Addressing the Housing Crisis
Wednesday 2 April 2025
Second Reading Debate - Planning, Development and Infrastructure (Environment and Food Production Areas) Amendment Bill 2025
Ms CLANCY (Elder) (16:39): I rise today in support of the Planning, Development and Infrastructure (Environment and Food Production Areas) Amendment Bill 2025. As we all know, Australia is in the grip of a housing crisis, and South Australia is not immune. Greater Adelaide's population is expected to grow by 670,000 people by 2050. As it stands, we are not able to reach the levels of new builds required using the current planning framework. Urban infill has successfully increased density within our established residential areas, though not without some challenges, but we need to do more to make sure our growing population is able to find housing suited to their lives and family situations.
As a government, we have reassessed new housing targets and removed the 85 per cent urban infill policy. While infill has served its purpose, increasing housing close to infrastructure and services, as a government we have also listened to our communities and acted. Infill is not always popular and can sometimes create unintended consequences, such as parking congestion and tree loss.
My electorate of Elder is home to multiple character suburbs, and I hear regularly from residents who are devastated by the loss of tree canopy due to the levelling of blocks for subdivision. Cumberland Park and Westbourne Park are established neighbourhoods with much intact pre-1940s housing stock. The setbacks or front yards in these suburbs are uniform, as is the side setback from each neighbour. All are single storey with the occasional two-storey art deco beauty located on a corner block. Garages and driveways are minor elements of the streetscape and almost always set back behind the building line. Roof forms are gabled, most have porches, and all have eaves.
These are the components that form what is colloquially referred to as 'leafy suburbs'. These attributes are not super-complicated: space in the front yard for trees, houses set back from the shared property line and footpath, porches and eaves to block our harsh summer sun, street trees planted on adequate verge space. In contrast, urban infill is often defined by a break in the setback pattern, meaning no space for a tree, a concrete double-car driveway and garage, which eats away the remaining green space, a long concrete wall sometimes along the shared property line with neighbours, and no porches or eaves to speak of.
This results in a loss of canopy on private land that leaves no space for replacement plantings, sometimes a loss of a street tree due to subdivision and substantially more stormwater run-off due to an increase in concrete and hardscaping. These losses compound, resulting in the need for air conditioning to run day and night in summer in the new builds, because they have no trees, no porches, no eaves and therefore no shade.
These issues may seem inconsequential when faced with the current housing crisis—any housing is good housing, right? But in parts of my electorate, people understand how fortunate they are to live in their leafy suburbs and are devastated when the character and liveability of their suburb is chipped away by developers. I was contacted literally on Tuesday by a resident in her late 70s who has endured 13 months of building next door to her home in Westbourne Park. The loss of a beloved tree whose roots were damaged by the demolition has been particularly hard. She wrote a letter to the developer and copied me in. She said:
Our 40+ year elm tree in the front yard which we and indeed many neighbours loved, fell over and died within weeks of the bulldozers' demolition, levelling the land to flat.
We received letters from nearby children and condolences from friends and neighbours who loved and missed this beautiful neighbourhood tree. It was cared for by an arborist and was as healthy and fine as a tree could be.
It housed dozens of birds, reduced heat inside and out of the house, providing beauty for everyone and peace and shade for us.
You lived elsewhere, but we lived here…and construction continued daily for 5 days, often 6, very occasionally 7 days a week, for more than a year with high pitched, physical and psychoacoustic construction noise. A cacophony of unnatural sounds…grinding, screaming, drilling into concrete, hammering, knocking, etc., made by Dump trucks, Excavators, Breakers, Loaders, Concrete pumps, Concrete vibrators, Angle grinders, Jackhammers, Electric drills…even a crane usually sited in larger construction in the city…The noise was shattering…We didn't complain, kept thinking it would be over soon…
There is nothing that can be done now but I hope the council reconsiders the balance between development, neighbours and neighbourhood…
As a government, we understand that it is essential to find the right balance between urban infill and greenfield development. We have listened to the community and we do not want to put additional infill pressure on already dense areas of our inner city. We have recalibrated our housing targets with this bill to ensure that everyone is able to choose the type of housing they would like to live in, be that within urban infill development with a mix of housing options or in a new suburb with space for a backyard.
We have removed the former objective of 85 per cent of future housing developments being urban infill projects and now look to both the north and the south for new housing opportunities. The Greater Adelaide Regional Plan (GARP), has identified where 315,000 new homes will be built over the next 30 years across Adelaide and preserves important land for future infrastructure requirements.
The growth areas to come out of the EFPA were determined following an extensive land assessment as part of the GARP process that considered many factors, including good quality agricultural land, land subject to natural hazards, environmentally sensitive land, land of cultural heritage value to Aboriginal people and locating lands near existing services and infrastructure.
The areas being removed from the environment and food protection areas still need to be rezoned before they are used primarily for residential development and this will occur in a staged manner over the next 30 years to ensure orderly development. Rezonings will occur based on demand and specifically take account of infrastructure provision and costs. The revision of the EFPA still ensures that the key agricultural lands surrounding Greater Adelaide are protected.
One of the misconceptions is that we are cutting away and removing highly productive agricultural lands or our food bowl. But this is not true. The changes to the EFPAs, that were based on a comprehensive analysis, represent a loss of less than 1 per cent of key agricultural lands in the GARP area. This, together with the current Character Preservation Districts and Hills Face Zone, ensure we retain a strong urban growth boundary.
We have learnt the lessons of Mount Barker and taken stock of the problems that have resulted from short-sighted urban planning and lack of green spaces in Greater Western Sydney. Areas identified for new homes are either already connected to infrastructure, have infrastructure commitments in place, or are located in areas where future investment in infrastructure is planned.
In 2020, Penrith was the hottest place on earth at 48.9°. In 2019, Parramatta sweltered through 47 days with temperatures over 35. These conditions are the result of planning mistakes, mistakes currently being replicated in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. In those developments in the Eastern States, and the West, features that exist in nature to naturally cool our environment, namely trees, have been removed and replaced with man-made surfaces and structures that magnify heat.
In some portions of western Sydney, buildings, roads and sealed surfaces, such as rubberised playgrounds and driveways, cover over 80 per cent of the surface area. These hard surfaces are like sponges, absorbing heat during the day and releasing this stored energy during the night. Adding to this the output of hot air from air-conditioning units running constantly to cool interiors means that entire suburbs are prevented from cooling down to safe, liveable temperatures overnight.
Temperatures can, however, be reduced at city scale with strategies that reduce the urban heat island effect, strategies such as using cool materials, increasing green cover and minimising hard surfaces. The Labor government has already implemented one of these strategies, announcing in early 2024 that the remaining dwellings in the Playford Alive housing development in Munno Para will be built with light-coloured roofs.
According to a 2018 heat-mapping report, light-roofed houses in the northern suburbs of Adelaide were 4.3° cooler than average during the day than those with dark roofs. Research shows light-coloured roofs reflect more sunlight and absorb less heat, resulting in cooler indoor temperatures and reduced energy consumption for cooling purposes. This is especially important in greenfield projects like Playford Alive, where the tree canopy is still developing.
Choosing the most energy-efficient roofing material can substantially reduce a building's heat island effect. Roofs are directly exposed to the sun and cover the entire building footprint. Traditional materials such as galvanised steel roofing, once used exclusively when character areas were built, reflect sunlight and rapidly radiate absorbed heat, therefore improving indoor temperatures overnight. Thermally massive materials like roof tiles and concrete, both commonly used today, absorb energy and release it slowly overnight, trapping heat and making it hotter for everyone.
New subdivisions in the north like Playford Alive are sold at a very competitive pricepoint and attract first-home buyers and families struggling to get onto the property ladder. We need to think about these people when it comes to cost-of-living pressures, and cooler homes mean smaller energy bills for the people who need it most. Thermally massive building walls are also huge contributors to the urban heat island effect, most significantly through heat absorption of afternoon sun but also through creating a need for interior air conditioning and cooling, making expelled hot air a secondary consequence that is contributing to the heat island effect. Walls that emit heat and hot air released from air conditioners make spending time in outdoor areas really uncomfortable.
A fundamental building strategy used to rectify this problem can once again be addressed by looking to the past and our beautiful leafy character areas. Wherever possible, we need to shade building walls. Porches and eaves are important. They are not cosmetic additions that can be scrapped for lower building costs. In our changing climate, and particularly in South Australia, we must recognise the benefits, both environmentally and economically, of adequate shading within new residential developments.
Residential outdoor spaces include courtyards, driveway crossovers and footpaths. These spaces need to function as usable places in hot and dry weather, and they need to function as cool spaces at a human scale because our climate is getting more and more extreme. Where paved surfaces are necessary, we need to maximise shade by increasing tree planting and prioritising canopy in places with high solar exposure, such as footpaths and roads.
Fortunately, state Labor announced a new policy package in 2024 to address tree loss and promote strategies to improve Adelaide's canopy. This is the result of a promise by state Labor before the last election to deliver best-practice tree laws for the benefit of all South Australians, and it will contribute to better outcomes for all new greenfield developments by ensuring minimum urban tree planning requirements for all new builds. Additionally, minimum tree planting and maintenance will be required for public areas in greenfield developments.
Our new regulations protect a greater number of trees, delivering on the government's commitment to implement Australia's best-practice tree protections. The new regulations protect trees with a smaller trunk circumference. The trunk size for regulated trees has been reduced from two metres to one metre, while for significant trees it has changed from three metres to two. Exemptions for trees based on distance from homes and pools have also been reduced. Now, only trees within three metres from a home or pool will be able to be removed without approval, whereas the old regulations allowed the removal of trees within 10 metres.
The new regulations place pruning limits on regulated and significant trees, allowing only 30 per cent of the trees' canopy to be removed every five years. Fees for destroying or removing protected trees have also increased, better reflecting the cost of replacement. Offset fees for a regulated tree increased from $326 to $1,000 and from $489 to $1,500 for a significant tree. The money collected from the removal of trees goes into either local councils' urban tree funds or into the state government's Planning and Development Fund. The money is used either to plant, establish and maintain trees or to purchase land to preserve or accommodate the planting of new trees.
These actions recognise the important role Adelaide's mature trees play in promoting community wellbeing, supporting biodiversity and reducing the urban heat effect. I would like to point out that these new laws strengthen planning rules to support design innovation and flexibility in order to hopefully retain more large trees. These urban tree canopy protections also extend to greenfield developments in master-planned neighbourhood zones and townships because we all want to avoid the mistakes made in Greater Western Sydney, where we see row after row of large houses on small blocks with no trees or green space to speak of.
This Labor government is making efforts to learn from the failures of the Eastern States and has the will to improve canopy outcomes for both infill and greenfield developments. Just a few weeks ago, the Malinauskas Labor government announced it will make the most significant investment in public open space in Greater Adelaide ever, creating the new Northern Parklands. At maturity, the parklands will cover almost 1,000 hectares of land, which is 39 per cent larger than the Adelaide Parklands.
Developed as part of the new Greater Adelaide Regional Plan, the Northern Parklands will feature natural open space, new sport and recreation facilities, a new railway station, as well as three interconnected linear parks with shared use paths that will promote provide a continuous loop around Gawler.
At the heart of the Northern Parklands is the proposed 70 hectare Village Green sport and recreation area, which will be the equivalent of 31 Adelaide Ovals in size. The playing fields will include ovals, courts and clubroom facilities and will be home to numerous local sporting clubs located along the electrified Gawler railway line. It will feature public transport connections as well as car parking.
The Malinauskas Labor government has committed $53 million towards the first stage of the Northern Parklands. Funds generated through future land developments as well as council contributions will help establish and maintain the Parklands. Legislation will be introduced to establish a new statutory authority, named the Northern Parklands Trust, which will establish the new Northern Parklands. Legislative change will enable the new authority to operate with a level of independence, with the Northern Parklands Trust to be responsible for the ongoing maintenance and management of the Northern Parklands once established, including oversight of any development or leases granted.
Our older, leafier character suburbs can teach us something when it comes to creating the suburbs of the future. It is not complicated: people need green spaces, canopy and sustainable buildings in order to thrive in our changing climate. We are doing everything we can to open up land and plan for positive outcomes in these new developments that will one day become places that communities love to live in. Our government is committed to addressing the housing crisis, and this bill is a big part of that. I commend the bill to the house.
