[Greens-Media] PARNELL: Rau’s urban sprawl fantasy land

[Parnell]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   Tuesday 28th March 2013

Rau’s urban sprawl fantasy land

The SA Greens have slammed today’s announcement of a massive increase in urban sprawl in the North of the City, with 100,000 people and 38,000 homes proposed to be built around Two Wells, Virginia and Buckland Park.

“What sort of fantasy land is John Rau living in?” asked Greens leader and environmental planning lawyer Mark Parnell.

“How can Minister Rau claim that a plan to dump cheap housing on a vulnerable flood plain, miles away from decent public transport is ‘world class planning practice’?

“This is a gob-smackingly stupid decision.  Metropolitan Adelaide already has one of the largest urban footprints in the world.  This will only make it bigger.

“While places like Perth are laying down new train lines first before planning suburbs around them, the Weatherill Government is building houses 30 kms away from the nearest train line – and even that line has had its electrification upgrade scrapped.

“The land around Virginia contains some of our most important horticultural areas.  As food security fears grow, we should be preserving these, not covering them with bitumen. Hasn’t the Government learnt anything from the Mt Barker fiasco?” he said.

To make matters worse the area proposed for development has been the subject of recent major flooding.  In 2005, the Gawler River burst its banks and 1,500 hectares were flooded, creating a devastating disaster bill of over $40 million.  The Playford Growth Area Structure Plan proposes the building of a 700 metre long flood levy, but acknowledges ‘a cost effective and appropriate flood mitigation solution has not been found to protect land at Virginia North’ (p.50)

“This land is a flood plain.  It beggars belief that housing is planned for an area that is so clearly prone to flooding.  Minister Rau’s own document acknowledges there is no cost effective solution to prevent flooding in large areas of the identified land,” Mr Parnell said.

“Today’s announcement has shown the Weatherill Government is completely incapable of appropriate transport and infrastructure planning for new developments, and still dances to the beat of developers hungry to extend urban sprawl,” he said.


For further comment contact Craig Wilkins on 0434 007 893


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