Colin James: Don’t just split them up – kick out the North Adelaide NIMBYs

If the powerful people of North Adelaide really won’t join us in the 21st century they could easily move to Prospect, writes Colin James.

If a small but powerful group of North Adelaide residents had got their way, there would have been no Test cricket played under lights at Adelaide Oval last night.

For years, led by the North Adelaide Society, they fought the oval’s redevelopment, initially demanding the installation of retractable light towers before one collapsed, injuring workers. Now, the same individuals are hellbent on stopping apartment towers from being built on the former Le Cornu site on O’Connell St, which has lain empty for the best part of three decades.

In between Environment, Resources and Development Court hearings challenging planning approval granted to the $200m project on the basis of its height and scale, many have been attending meetings of the Adelaide City Council, heckling and sniping at councillors during debates about a review of its boundaries which could see their precious fiefdom split down the middle.

Instead of accepting fact-backed arguments and expensive consultant reports that they need reduced political representation because of virtually stagnant population growth, they have sent emissaries to insist the council maintain the status quo, as is the North Adelaide way.

Adelaide City Council

These are the same people who protested against the Adelaide Crows redeveloping the dilapidated Adelaide Aquatic Centre, opposed football clubrooms for a private school on Bundey’s Paddock, attended rallies about proposed zoning changes to the parklands and tried to pull the plug on concerts at Memorial Drive.

Now they are determined to stop developers working with the council to turn the empty Le Cornu site into a large residential hub with shops, cafes, bars, offices, consulting suites and carparking. Not surprisingly, and with justification, they have started to show yet again why North Adelaide residents are perceived as a bunch of self-entitled, stuffy naysayers who resist any attempts by outsiders to achieve progress or change.

Which is probably unfair. For, while there is a vocal minority of predominantly middle-aged-to-elderly citizens determined to wrap North Adelaide in a time-warp cocoon, there is a silent majority of residents receptive to progress.

Most of the pre sales for luxury apartments in the Le Cornu development, for example, have been to locals.

It is time for these people to start speaking up. For too long, the well-heeled descendants of wealthy families who built mansions between Barton Tce and Ward St soon after colonisation have controlled North Adelaide’s destiny – and wilfully interfered with what is happening on the other side of the River Torrens.

Artist Impressions of the plans for the Le Cornu site in North Adelaide. Picture Supplied

Their tentacles reach into various corridors of power, from Adelaide Town Hall to state parliament. At the sign of any threat to their precious suburb, they activate their representatives, particularly long-term city councillors Anne Moran and her media-savvy ally Phillip Martin.

Both have spent months fighting the bid by the council’s dominant faction to divide North Adelaide down Jeffcott St so its number of ward councillors can be reduced from two to one. The proposal is now with the Electoral Commission. If unsuccessful, here is another option for debate.

With so many North Adelaide residents constantly objecting to most things the ACC wants to do, why not make an application to the boundaries commission to hand it to Prospect Council?

Prospect mayor David O’Loughlin is a politically ambitious character. A former state Labor candidate and president of the national local government association, he is not afraid of a fight. If he wants to take over North Adelaide, he could make a bid for Walkerville Council as well.

Yes, the ACC would lose a large chunk of its income. But it would no longer have to worry about appeasing residents on the other side of the river who remain reluctant to join the 21st century.