) under fresh long-term year leases, with rent fees subsequently heavily discounted by council.
Elected members – I recommend that you initiate a full inquiry on Phase 1 before being dragged into Phase 2. Your reticence to immediately approve a rushed bid for council budget funding, which will deliver multiple park lands sports pavilion footprint expansions, is well placed. – John Bridgland
The Lord Mayor seems bemused by the realisation that the park lands are used by the people for recreation. They enjoy 55 community facilities and their sporting facilities subsume 14% of the Parklands.
The Adelaide Lutheran Sports Club has approval for a major expansion including a two storey built development located on Park 21 W, also known as Mirnu Wirra or Golden Wattle Park, but called Bulldog Park by the club recognising its extensive use for sports activities. The ACC is also seeking other suggestions for community use of this park.
None of this has been flagged as a threat to the long overdue push to gain State, and possibly World Heritage status for our park lands. – Warren Jones
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