Adelaide City Council releases new boundary shake-up proposal for community consultation

North Adelaide would be split in half under a major restructure sent out for community consultation by Adelaide City Council.

Adelaide City Council has returned to the drawing board with a planned restructure of its boundaries to cope with population growth.

A new option released for community consultation would see the removal of the River Torrens as the traditional electoral boundary between the Adelaide CBD and North Adelaide.

New boundaries for North Ward would be centred on O’Connell St, Melbourne St and Rundle St, with their surrounding residential areas.

Under the proposal, North Adelaide – which has low population growth – would be split in half, with some residents moving into the Central Ward.

North Ward would pick up North Tce from Morphett Street to East Tce, including rate-exempted institutions such as the SA Museum, SA Art Gallery, University of Adelaide, Lot Fourteen and Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

The Central Ward would take in North Adelaide residents to the west of Jeffcott St while expanding southward with a focus on commercial properties, hotels and high-rise apartments.

The South Ward, which is experiencing the highest population growth in the Adelaide CBD, would be consolidated on its southeastern and southern edges to make a predominantly residential zone.

Under a new option released for community consultation Adelaide City Council would have new ward boundaries. Picture: Adelaide City Council

One option is maintaining the existing boundaries but increasing the number of elected members in areas of highest population growth. Picture: Adelaide City Council

The proposal is part of a representation review being conducted by the council under the Local Government Act.

Consultants presented a preliminary report to elected members which found most people surveyed supported little or no change to the existing council boundaries.

The report said there needed to be some restructuring to ensure areas with the most population growth were adequately represented.

They were asked by councillors to develop three options – wards where the Torrens was removed as a boundary, replacing ward councillors with only area councillors and keeping the existing structure of ward councillors and area councillors.

Adelaide City Council is facing major restructuring before the next council elections in November, 2022. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor said the representation review was “about ensuring the community is best represented by council”.

“There has been uneven population growth across the city so to ensure that representation within the council chamber is fair and equitable we need to review boundaries and wards,” she said.

“This is based on a quota system to determine how many voters each councillor represents.”

Another option is abolishing the wards and having only area councillors. Picture: Adelaide City Council

Ms Verschoor said the options being considered by council took into consideration future population growth in different precincts across the city.

“We want to ensure our community is being equally represented on council given the anticipated population growth in the Central and South wards is much higher than in the North Ward,” she said

Ms Verschoor said the council had begun a second round of community consultation on the various options.

“We will consider the feedback received before making a decision,” she said.

Ms Verschoor said the new boundaries had to be implemented before the next local governments in November 2022.