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Major Projects

At URPS, we don't shy away from large or contentious projects-in fact we love the challenge. A number of councils therefore often engage us to assess a range of high profile, multi-million dollar development applications. Examples include:

  • Stage 2B of Newport Quays at Port Adelaide
  • World Park 01 Office Development at Keswick
  • Victoria Park Grandstand in the east Park Lands
  • The redevelopment of the LeCornu site at North Adelaide
  • The redevelopment of the Crown Hotel site at Victor Harbor

The assessment of these large-scale projects involves liaising with a range of design professionals including urban designers, architects, traffic engineers, landscape architects, arborists and engineers. We are also required to analyse the performance of these landmark developments against not only the relevant Development Plan, but also the Planning Strategy in some instances.

It always fascinating to see to what degree contemporary planning policy influences the development of such significant projects and whether this reflects the various desires of the community. Our involvement also helps to relieve workload and political pressure on council staff, bringing important independence, transparency and rigour to the development assessment process for projects that say so much about our community.

The Minister for Urban Development & Planning released the Ministerial Mount Barker Urban Growth Development Plan Amendment (DPA) in June 2010 for public consultation. This DPA proposes to rezone approximately 1300 hectares of rural land on the edges of Mt Barker and Nairne for residential and light industrial use.

With the aim of ensuring that its community was well informed and empowered to comment on the Ministerial DPA, the District Council of Mt Barker engaged URPS to run a series of information sessions for the local community. These six sessions were extremely well attended, with more than 300 people able to hear about and ask questions regarding the Ministerial DPA process and how to go about getting involved in this part of the planning system.

In a letter to the editor of the Mt Barker Courier, Jean Lovell of Nairne said that "Mt Barker Council is to be congratulated for its commitment to proper community consultation" and that URPS was "highly professional and responded in detail to questions in an articulate, honest and informed manner".

This is evidence of the success of these types of community information sessions and the goodwill and engagement that Mt Barker Council has fostered with its community through the process. We also believe that this type of process leads to informed and valuable input from the community to key planning initiatives such as this Ministerial DPA."