As we count down the days to the State election on 19 March, there is an urgent task at hand.
Every party and every candidate needs to know that you LOVE YOUR PARK LANDS
Show that you Love Your Park Lands by asking your local candidates the six questions below.
Politicians are spitting out daily campaign promises like you might spit out seeds from a watermelon.
Many of the promises that concern your Park Lands, would mean losing more and more Open Green Public space, for new buildings.
Until 16 February, every single promise - at least from the Liberal and Labor parties - represented for your Park Lands a threat, a setback, or a lost restoration opportunity. See the “Background” below.
Fortunately, that changed at a National Trust Heritage Forum on 16 February. In that forum, Labor deputy leader Susan Close promised that an SA Labor State Government would reverse the State Government’s recent re-zoning of Helen Mayo Park and its hundreds of mature trees. Reversing the rezoning would restore Helen Mayo Park to Park Lands zoning rather than its current status (since January) as an “Entertainment Zone.”
The challenge has been laid down, and we hope that the Liberal Party will now change course, and respond positively to the six questions we have prepared.
These questions (below) have gone not just to the major parties, but all of the minor parties as well. You can use them too, putting them to your local candidates. Send each candidate a link to this page, and ask for replies to all six questions.
The Adelaide Park Lands are unique in the world and have National Heritage status, yet many people, even in Adelaide, seem unaware of their rarity.
What, if anything, should the SA Government do to address this?
The Adelaide Park Lands are being gradually eroded and there is no effective mechanism to halt or impose a limit on the extent of losses. The Adelaide Park Lands Act 2005 has been ineffective at preventing continual losses of Open Green Public Space to development.
If elected, what type of amendments to the Act would you initiate or support to provide real Park Lands protection?
The City Council and others are developing a bid for UNESCO World Heritage recognition of "Adelaide and its Rural Landscapes" (i.e. for the Adelaide Park Lands and the rural settlements of the Mt Lofty Ranges). The City Council has been advised that World Heritage Listing would result in a 20% to 30% increase in international tourism. The bid would require State Government support.
If elected, how will you assist in advancing this World Heritage bid?
On 20 January 2022, approximately 35 hectares of Riverbank Park Lands were re‑zoned to permit future development in Park 27 (including on Kate Cocks Park, and Helen Mayo Park) and in Park 11 (Frome Park). The re-zoning represented the biggest single attack on the Park Lands in their 185-year history.
If elected, how much of this recent re-zoning would you attempt to wind back, to ensure that these sites are once again zoned as Open Green Public Parks?
The proposed Adelaide Recreation Circuit would be a globally unique, uninterrupted walking, running and cycling trail showcasing Adelaide’s Park Lands.
The concept has support from Business SA, the Australian Hotels Association, the Property Council, Athletics SA, the SA Road Runners Club, Bike SA, Bike Adelaide, the Kaurna community, and the Adelaide Park Lands Association.
If elected how would you assist to bring this concept to fruition?
For bonus points please nominate any site or sites within the Adelaide Park Lands, previously lost to development, where you would support re-greening, rehabilitation, or restoration to Open Green Public.
The APA Committee will evaluate the responses received and we will be making our how-to-vote recommendations before the opening of pre-poll voting on 7 March,
You can support this effort by asking the same (or your own) questions to your local candidates, and letting us know of any responses you receive.
Image: Shutterstock
BACKGROUND
Liberal Party Park Lands failures
A stadium (aka 'Riverbank arena’) - $662 million - to destroy Helen Mayo Park (Park 27)
A new 8-storey high school building - $98 million - to destroy Frome Park / Nellie Raminyerrin Park
A new Women's and Children's Hospital that would destroy the last remaining Open Green Public space along the North Tce/ Port Rd edge of the Park Lands
A new multi-storey car park that would destroy much of Kate Cocks Park next to historic olive groves
More (as yet undisclosed) threats to your Park Lands that will be permitted by the January 2022 rezoning of 35 hectares of Riverbank Park Lands for development.
SA Labor Park Lands failures
A new 8-storey high school building - $98 million - to destroy Frome Park / Nellie Raminyemmerin Park
Resuming the ananchronistic fossil fuelled motor racing that would annex a large part of Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi (Park 16) for five months every year
promising to demolish the Aquatic Centre in Park 2, but rejecting the option of restoring Park Lands. The promise (threat) is to build another Aquatic Centre in the same Park 2 (either the same site or an "adjacent" site) without considering any alternative brownfields site.
Labor (so far) has NOT suggested that it would revoke or rescind the Liberals’ recent 35-hectare Park Lands re-zoning for development, so by its silence the Labor Party has effectively condemned Riverbank Park Lands to the same effective destruction, over time.
