A frequent complaint amongst those living in Black Forest and Clarence Gardens, and I believe in Everard Park with this DPA. They claim we have been targeted to save those “posh” or wealthy suburbs.

I can not blame people for this as our (Council’s) communication did not spell out to those who have not been aware that this process has been going on for some time that it was just our turn this year.

The centre area north of the Council on Unley Road have already been through this process.That amendment (known as DPA 3) the Main Roads Corridor.

As is often the case people do not pay much attention to what is going on or being proposed until it is on their door step. And that is fair enough. But we did not recognise that this would be the case and omitted to show what had happened in order to put things into perspective.

Greenhill Road and Unley Road have both been through this process before and attracted a lot of attention and reaction at the time. This DPA has now been rubber stamped by the Minister for Planning, John Rau after a long consultative process. A process that allowed for some significant modifications to the plan to address impositions that would have impacted on neighbours and therefore the neighbourhood had the changes not occurred.

One major change was a last minute back down by DPTI, on behalf of the minister on a previous non-negotiable, when it came to set backs for side boundaries and what we called the envelope. They (he) assented that buildings exceeding 2 storeys in height should fit within an envelope created by drawing a 30 degree line from 2 metres high on the boundary.

This is an initiative included in the current DPA, although I believe it needs extending from just being on the zone boundaries to being on property boundaries.

Greenhill Road has now approval for building heights ranging from 5 storeys at the east end, to 7 in the centre and 10 behind the Showgrounds. The north end of Unley Road (something I voted against) has been approved for 3 to 5 stories of mixed use, retail on the ground floor, commercial on the next and residential above this.

These two roads we claim have already provided the Government the numbers they have asked from the City of Unley. This is not good enough for them however and so we find ourselves trespassing into the outer rim of the Council area.

Just so that you know we are also working currently on Unley Central, an area north of Mary Street, South of Thomas Street and stretching from the Unley Shopping Centre to the Unley Oval. This is expected to transform this area allowing mixed use. Including residential accommodation over retail, commercial, entertainment and open space will potentially transform and invigorate this area (if we get it right).

It is an area that will surely attract redevelopment before our little patch. It is an area that can add well more to the Government’s targets than our little patch.

Beyond that, Goodwood Road will also come under the microscope into the future.