Author: norwoodresidentsassociation

SOAPBOX – MAY 2024

This section is for NRA members and Norwood residents to air their views on local topics and will be included in our newsletter. If you would like to contribute, please email your piece to:  norwoodresassoc@gmail.com.

These items will also be posted here on our website so you can make comments/contribute to the discussion.

To kick things off, former NRA President, Ian Radbone argues that we should be careful what we wish for when we demand more parking.

You want more parking?  Then accept more congestion.

When I was President of the Norwood Residents Association, the two most common complaints I used to hear were both about cars: too much traffic and not enough parking.  I used to respond by asking, “which do you think is worse?” because providing more parking results in more traffic.  It’s what we called a wicked problem when I used to teach public policy.  There’s no ultimate solution.

There’s a practically insatiable demand to drive more, and the more governments do to accommodate that driving, the more driving there is. 

I’m almost 70, and all my life governments have been “upgrading” (that is, widening) roads to cope with congestion.  It improves things for a while, but then it just seems to get worse than before. 

One thing that does discourage driving and encourages people to use other means of getting about, is a lack of parking.  Walking, cycling public transport are all more popular in the CBD because parking costs money.  Where parking in free and plentiful, people drive, at least until congestion gets too bad.  Then they complain about congestion, governments widen the roads, …and on it goes.

For a place like Norwood, the amount of local traffic per day can be calculated by the number of parking spaces and how often that parking space is “turned over” – how many cars use it in any one day.  The formula is:

daily local car trips = number of local car spaces x number of cars that use the space x 2.

So, if an on-street car space is used by a local employee all day it would probably generate only two trips. (Perhaps four if we include the evening.)  If it is on The Parade and has a 15 minute time limit during business hours it might generate sixty or more trips, i.e. more congestion.  It’s funny that the employee parking we complain about actually produces less congestion than customer parking.

The same applies to off-street spaces, of course.  There’s a two-hour time limit on the Council car park in Webbe Street.  Let’s assume it is 50% occupied and that every driver uses it for the full 2 hours, that is it gets turned over four times a day during business hours There are about 240 spaces in that car park, so the number of trips that car park generates would be

240 spaces x 4 turnovers x 50% occupancy x 2 trips, one in, one out = 960 trips

Shorter stays and higher occupancy would mean more trips than this. 

I don’t know how many of those trips would be using the George St/ Parade intersection, but it would be a lot, and I haven’t mentioned the 270 or so spaces owned by the shopping centre, which also have a two hour time limit, so another 1080 trips.  And I haven’t included any afterhours trips, though congestion is not such a problem then.  And then of course there’s the new car parking spaces associated with Coles, which I haven’t counted.

From time to time we hear calls for rate payers to pay for another deck to the Webbe Street car park.  Just remember that if that is done, congestion will be worse.

What can we do about it?  If we really want quiet streets, with lots of people walking and cycling, then actually cutting back on the amount of parking would do it.  But it would require a serious on-street parking regime to strictly enforce on-street parking policies, and that would not be popular with businesses and with many residents.  And The Parade’s economy relies on lots of customers driving here from other suburbs, so local businesses would not be so busy.

Another approach would be to “do an Unley”, that is, chop up streets so that they are accessible to local traffic but not to through traffic.  I live on Theresa Street, which was chopped up like this many years ago.  We don’t have traffic problems, and I can’t imagine my neighbours ever wanting to go back to the old days.  But then try to introduce new closures and opposition arises and nothing happens.  I think Donegal Street is the only other street in Norwood that has been given this treatment.  Are there others?

In the meantime, I avoid (and not add to) the congestion and parking problems by walking and cycling.  If I need a car, I hire one of two Flexicars based in Norwood, or hire a ute from Bunnings in Kent Town. 

Ian Radbone

Promising Signs For Heritage Protection – Ian Radbone

The State government has invited the Council to propose improvements to the Planning and Design Code that would provide more detail on the sorts of development that is desired and not desired, as well as more protection of the buildings that create our streetscape character. 

The Council took up the invitation at its meeting of the 22 January 2024.  You can read the detail in the Council’s agenda (item 11.2). 

Previous State governments have successively taken over more and more planning powers, culminating in the Planning and Design Code, which tends to take a cookie cutter approach to the character of our streets.  This caused a lot of unhappiness with local councils and residents, who often saw their own far more sophisticated and nuanced plans lost.  The jettisoned plans were typically based on lots of local surveys and other research. For example, the Residential Character (Norwood) Zone in the old Development Plan occupied ten pages, with a map, an explanation of the desired local character, principles of control, specific numerical controls, and diagrams like the one below. 

In addition there were five “Policy Areas” with more specific controls for that area. Fortunately the old Development Plan is still available on a State Government website, so you can see how it looks and can compare it with the Planning and Design Code.

As well as the herculean effort to come up with Area Statements that could be applied in many localities across the State, the Planning and Design Code also tries to make these fit with its various other controls, the provisions for each zone and “overlay”, as well as the so-called Technical and Numerical Variations that normally control what can and can’t be built. 

Needless to say, the State planners have often failed, with far less detail and explanation and with many inconsistencies between the zones, overlays and the Technical and Numerical Variations. 

The government has been told again and again about these problems, and it appeared that it has listened.  The Chair of the State Planning Commission, Craig Holden, has written to Mayor Robert Briar inviting the Council to update the Historic Area and Character Statements, at one stage referring to “their” (i.e. the Council’s) statements.  The Council has been invited to elaborate more on local character areas, reflecting differences from one street to another.  

While the existing confusing format of the Code will be retained, Councils can include some of the key measurements in the Character Statements.  And it can be specific about the sorts of additions that can be allowed.  Here is an example of what might be possible in an area with old single storey houses: “Predominantly single storey, with two storey additions within the roof space to the rear of buildings.”  Images of the sort of things the planners have in mind, which featured in our old Development Plan, will be brought back.

Protection for “Representative Buildings”

Another welcome aspect of the new government approach is that it has invited Council to nominate more buildings that should be subject to demolition controls.  But it is limited to certain areas of Norwood.

Under the old Development Plan, Norwood’s old buildings were not as protected as those of neighbouring suburbs.  These were referred to as “Contributory Items” in the old regime, and a lot of the lobbying in the change to the Planning and Design Code was to ensure that these Contributory Items had the same protection in the new regime.  The problem for Norwood (and Kent Town) is that the old Development Plan had very few Contributory Items nominated, despite surveys that identified these. 

The following image following is from the SA Property and Planning Atlas, with Norwood outlined in green.  The zones in light blue are Historic Areas, where there is some demolition control.  The pink areas are “Character Areas”.  There is no specific demolition control for the Character Areas.  The red dots are Representative Buildings, where demolition would need approval. 

You can see that there is a lot of Norwood that is not part of an Historic Area.  Don’t you think that there would be Representative Buildings, where demolition should need to be approved by Council, in the rest of Norwood?

The proposal to initiate a Code Amendment specifically excludes expanding the boundaries of the Historic Areas and Character Areas.  Council has been invited to nominate more Representative Buildings within the Historic and Character Areas, but that still leaves many parts of Norwood likely to have buildings that in other suburbs would be protected.

Can you help keep the NRA going?

If Norwood is to thrive as a community and not just a suburb, it needs residents to work together, to represent the residents in dealing with government, to encourage community activities, to build connections between people.  

The Norwood Residents Association has been doing this for 23 years.  

With the demise of local newspapers, our role in informing residents has never been more important.

But with three of our long-standing committee members retiring at the next AGM, including the President and Secretary, our future is in doubt. Our next AGM may be our last.  

If you are interested in helping to keep the NRA going, we’d love to hear from you.

Phone President Ian Radbone, 0402 965 929.