News & Discussion: Adelaide City Council

[Wayno]

Guys, keep in mind David is talking about the 'remainder of the square mile' not already covered by the State Government’s Capital City DPA. So even Rau and his govt mates have 'fenced off' certain areas from high rise.

So you can jump up and down, rant & rave, and hold your breath, but it will change nothing.

Also curious whether everyone with opinion here knows what street blocks are the topic of discussion? And have you visited and seen these areas and what is to be preserved? If you have and still hold the same opinion then ok, you're entitled to it. i'm just keen for informed discussion.

[SRW]

Guys, keep in mind David is talking about the 'remainder of the square mile' not already covered by the State Government’s Capital City DPA. So even Rau and his govt mates have 'fenced off' certain areas from high rise.

So you can jump up and down, rant & rave, and hold your breath, but it will change nothing.

Also curious whether everyone with opinion here knows what street blocks are the topic of discussion? And have you visited and seen these areas and what is to be preserved? If you have and still hold the same opinion then ok, you're entitled to it. i'm just keen for informed discussion.

Hear, hear Wayno. I, for one, am very grateful that Clr Plumridge takes the time to engage with us here. We don't have to agree with him (or with the Council) but we should treat him (and them) respectfully and at least take the time to read and understand their exact points!

In this instance, David was talking the development plan amendment for areas that are already historic conservation zones or reasonably treated similarly. Even Sensational-Adelaide in its submission a few years back agreed the south-east and south-west residential areas be left alone. When it comes down to it, they're established communities and deserve to be treated differently to the empty or under-utilised industrial/commercial plots that the state government justly lifted restrictions on last year.

And on the council's proposed amendment, I broadly agree, although I think there's some scope to be a bit more generous with heights on the mainstreet zones and South Terrace.

[crawf]

Really, what harm do these temporary promotions do?... and four, just four people complaining and there is write up about it.

Focus on more important things.

Adelaide City Council admits Monopoly bus shelters on King William St 'breached contract'
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... 6578801966
City Messenger

McDonald's bus shelter on King William St earlier this month. Picture: Tim Williams. Source: adelaidenow

KING William St bus shelters made to look like Monopoly board hotels should not have been allowed, the City Council says.

Red roofs, complete with chimneys, were added to three King William St bus stops for two weeks from late January, as part of McDonald's "Monopoly Millionaire" promotion.

In a turnaround from last week, chief executive Peter Smith says Cr Anne Moran was right when she insisted advertising must be confined to the ends of bus shelters.

The council originally said advertising company Adshel had exclusive rights to display advertisements on shelters as long as they were not political, religious, pornographic or likely to offend.

In a letter to the City Messenger this week, Mr Smith wrote "further examination" of its agreement with Adshel found advertising should be limited to the "illuminated light box" on each shelter.

"The agreement prohibits the advertising agency from altering shelters without prior written consent from (the) council," he wrote.

"In this case the request wasn't made.

"Had it occurred, (the) council wouldn't have supported it."

Mr Smith wrote Adshel was normally "very reliable" in complying with the agreement.

"However, we will be raising this oversight with them, along with council officers being more vigilant in our monitoring of shelters, to remove the risk of future issues."

An email from council staff to elected members said a meeting would be sought with Adshel to "reiterate the terms of the contract" and advise them the McDonald's campaign was "not acceptable".

"We will advise Adshel any future breaches could result in us seeking penalties," the email said.

Cr Moran had received four complaints from residents who said the altered bus shelters were inappropriate next to tourist drawcards such as Parliament House and the Festival Centre.

Most of the 76 people who responded to an adelaidenow story last week liked the promotion.

The City Messenger is seeking comment from Adshel.

Last week Adshel marketing executive Ed Pullen said the company had no plans for similar campaigns in the CBD.

[Matt]

Oh bore off.
The ads were a laugh, the vast majority of people (bar the half handful of windbags moaning to Cr Moran) liked it, and it probably added something quirky to the street scape for Fringe.
Get over it.

[Wayno]

Slow news week. Grass fire at brownhill creek was the highlight.

[Shahkar]

Be prepared for the week when the highlight is going to be the moving of the Tetrahedra. All hell's gonna break loose. This was in today's article: "FIRST they moved his Mall's Balls, now acclaimed sculptor Bert Flugelman faces having his Tetrahedra touched."

[david]

Notes from Councillor Plumridge - Issue 91

- Constitutional Recognition - Is it still on?
- Residential Development Programme
- Taking a Dim View

Decisions of Council 27 February 2013 (including approval of the Torrens Footbridge Final Design)

Notes from Councillor Issue 91.pdf

(172.1 KiB) Downloaded 630 times

David Plumridge
Adelaide City Council

[Wayno]

thanks David, i also heard about this recently.

TAKING A DIM VIEW
From July, all shops and offices in Paris and the rest of France will have to turn off their lights at night. This is to “reduce the print of artificial lighting on the nocturnal environment and to save energy”. The new law would cut CO2 emissions by 250,000 tonnes a year and significantly reduce light pollution. Under the new laws the interior lights of non-residential buildings would have to be turned off an hour after the last worker leaves and façade floodlighting turned off by 1am.
Attractions such as the Eiffel Tower will remain lit and exceptions will be made for Christmas and other celebrations.

Apparently this law will save enough energy to power 750,000 households a year. I bet this decision has riled the energy companies

That to the side, the concept of light pollution & trespass is also interesting.

[metro]

Can anyone tell me why the width of this particular pedestrian crossing has been cut in half?

http://goo.gl/maps/Zwhkk

It is one of the city's busiest pedestrian crossings, I thought it should have been extended right over the carpark entrance there and made into a scatter crossing, not cut down to just a couple of metres wide.

[SRW]

New rules limit size of street preaching groups
Rebecca Brice, ABC News Online, 13 March 2013

Adelaide City Council has passed new restrictions on street permits after winning a High Court fight against preachers who use the city's busy Rundle Mall.

The preachers say the new rules are too restrictive and are threatening a new legal challenge.

Members of the Adelaide Street Church usually make their appearances on Friday nights when the shopping mall is at its busiest, as preacher Caleb Corneloup explained.

"[We] usually preach once a week for a period of about an hour, broken up into two bits, maybe a bit longer, and then we talk to people that have gathered. We can talk for many hours," he said.

"Rundle Mall is a good location for preaching. It's a good opportunity to reach the general public. You've got a great diversity of people."

The preachers claimed an Adelaide City Council by-law breached their constitutionally-implied freedom of speech by forcing them to get a permit, but the High Court disagreed.

The religious group then said it would work with the council to get permits, but now the Council has a new policy, as CEO Peter Smith explains.

"It's taken us a couple of weeks to get some legal advice on policy and guidelines that will apply in making sure that people don't ending up crowding the roads and creating disturbances and that applies of course to Rundle Mall, which is a (closed-off) road," he said.

Among the restrictions are that no more than four people can gather to preach, they must display only one sign and they must be 50 metres away from other permit holders.

"We think four people preaching at once is probably enough and, in terms of the signage, we think one hand-held sign is good in terms of not having a lot of signs there that then clutter the mall or the road," Mr Smith said.

'Absolute prohibitions'

Mr Corneloup said his group was prepared to go back to court.

"I would say that those prohibitions would need to be removed because they're not merely prohibition unless you get a permit - they're absolute prohibitions," he said.

"If they're making a total prohibition on people gathering in groups more than four then I would challenge the validity of that by-law, for sure.

"If they pursue this and apply in a way which tries to limit us the council can expect to spend half-a-million [dollars] by the end of the year."

Mr Smith will wait to see what happens.

"Well look, that's their right. We haven't just come up with this policy out of the blue, which is why it's taken since the High Court decision to draft it," he said.

"The legal advice I have is that the guidelines and the policy is absolutely consistent with the High Court decision.

"If people choose to challenge that and to take Council back through another long legal battle, that's their choice."

He admitted the Council would not welcome a costly fight.

"I'm always concerned in terms of cost to ratepayers. As people know, it's been a significant cost and we're still counting it," he said.

Councillor Anne Moran defended the new rules passed by Council as fair.

"We're not saying the preachers can't preach and we're not saying that anybody can't get a licence to preach or sing or busk in the mall, but there have to be guidelines to make sure that everybody lives symbiotically with each other," she said.

"The preachers have been difficult in the past, obviously, but as long as they abide by the rules they can preach."

[AdelaideAlive]

that holly oak next to the festival theatre bistro is ajoke , no way could or should they retain that,and expensive excercise to even think of relocating it.

[pushbutton]

I'm all for freedom of speech, but the so-called street preachers are beyond a joke sometimes with their highly offensive ranting and banners. I hope this latest move will help discourage them. However it's a real shame it's cost ratepayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to do something that most people would agree is simple common sense (and still with no real outcome).

To me the street preachers are another reason (not that I really needed another) not to shop in Rundle Mall! At least in a suburban mall they would simply be kicked out by security.

[monotonehell]

So they took it all the way to the Supreme Court and lost. Now they want to take it back to court?



Implied political communication from common law is what we have here. We have no constitutional freedom of speech. Religion is a product, a service, not a political stance. They should be held to the same standards as commercial advertising.

[[Shuz]]

It is one of the city's busiest pedestrian crossings, I thought it should have been extended right over the carpark entrance there and made into a scatter crossing, not cut down to just a couple of metres wide.

Hear, hear.

[softgrow]

I rang the council after reading too many "hear hears" and got a reply today. The crossing was reduced in width to reduce the risk of collisions between vehicles and people walking across the crossing on the Southern side, particularly on the Western (Charles Street) portion of the crossing. I've observed strange things with people driving into the crossing coming left out of the carpark or alternatively when North Terrace is congested West bound and ending up stopped in the crossing with people walking behind and in front of them. Shouldn't happen I know, but does. Further work needs to be done by council to provide better "pedestrian storage" on the Southern Side and access to Charles Street as well, ahem, outdoor dining in a pedestrian crossing is not supported by council policy.