"Vision for Adelaide" - Adelaide Infra. & Parklands Pro.

[flavze]

Why is it that continually Individuals/Groups in the private sector can come up with stunning ideas for our city yet the Government who spends millions on consultants continually come up with half arsed dodgy plans all the time?
There's very little in that Vision for Adelaide plan that i disagree with.

[Ho Really]

...As part of our own submission to the ACC we suggested the idea of an international botanic gardens on the currently barren southern parklands...

I would rather see all the barren areas of the south parklands become a huge water reservoir (maybe 10 to 20 metres deep). The alternative, an underground system, would suit your proposal Will of a green park. Another idea is just to have wetlands. I think wetlands would be better suited in the south where the land is flatter rather than the west as suggested in the proposal, where the land angles down towards Mile End.

Cheers

[Prince George]

Why is it that continually Individuals/Groups in the private sector can come up with stunning ideas for our city yet the Government who spends millions on consultants continually come up with half arsed dodgy plans all the time?

I'll give you five possible answers, and you can pick whichever one suits you:

1. The high-price consultants border on being total incompetents and are a big fat waste of money. Arm-chair planners like ourselves can do considerably better at little or no cost.
2. Good planning is actually really difficult and the plans proposed by people like us are deeply flawed in ways that we don't appreciate. Consultants earn their money by knowing what they are doing and avoiding these mistakes; their plans look nothing like ours because of theirs are good and ours are bad.
3. Good planning is really difficult because of the legion of strange requirements mandated by law. Consider the problem of parking, what must you plan for: minimum amount of parking to provide, limits on the design of a satisfactory car-park, minimum provision of drive way access to the car-park, impact on traffic patterns in the adjoining streets, provision of pedestrian/bike/bus/handicapped access to and through the car-park. Consultants are expected to take all of these details into account, which is extra work, which costs extra money, and compromises their planning freedom (producing half-arsed plans).
4. The problem for government is competing priorities. Each of the groups that are proposing plans are able to satisfy their own priorities reasonably well, but they have agendas that are frequently at odds with each other. The consultants are stuck with having to "square the circle" and come up with plans that resolve these conflicts. But by trying to satisfy everyone, they continuously risk satisfying no-one.
5. Some combination of all of the above.

I think that the answer is the last one. Consultantants are a waste of money because we give them an impossible job with bizzare restrictions and conflicting requirements. We (arm-chair planners) are not actually doing as well as we think we are because we're not aware of all these problems. Planning restrictions actually direct so much of the final result that planning and design has been turned into some sort of game of 20-Questions-meets-Twister. Living election-to-election makes a government essentially conservative - they don't want to risk ticking anyone off if they can avoid it - but no-one is really satisfied by the results. The Queen and I are coming around to the idea that we might start resolving these problems by giving the general public a clearer role in planning.

[Wayno]

Why is it that continually Individuals/Groups in the private sector can come up with stunning ideas for our city yet the Government who spends millions on consultants continually come up with half arsed dodgy plans all the time?

Living election-to-election makes a government essentially conservative - they don't want to risk ticking anyone off if they can avoid it - but no-one is really satisfied by the results.

BINGO! I believe this to be the crux of the matter. Imagine if real world business was run this way - what a joke!

[Strangled Cat]

Why is it that continually Individuals/Groups in the private sector can come up with stunning ideas for our city yet the Government who spends millions on consultants continually come up with half arsed dodgy plans all the time?

Living election-to-election makes a government essentially conservative - they don't want to risk ticking anyone off if they can avoid it - but no-one is really satisfied by the results.

BINGO! I believe this to be the crux of the matter. Imagine if real world business was run this way - what a joke!

Jeff Kennett didn't give a rats about that though! He got heaviliy criticised for spending too much money in the city and not enough for the regional areas and essentials services, but Melbourne hasn't looked back since. Spending big on the capital city providing it's warranted and economically viable is the best thing. Then the royalties can flow through the rest of the state. He got outvoted by Steve Bracks (bad bad move), but he really got the ball rolling for the Southbank and indeed the Docklands. Just look how many private investors have setup their HQ in Melbourne, I beleive Jeff Kennett deserves credit for this. *Comments retracted about MHS after reading political thread*.

[Vee]

Well done, James and the Vision for Adelaide team! It's great to see the passion, thinking, planning and action involved in this endeavour. We need overall vision, bold action and a 'can do' attitude rather than give in to the 'naysayers' who seem to stymie almost every reasonable proposal that comes up.

The redevelopment of the zoo entrance and surrounds & new enclosures (eg pandas) stands out like a beacon (a credit to the forward thinking zoo management) in a sea of disappointments and inaction. The debacle of the failed Victoria Park redevelopment still rankles and the sight of so many dead/dying trees in our magnificent (but dustbowl) parklands saddens me. We need an overall vision, intelligent debate and strong leadership to move things forward.
Congratulations on getting your 'Vision for Adelaide' out there.

[Vision For Adelaide]

Thanks All,

Again I reaffirm we appreciate your comments.

Just wanted to make mention, this proposal is supposed to be for everyone, by no means is it complete, this is merely the begining. As such its open to suggestions, modifications new ideas and approaches.

Please keep involved and keep suggesting, if you want to get your proposal included, or are able to contribute in some way please forward your details and or work to [email protected]. More then happy to give you the credit.

We are seriously pushing to get some media attention - we have setup a website http://www.visionforadelaide.com - check it out. Not a competitor to this site, its purpose built to create dicussion and allow updates of plans and proposals. Check it out and sign up for updates.

We have recently signed on an architect and a ex-Adelaide marketer who are keen to provide concept sketches and build a purpose built website respectively. We will post updates to the website once completed.

To emphasise everyone is working pro-bono for one reason - promote great ideas and push to have them happen in our city - you would be astonished as to how many people have offered their services after seeing this document. We admit its not perfect but with the resources and time we had to do it we still quite proud and its gets the key ideas across. Be bold, plan well, succeed!

Thanks again for your support.

Vision for Adelaide Team

[SRW]

It's truly heartening to see people in the community being proactive in their compassion for Adelaide. It really seems that more and more people are starting to speak up about their hopes and visions for the city, and that can only bode well for the future.

So, congratulations on your document (though, with respect, it'd benefit greatly from a thorough copy-editing).

You mention that you're a group of professionals -- perhaps you could offer us a run down about yourself and the rest of your team, or maybe they'd like to join the discussion here too? It's all a bit vague at the moment.

[Wayno]

Hi Vision for Adelaide guys, what's the latest news here? have you finished your doc? what are your next steps?

[Vee]

Hi Vision for Adelaide guys, what's the latest news here? have you finished your doc?
what are your next steps?

Yes, keen to find out how this is progressing.
Lots of election in the wind and fast approaching announcements these days.
Great scope for good news in this general 'vision' for Adelaide thread?
Hope!!!

[Vision For Adelaide]

Evening all,

I know its been a long time everyone. Our apologies its damn hard when you work bloody hard in the private sector, trying to setup your own developments then have to hound the public sector in your spare time to get things done!

Just reading through some of the comments, we have edited it more thoroughly since the first draft, have updated the website, and are trying to post articles from time to time, we are on twitter which we are finding easier to get messages out from time to time.

What have we achieved since we spoke? Well, we were on the radio (5AA) thankyou Amanda Blair for giving us a go, we were invited to chat with some ACC councilors and have done so, we were invited to meet Martin Hamilton-smith and share our ideas, we were then also invited to meet with Isobel Redmond and do the same. Both were in relation to the proposal put forward.

The proposal has been sent from A to Z (Which i did mention), SA Tourism, Labor ministers and we know it got as far as Jane Lomax-Smith (but apparently she didnt approve of the green borders - and shes seen SO many visions in here time "another vision" she reportedly said) so we have had zero luck with Labor. Besides a few letters re-affirming their policy which at one point dismissed the value of an inner city stadium entirely (we have it in writing folks) We sent it to the property council, Business SA, Racing SA, 30 year Plan and got good responses all round. To be honest we think the only ones who listened AND did something was a ACC councilor, Property council and The Liberals plus any average Adelaidian! But to us thats enough. We think we helped build the ground swell which eventually got Adelaide an inner city stadium. Dare we say allot of the Liberal vision looks and feels like ours, particularly the NA golf course idea. Not interested in credit but do love the vision i can see the Commonwealth games there now and a huge boom in the west end of Adelaide.

We sent/send a allot of emails and try to put proposals forward where possible, if you dont do it formally nothing will happen, so if you are interested do it, public opinion makes a big difference.

Let us know if you want to know any more.

Vision For Adelaide (VFA) Team

[cruel_world00]

*a lot

[iTouch]

Because you guys have been doing a lot in terms of public exposure, I imagine you'd have a lot of opposition arise against you. I respect you guys alot. Good luck