On a Rundle Street towers tussle

Commenting on the story: Rundle Street neighbours locked in twin towers tussle

How ironic. Two developers duking it out over what should be permitted on adjacent sites.

A similar tussle occurred when the site to the north of the Crown Plaza hotel was developed for student housing. Apparently it’s OK to impact the wider community’s views and amenity, but not OK when another developer compromises the views and privacy in your project.

This highlights two important issues. The first is that the impact of construction is not confined by the property boundary.

All buildings are an integral part of the wider urban environment, which is why we have a planning system to define what types of development will positively add to the amenity, environmental quality and community in specific locations.

The second is that the SA planning system does not provide clear direction for developers or confidence for the community.

This lack of clarity is further demonstrated by the fact that the Transforming Our Planning System Report, prepared by the Expert Panel for the Planning Systems Implementation Review, makes 72 recommendations. This clearly shows that the planning system needs considerable review and improvement.

Recommendation 1 is that ‘proposed developments with exceed the maximum height identified in the Planning and Design Code should attract third party appeal rights’. Here’s to this recommendation being implemented as a matter of urgency.

Or better yet, the over-height provisions being limited to an increase of one floor or 20% of the permitted height for that site.

This should only be permitted for developments that provide a minimum of 30% affordable housing subject to CPI increase in value to ensure that these homes remain affordable into the future, have design review conditions mandated in the approval so that they cannot be down-spec’ed during construction, and are subject to a post construction audit to measure their environmental performance. – Nicolette Di Lernia