Hutt St anti-social behavior could be fixed with Adelaide City Council plan

HUTT St has all sides of the city divided. Once a thriving retail and cafe strip, now vacant shops are multiplying as traders plead for action on anti-social behaviour linked to the street’s homeless centre.

• Alex Antic: Hutt St solution being stifled by political correctness

HUTT Street has all sides of the city divided.

For six months, concerns about the safety of residents and employees around the precinct has been at the centre of heated debates — as anti-social behaviour and allegations of substance abuse spiral.

Empty and abandoned shopfronts line the street, while the businesses that remain grapple with the downturn and the unsavoury characters who terrorise owners and customers.

A plea for help came from Adelaide City Councillor Alex Antic in October last year, when he stated that blood would be on the council’s hands if it did not take action in the CBD’s southeast pocket.

And it is the Hutt St Centre that is at the centre of much of the division over what was once a prime retail and cafe strip.

Many traders believe the centre, which provides shelter and assistance to the homeless or those at risk of homelessness, is at the core of the problem.

A council-led intervention is now underway with five new CCTV cameras installed down the southern end of the strip, a working group of key stakeholders being established, and a push for the reformation of a disbanded precinct association.

Hutt St CEO Ian Cox outside of the centre on Hutt St. Picture: Tait Schmaal

A report presenting additional recommendations from council administration will also be discussed at a meeting on Tuesday — and there’s hope it might just be the catalyst to bring everyone together.

“I don’t feel safe,” said Bici Espresso manager Toni Leverink.

The cafe is adjacent to the Hutt St Centre, which Ms Leverink said has “deterred a lot of my customers”.

“You don’t want to sit outside (at the cafe) and have a business meeting when the ‘F’ and the ‘C’ word is being constantly used across the road,” she said. “If we did not have a lease, we would be shifting.”

Vacant property is for lease on Hutt St. Picture: AAP / Matt Loxton

Empty buildings and rooms for lease on Hutt St. Picture: AAP / Matt Loxton

Ms Leverink was forced to take out an apprehended violence order on one man who would come into the cafe, and said she would like to see the centre moved.

“They were here way before me, and I love what they do, but the control has been lost,” she said.

“I’d like to see them moved from here because I don’t think the problem is ever going to get better.”

Between increased anti-social behaviour around the street and disruption from the August Towers development next to the cafe, Ms Leverink said sales were down at least 30 per cent.

EARLIER this month, traders gathered to express their concerns about safety on the strip, many echoing Ms Leverink’s experience.

She welcomed the council’s push for the traders to form a new precinct association, saying the previous group did not like “young blood” and new ideas.

Adelaide Travellers Inn owner Gary Locke chaired the former precinct association for a decade and said at the end they could barely get a quorum because businesses were time-poor or uninterested. He said that if the association had remained together, the street’s current issues would have been addressed more quickly.

Cibo outside on Hutt St. Picture: AAP / Matt Loxton

But he ruled out leading a new group because the process to create change was too slow.

“It probably wasn’t so much the street people as it is, it is more about the businesses closing,” he said.

“Part of them slowly moving out meant others can move in and more street people can hang around because there were less businesses to voice the problem. The police put their hand up and said ‘yes we have a problem’.

“The Hutt St Centre themselves are still putting their head in the sand and are still denying that they are part of the problem.”

WHILE Hutt St Centre chief executive Ian Cox believes it has been unfairly blamed for the anti-social behaviour — which he said occurred after the centre closes at 1pm — he said they had been listening to concerns.

The Advertiser last month revealed the centre was planning a multi-million rebuild on the site to provide better services.

However, Mr Cox said the rebuild was now “off the agenda”.

“We’re not even looking at it at the current time and one of the things is listening to the community,” he said.

“We just want to focus on getting people into housing and ending their homelessness and providing those support.”

Mr Cox denied the centre was bowing to community pressure but said after talking to stakeholders in the street “we probably thought in the end we were not quite ready for it either”.

“Obviously we are one of those organisations that does like to listen to people and act on it as well,” he said.

“We will be at the table,” he said.

Shelter SA chief executive Dr Alice Clarke said she didn’t want the Hutt St Centre associated with what goes on in Hutt St generally.

“There seems to be a lot of conflicting views and I’m not sure what is driving and making those connections with the Hutt St Centre that somehow crime and safety and drug issues and disorderly conduct is their responsibility,” she said.

“As the peak body we dislike seeing pressure put on that sort of service and it somehow being connected to their clients when there are actual wider problems going on.

South East City Residents Association chairman John Underwood said they would support a precinct association to complement their advocacy in that corner of the CBD.