“Our town is running out of time”

Domenico Pecorari — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:05:38 +0000

Blue sky and sunshine in the Todd Mall: undervalued and endangered?

By Domenico Pecorari

Recent ministerial approvals, such as the residential subdivision at AZRI and the 5-storey redevelopment of the old Melanka site in town, have highlighted a planning process that gives nothing more than token consideration to development concerns raised by the Alice Springs community. The more recently announced proposals to expand the AZRI suburb further southward onto Airport land and the push for a six-storey office development in the centre of town will cement this undemocratic process unless thinking citizens in our community begin to stand up for the future of the town.

The best illustration of our flawed planning process is perhaps the soon to be re-built K-mart wall, using coloured concrete blocks and colorbonded sheet iron, an outcome that resulted from the developer’s direct negotiations with the NT Minister for Planning following the NT Planning Authority’s determination that the wall to be re-built to its original sandstone design and material. The “appeal” mechanism within the Planning Act is only available to developers and the general community is excluded from this appeal process.

The minister’s approval of the five-storey re-development of the old Melanka site demonstrates further the minister’s dismissal of community sentiment in matters relating to the town’s development. The approval was granted despite the NTPA having received ninety-three submissions, three quarters of which raised objections to the re-development, mainly on the issue of excessive height. The community’s concerns could have been addressed had the Minister had the courage to allow a 4-storey development which would have been within the Alice Springs Planning Scheme’s maximum permitted height of 14 metres. The Exceptional Development Permit provisions of our planning approval process appear to be in-built loopholes allowing developments that do not comply with the Alice Springs Planning Scheme.

Similarly, the Minister’s decision to allow the development of AZRI land into Alice’s newest residential subdivision is often cited to have been given the community’s approval through the Future Alice Forum held in 2009 and attended by well over a hundred locals. As someone who personally attended the whole of the forum, my memory is of an overwhelming consensus amongst attendees in favour of a more sustainable, compact townscape which was not so dependent on private transport and which did not encourage the urban sprawl created by continuing land releases. This is reflected in the summary document of planning issues raised at the forum, as made available by the organisers.

In response to the forum, an Alice Springs Planning for the Future steering committee was established by the Minister for Planning, to develop further the outcomes of the forum. This committee was made up almost exclusively of political and business interests and it was not surprising that it moved quickly from the broader “big-picture” of developing town planning directions to dealing exclusively with the creation of a new subdivision at AZRI and the process by which this could best be achieved. This turn of events is reflected clearly in the minutes of the ten or so meetings held by this committee in the critical period between March 2009 and March 2010, minutes which to date have not been made public on the Future Alice website as is required under the minister’s own Terms of Reference. The website has only the minutes of three meetings held in March, May and July 2010.

The reason that such poor planning decisions are able to be made at all is that, despite what our ministers would have us believe, we do not have a Town Plan, by which I mean: a vision of the kind of town we want in the future. The closest thing we have is a Planning Scheme which is nothing more than a “tool”, or simply the way in which we may achieving a vision, if we had a vision to begin with. The lack of a clear vision allows for the easy re-zoning of land to suit the immediate and opportunistic needs of developers which, these days, is mostly for medium density housing. We have no Town Plan against which we could evaluate how a development proposal fits into the bigger picture, and it seem to me that the powers that be prefer it that way.

This deplorable situation will not ever be addressed while the decision-makers in our planning process remain the least qualified to make those decisions and unwilling to make up for their deficiency by seeking professional input. We simply cannot continue to allow the town’s development to be guided by their “gut feeling” and must move towards assessing developer’s proposals through an objective, data-based evaluation process that considers the environmental, social and cultural impacts as well as the economic considerations.

This can be achieved in one of two ways: either by demanding that the existing Alice Springs Planning for the Future steering committee be expanded to include representatives from all of our town’s varied sectors, including those associated with social issues, tourism, the arts and culture and that this steering committee be provided with decision-making powers; or by exercising our people’s power and creating an alternative body, independent of the minister’s influence and the existing planning process.

This revitalised, or independent body, made up of the many local experts in their fields, would be tasked with developing a visionary Town Plan and promoting this vision to the voting public. The body needs to acknowledge that the present planning system is failing our town’s longer-term interests and call upon the Minister for an immediate moratorium on all development proposals which significantly affect our town’s future, including the AZRI / Airport and Old Drive-in subdivisions and the 6-storey office development proposal.

Such a truly representative committee needs to promote interaction with the general community: disseminating statistical data and flagging ideas for discussion in developing a viable vision for a future Alice, through a process of public education and developing ideas which foster consensus, not division, within the general public. Central to this notion is the creation of a Future Alice design space, a “think tank” space fitted out with display walls and a large scale model of the town which would serve as a 3-D worksurface upon which current planning deficiencies as well as developing ideas may be projected. Such a venue would provide the interface through which the community’s input can be received for consideration and through which a developing vision can be displayed for their information and feedback.

Our town is running out of time. The most recent proposals underline that the time for action is NOW. That action could be initiated at a forum planned as part of the upcoming DesertSMART EcoFair, which could bring together all of our separate voices in a unified call for change.

Either way, whether we take up the fight or lay down and take it, there is one thing of which we can be certain: we will end up with The Alice we deserve.

The DesertSMART Eco-Fair will be held at the Olive Pink Botanic Garden on Saturday.

The deadline for comments on reports which include a proposal to raise height limits in the “Central Activity District” to five storeys has been extended until October 15.

You can read and download the documents at: http://www.futurealice.nt.gov.au/documents/builtformguidelines.pdf and http://www.futurealice.nt.gov.au/documents/residentialcapacityreport.pdf

Alice Online welcomes your opinion about current and proposed planning guidelines in Alice Springs, whether you are a resident, past resident or visitor to Central Australia.

The Old Courthouse in Parson's Street, hemmed in and diminished by badly planned buildings

The Residency, opposite the Old Courthouse. It could soon a six-storey building as its neighbour, twice as high as anything else in the CBD.

Nice work, Charlie

Domenico Pecorari — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 11:44:52 +0000

Charlie Rye at home.

By Domenico Pecorari

Following the publication of last week’s post about Charlie Rye’s house, the Heritage Advisory Council (HAC) has made a recommendation to the Minister to have the house listed on the NT Heritage Register, the only legal mechanism by which our heritage can be protected.

I was very fortunate to have been introduced to Charlie Rye by Margaret Baker in the year before he died. Over several visits, I came to see Charlie as one of this town’s “quiet achievers”: a very accomplished thinker, not afraid to get his hands dirty, fiercely independent and modest almost to a fault.

His house was little changed from the time he’d first built it in the early 1950s and I consider it holds a special place in the evolution of Alice’s house designs which respond to local climatic conditions, a lineage that begins with our town’s earliest buildings at the Telegraph Station (1870s), to Adelaide House (1926) and The Residency (1927), the 1929 Railway Cottages and Beni Burnett’s Government officials’ houses of the early 1940s.

With the advent of evaporative cooling systems in the 1960s and curvilinear subdivisions of the 1970s, the many sensible design features displayed in Charlie Rye’s house have sadly become “a thing of the past”.

In being heritage listed, the place will continue to demonstrate some of those ideas for us all and for future generations.

Domenico Pecorari – Alice Online

“Our town is running out of time”

Nice work, Charlie