‘You’ll axe 80-odd significant trees, for what?’: Glenside plan angers residents, parliamentarians and others
MORE than 80 large trees are set to be razed to make way for a housing development in the city’s inner south east — and it has many people, not just those who live in the area, outraged.
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MORE than 80 significant and regulated trees are set to be axed at the old Glenside Hospital site to make way for townhouses and apartments.
Residents, living both locally as well as from across metropolitan Adelaide, and parliamentarians, including Greens MLC Mark Parnell, have expressed anger at the proposal by developer Cedar Woods.
The plan to get rid of so many big trees is expected to be assessed by the State Government’s Development Assessment Commission later this month.
Resident Merideth Ide said the community felt let down by the process.
“It’s really just pushing it through too fast without any proper consultation and people seem to be very annoyed … that you don’t get any response when you do put in a submission,” she said.
“It’s a bit ironic that the name of the developer is Cedar Woods and (they’re) wanting to chop down trees.”
More than 100 people turned at a meeting to express their outrage over the proposal to raze so many significant trees.
Barry Barber, who organised the meeting, said the community was disappointed by the proposed removal of trees.
“They dropped this bombshell on us in December,” Mr Barber said.
“Personally, I think they’re just taking the easy road out.
“It’s much easier to build on a clean site than it is to build around trees.”
He said residents were resigned to the redevelopment of the site, but thought there should be a balance between new buildings and existing trees.
Mr Barber said he was surprised by how far some people had travelled from across Adelaide to attend the meeting.
Burnside chief executive Paul Deb said the council would take community sentiment into account when sending its submission to the DAC.
“Although not the assessing authority for this project, (the) council still seeks to lobby for the best interests of our community,” Mr Deb said.
“We will have the opportunity to comment on this latest development application, however, a decision on the application rests with the DAC.”
The proposed housing estate would include up to 1000 homes, incorporating a mixture of apartments and townhouses.
The 16.5ha former Glenside Hospital site was sold to Cedar Woods for $28.5 million last year. The project is expected to generate around 450 fulltime construction jobs and $400 million in building and other activities.
According to the SA Government website, a regulated tree is defined as having a trunk circumference of 2m or bigger while to be deemed as significant, a tree must have a trunk circumference of 3m or more.