Adelaide City Council votes to stop Adelaide Crows from building new headquarters in city parklands

The Adelaide Crows’ latest plans for a new HQ in Adelaide’s prized parklands have crashed at their first hurdle.

Adelaide Football Club John Olsen has failed in a bid to hold a meeting with Adelaide City Council to discuss new city headquarters. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Adelaide City Council has blocked any move by the Adelaide Crows to build new club headquarters in the Parklands.

Elected members have voted unanimously at a special meeting to oppose any bid by the club to use the parklands for “administrative facilities”.

The meeting was called by the dominant Team Adelaide faction, with leader Alexander Hyde arguing the council must make it “unequivocally clear” it was opposed to commercial development in the parklands.

Team Adelaide’s five members and five independents backed an amended motion to reject any attempts by the Adelaide Crows “to build administrative facilities, a Crows shed, medical support buildings, spas, aquatic centre and indoor training facilities or any other Adelaide Football Club building that is not a public facility”.

The decision followed a bid by former Liberal premier and recently appointed Crows chairman John Olsen to meet with councillors to seek support for an undisclosed city site for the club’s headquarters.

The Crows must relocate from their former Football Park base at West Lakes to make way for a multimillion-dollar housing redevelopment.

Their first attempt to secure a council-owned nursery at Hackney beside football ovals used by the University of Adelaide failed, forcing them to develop an alternative proposal to redevelop the Adelaide Aquatic Centre into a shared-use facility with the public.

The project was abandoned due to community opposition and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic 12 months ago.

.@CityofAdelaide councillors have voted unanimously to block any moves by @Adelaide_FC to build new club headquarters in the city parklands. Story @theTiserpic.twitter.com/qjDdeSVVuo

— Col James (@ColinJamesTiser) March 2, 2021

The issue reignited last month, when Mr Olsen sent a letter to Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor requesting a briefing with elected members. The letter, which did not reveal the proposed new location, prompted last night’s meeting.

During a 25-minute debate, the often divided council displayed a rare moment of unity, with all councillors in attendance expressing opposition to the Crows moving into the parklands.

Two of Cr Hyde’s fiercest rivals, North Adelaide residents Anne Moran and Phillip Martin, praised him for calling the meeting to make the council’s position clear to the public.

Greens candidate Robert Simms said the community had “been up in arms” since the Crows’ proposal to redevelop the aquatic centre became public in late 2019 after being kept secret for a year.

“I think tonight is a huge win for the people of Adelaide, it is an example of people power in action,” he said.

Cr Hyde said the council had to show the parklands could not be used for commercial activity if there was no public benefit.

“They (the Crows) seem to have ruled out including a community centre so we need to rule out any other options they may be considering as well otherwise we are handing over parklands for nothing and that is not what we are here to do,” he said.

Ms Verschoor said she understood Mr Olsen had been seeking urgent talks with the council because of pressures on the club involving funding for new headquarters.

No details had been provided to the council about exactly what the club wanted to build or its possible site.

Ms Verschoor said the council was not opposed to the Crows training in the parklands, only the construction of new headquarters.

“This (the vote) makes it very clear we are not looking for any administrative facility in the parklands, as opposed to the Crows coming here and using ovals or however else they want to do their training,” she said.

“They are the Adelaide Football Club and I think we should support them if they want to come and do some of their training in and around the city.”

Ms Verschoor said various legislation and statutory bodies controlled development within the parklands, including the Adelaide Park Lands Act, Adelaide Park Lands Authority and Adelaide Park Lands Management Strategy.

“These are the parameters around which we can have a conversation, should there be another conversation,” she said.

Cr Arman Abrahimzadeh was an apology for the meeting.

Originally published as Adelaide City Council votes to stop Adelaide Crows from building new headquarters in city parklands