Oh so very ADELAIDE

 Beirut v Paris: the remarkable battle against city growth

Article from Adelaide's InDaily.com.au Wednesday, 5 September 2012

OPINION Professor Andrew Beer
A COLLEAGUE recently emailed me the web address for a group that has been established to oppose the Development Plan Amendment (DPA) for the City of Adelaide. As many people will be aware, the DPA significantly frees up development within the square mile, with a goal of encouraging the growth of the city population to almost 50,000 people.

On August 18, there was a rally to protest the DPA and a website, StoptheDPA.com, was launched to represent the concerns of some residents in one part of the city.
The protest against the DPA is remarkable on a number of grounds. The website proudly proclaims that 60 people have been involved in its establishment, which suggests 0.2 per cent of the resident population of the City of Adelaide find the DPA objectionable. It is also remarkable that the protesters badge themselves as representing the south-west of the city – which they label the “Beirut quarter” of Adelaide – and argue that they will bear the brunt of change, while those in the more privileged “Paris quarter” of the south-east sector of the city will be largely untouched.

Despite such claims of disadvantage, the look and feel of the StoptheDPA website is one of comfortable baby boomers vociferously opposing development in any form.
There is no thought for those who are priced out of the inner-city housing market or, indeed, of all housing in Adelaide. The website also fails to acknowledge that the DPA adds considerably to the value of development rights for all landholders, with all protesters effectively recipients of a significant windfall.

The opposition to the City of Adelaide’s DPA raises parallels with recent work undertaken by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and discussed at a seminar at the end of August in Canberra. The OECD has recently completed a major piece of work on the impact of the renewable energy sector on regions. One of its conclusions was that there was growing opposition to wind farms and similar developments in many regions because communities as a whole had little or no stake in such investments. Privately owned wind farms have potential costs for communities with few compensatory benefits.
The OECD advocated the expansion of community ownership of renewable energy assets as one solution to this problem, with developments along these lines in Nova Scotia, Scotland and Wales leading the way.

Over recent years Australia has also witnessed opposition to wind farms, with South Australia part of this broader national trend. We should ask, therefore, whether the conclusions reached by the OECD have traction locally? Should we be introducing locally based and community-owned renewable energy initiatives which generate within townships a strong reason for accepting change?

If individuals within a community believe they will benefit from a development they will be more likely to accept the slight inconveniences that change may bring. Possible noise nuisance will be overlooked when the sound of turbines equates to cash into a bank account.
The same principles can be applied to urban development. Creating a wide pool of stakeholders in the development and improvement of our cities is one of the great challenges for Australia’s future. Indirectly, all of us have a stake in the economic wellbeing of the places in which we live, but too often it is easy to ignore that connection because we believe the consequences of no growth will be small-scale and the potential benefits of growth are either not obvious or seen to be too far into a distant future.

In other parts of the developed world, many communities have a much more favourable view of development because they see it as an opportunity to reduce the burden of taxes on existing residents, to achieve a level of amenity they could not otherwise afford, or to reshape their community into a more sustainable and prosperous settlement.

Many Australians appear to have an entrenched mindset that is inclined to oppose development in each and every form.
Major changes will be needed in taxation arrangements, public debate and community leadership if that attitude is to be reversed. What is certain, however, is that if Australia is to have a prosperous and sustainable future, the computer needs to be programmed to say “yes”, not “no”.

Professor Andrew Beer is director of the Centre for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Adelaide.