Special Edition

Greater Adelaide Regional Plan Discussion Paper

Adelaide has a proud history of being well-planned. However, the State Planning Commission is looking beyond how South Australia has done things in the past. We aspire to create a flexible, digitised Greater Adelaide Regional Plan (GARP) that is responsive to real-world data and to the long-term global issues shaping the future of how and where we live, work, travel and use public spaces.

The world is changing rapidly. The things we now take for granted did not exist in 1993. No internet, no smartphones, social media or Chat GPT. The only domestic solar panels were connected to hot water heaters. A water desalination plant serving Adelaide was considered an expensive pipedream.

Sunday trading was limited to a list of exempt shops. The CBD had no small bars and very few baristas worth the name. Farmers’ markets were unheard of, as were craft breweries and artisan gin makers.

The Heysen Tunnels were solid rock. Adelaide called itself the ’20 Minute City’ and believed it. Electric cars were a pipedream. The Tour Down Under did not exist. A national women’s footy competition was inconceivable.

This also rings true for where we lived. Mawson Lakes didn’t exist, the long term growth options for Adelaide envisaged developing suburbs across the Barossa and McLaren Vale (yes really!), Bowden Urban Village and Tonsley were factories, the Glenelg tram terminated in the middle of Victoria Square, and if you wanted to move into a smaller house as you got older you had very limited choice and probably had to move far from your family home. 

The GARP Discussion Paper, released by the State Planning Commission and the Department for Trade and Investment asks you to cast your mind forward 30 years. The Commission is asking residents of Greater Adelaide region to imagine how and where we will live as we approach the 2050s and what it will look and feel like. This discussion covers the area from Cape Jervis in the south, east to Murray Bridge and north to the Barossa.

We know it’s a challenging task given our geographical constraints: the Mount Lofty Ranges with the sensitive Hills Face Zone to the east, Gulf St Vincent to the west, our premium food and wine growing areas including the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale, as well as other sensitive natural environments such as beaches and bush.

We need your feedback. Where are the best opportunities to locate our families and potential jobs as the region keeps growing? What duty of care do we owe future generations?

We have released the Discussion Paper to be open about the challenges we face as a capital city and wider region, to identify opportunities, to share our current thinking and ideas, and to be open to alternative views.

We don’t have all the answers. A draft GARP – which will update and replace the current 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide – will be informed by your feedback. The draft will be released for further public consultation in mid-2024, with a final plan expected by the end of next year, subject to approval by the government. 

The State Planning Commission wants the community to stimulate fresh ideas and views about how and where Greater Adelaide will grow. 

Growth is a certainty, and we need to plan for it. While the Greater Adelaide region’s growth has been moderate up to now, Census and other population data suggests we should prepare for a high-growth scenario over the next 30 years.

As many as 670,000 additional people may need to be accommodated in Greater Adelaide over the next three decades. This could equate – given what we know about our ageing population and how households are mostly shrinking in South Australia – to an estimated 300,000 extra homes by 2053.

The release of the Discussion Paper and the journey to create a new 30-year GARP are occurring during a national housing affordability crisis and at a time of almost constant global change post-COVID, the uptake of remote working from home and the rise of digitisation.

The factors fuelling housing demand and influencing housing affordability in Adelaide are the same as in modern cities elsewhere: changing economic circumstances, population growth, household composition, interest rates, taxation, investor demand and construction costs.

In preparing the Discussion Paper, the Commission along with the Department of Premier and Cabinet, industry experts and thought leaders, explored a range of different scenarios or plausible futures that could arise and the opportunities and challenges they could present.

The major global and domestic trends identified in the Discussion Paper as the most likely to shape the future of Greater Adelaide are housing availability and affordability; liveability; climate impacts and biodiversity loss; decarbonisation; digitisation; decentralisation; automation and advance manufacturing; changing mobility systems; workforce, skills and migration; reconciliation including voice, treaty, truth; food and water security; and societal inequality. Have we missed any?

To help guide discussion about how the Greater Adelaide region will grow, the Commission has distilled these major trends into four outcomes: 

• a greener, wilder and climate resilient environment
• a more equitable and socially cohesive place
• a strong economy built on a smarter, cleaner, regenerative future
• a greater choice of housing in the right places.

Are there any other outcomes for the Greater Adelaide region the Commission should consider?

One of the key tasks of the State Planning Commission is to ensure there is a pipeline of serviced, zoned and development-ready land in the Greater Adelaide region.

Between now and Year 15, there is enough identified land for approximately 200,000 homes that is already zoned or ready to come to market, including the new releases the state government has announced this year at Sellicks, Hackham and Concordia.

The Commission is conscious that planning needs to start now for land that will come to market in Year 16 and beyond to cater for approximately another 100,000 homes. The Discussion Paper is asking where should these houses go?

And it’s not just new homes, its new industries offering employment in the future that doesn’t even exist today.

The Discussion Paper identifies areas for possible infill in metropolitan Adelaide such as in corridors along major arterial roads and near major shopping and public transport hubs that would be suitable for regeneration.

While strategic and general infill will play a role in the middle and outer ‘ring’ suburbs, Adelaide city centre would continue to contribute towards increasing the CBD’s population with the reuse of heritage and commercial buildings.

Whilst we’re planning for growth and change, we also want to hear about how we can maintain the character and liveability of our established suburbs and townships. How do we accommodate a desire for ‘maintaining Adelaide’s character’ with a need to provide more housing for South Australians in existing or established neighbourhoods?

Four outer areas are also being considered for new housing and business growth to create regional satellite cities connected by ‘spines’ of major road and rail transport corridors branching out from metropolitan Adelaide.

The south is based around Victor Harbor and Goolwa, linked to Adelaide via the Southern Expressway; the north-west stems from the new Riverlea development to Two Wells, serviced by Port Wakefield Rd; the north-east expands Roseworthy for new homes and industry, with access via the Northern Expressway and Horrocks Highway, while the east is focused on Murray Bridge and Callington and the South Eastern Freeway.

The current 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide included strategies to promote affordable living and walkable neighbourhood communities. The Discussion Paper proposes evolving these strategies into a concept called Living Locally. 

Living Locally believes in equity of access to the goods and services we all need or take for granted in our daily lives. No matter where you live in the Greater Adelaide region, you should have access to jobs, services, transport options, education, health, childcare, open space, recreation and any other infrastructure within an acceptable proximity.

The Discussion Paper is also conscious that we need to improve the way we plan the delivery of infrastructure that communities need as we plan for future growth. As part of the South Australian Government’s Better Housing Future plan, it has established the Housing Infrastructure Planning and Development Unit. 

The goal is to ensure the timely supply of electricity, water and sewerage services as well as public infrastructure such as roads and schools to meet the needs of growing communities.

The past, it’s said, is a foreign country. The future must be a region of our own making. 

On behalf of the State Planning Commission, I urge you to read the Discussion Paper at plan.sa.gov.au/regional-planning-program, join the conversation, register for an online information session on 3 October or 5 October, share your views and play your part in shaping the future of our city and region. We look forward to hearing from you.

Craig Holden
Chair, State Planning Commission