Planning Minister John Rau signals his intention to more than double the CBD’s population
MORE than 50,000 people could live in central Adelaide within a decade, as Planning Minister John Rau signals his intention to more than double the CBD’s population. What do you think — take our poll
MORE than 50,000 people could live in central Adelaide within a decade, as Planning Minister John Rau signals his intention to more than double the CBD’s population.
As the State Government prepares to review its 30-year plan for Greater Adelaide, Mr Rau has also suggested the overall metropolitan area could eventually comfortably become home to another million people.
“If we had the same density as is in North Adelaide through the existing footprint of the city, we could probably absorb another million people or something,” he said.
“If you had a look at North Adelaide, nobody would call that ... a highly dense suburb. It is certainly not in the Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne or Kowloon (Hong Kong) category.”
The 30-year plan was released in 2010 and set a City of Adelaide population target of about 48,000 by 2040, but Mr Rau says targets should be set higher.
“I think within the next 10 to 15 years we should aim for 50,000 in the city, maybe even that is a little modest and we could push that harder,” he said.
“People need to recall that 100 years ago, twice as many people were living in the City of Adelaide as live here now. We had over 44,000 people living in the City of Adelaide. We are now just creeping back up to 22,000 or 23,000, having been down as low as 11,000.
“If we cannot get 50,000-odd people into the space that used to have 44,000 in 1914, well, I think we are not setting ourselves much in the way of targets.”
The Government review of 30-year plan is scheduled for completion by the end of next year.
Mr Rau said the review would not “tear up” the existing plan.
“What the review is intending to say is: ‘Ok, now that five years have passed, how are we tracking according to some of the underpinning assumptions in this plan?” he said.
“Are some of these assumptions wrong? If they are wrong, let’s change them and acknowledge they are wrong, and see what that now does to the outcome.”
Mr Rau said that urban infill — building homes within already populated areas — had increased far more than the plan had anticipated.
“All the planning reform I have been driving is to help people pursue higher density,” he said.
“Infill growth is accelerating ... without the rezones we have done in the inner rim or in the CBD, although the rim rezones and the CBD rezones will actually help that even further.
Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood said he was glad the Government supported a doubling the city’s population, which the council had been pursing.
Opposition planning spokesman Steven Griffiths said he agreed with the Government’s policy position that there needed to be a mix of intensely populated areas and development on greenfields sites.
“But the Government has to massage heritage issues against that, too,” he said.