Champion last month approved a bid from the City of West Torrens to go to consultation on a code amendment proposing to rezone eight parcels of land along Anzac Highway down from a maximum height of eight storeys to three storeys.

The land parcels, located between South Road and Beckman Street at Glandore, include residential properties, a petrol station and lighting store. They border the Glandore Character Area, which features a series of villas, restored art deco homes and inter-war period bungalows.

A map of the land parcels – 118A, 130-132, 144, 158, 186, 188, 192 Anzac Highway and 2A Stuart Street, Glandore – targeted for rezoning. Image: City of West Torrens

According to the City of West Torrens, an “anomaly” in the wording of its former development plan created an “unintended consequence” whereby the maximum height for the Anzac Highway land parcels lifted from three storeys to eight storeys in 2015.

The anomaly did not become clear until 2017 when developers lodged plans for an eight-storey apartment block at 192 Anzac Highway, Glandore.

The development, approved in 2021, prompted opposition from the council and residents in the neighbouring character zone about excessive “visual impacts” and overshadowing.

An image of the eight-storey apartment block approved for 192 Anzac Highway. Image: Future Urban/Piteo Architects

The Anzac Highway land parcels were rezoned back to three storeys when the new Planning and Design Code came into effect in March 2021. However, former Marshall Government Planning Minister Vickie Chapman exercised ministerial powers in July 2021 to lift the maximum height back to eight storeys, saying the Planning and Design Code had “unintentionally lowered” the height limit.

But Champion has now reversed that decision by approving an “early commencement” of the City of West Torrens’ bid to rezone the land parcels back to three storeys.

The decision means the council’s proposed rezoning comes into effect immediately while consultation on the code amendment – due to run from January 19 to March 16 – takes place.

In a report to the parliament tabled on Tuesday, Champion wrote that he approved the early commencement of the code amendment to prevent any development that could have a “detrimental impact on the Glandore Character Area”.

“Early Commencement is a holding measure that enables the changes proposed in a Code Amendment to be publicly considered without prejudicial development taking place,” Champion wrote on January 25.

“The use of section 78 (ministerial powers to approve early commencement) is supported because of concern that development could occur that is contrary to the intent of the Code Amendment, in particular undesirable development that would have a detrimental impact on the Glandore Character Area.”

Character homes behind Anzac Highway in Glandore. Photo: Tony Lewis/InDaily

Champion will make a final decision on whether to adopt the code amendment at the end of the consultation period and after taking advice from the State Planning Commission.

The interim three-storey zone is operational for 12 months.

Badcoe MP Jayne Stinson, the local member who has campaigned on the issue, called on locals to submit their views to the code amendment consultation “so we can make the three-storey limit final once and for all”.

“The Glandore community’s been stuffed about with this issue for years and I’m glad we’re now on a path to finally resolving it,” she told InDaily.

“It’s not great for those who are seeking to buy and build development to be faced with uncertainty either.

“We fought hard to get the Glandore Character Area and it’s important its integrity is secured. Heritage is really important to locals, and even more so with so many homes being lost as part of the South Road development on the other side of the suburb.”

It’s unclear if Champion’s decision will have any impact on the existing eight-storey, 35 dwelling apartment block approved for development at 192 Anzac Highway.

A view of the current undeveloped site at 192 Anzac Highway, Glandore. Photo: Tony Lewis/InDaily

A billboard advertisement on the undeveloped site has a picture of the proposed apartment block describing it as a “last chance to reach for the sky”.

“This could be the very last opportunity to achieve a high rise development in this near city location!” the advertisement states.

InDaily contacted the developer, WALPOL Property Development, and Minister Champion’s office to ask if the 192 Anzac Highway development was affected but did not receive a response before deadline.

Development approval for the apartment block is due to lapse in September 2023.

A view of the approved eight-storey development at 192 Anzac Highway, Glandore. Image: Metropolitan development activity tracker/Plan SA

City of West Torrens Keswick Ward councillor John Woodward, who has also campaigned to return the Anzac Highway zone to three-storeys, said the community would “almost certainly” push to approve the code amendment during consultation.

“Ostensibly, if you build an eight-storey apartment tower on ANZAC highway in Glandore, you’ll have… balconies which look directly into people’s backyards,” he said.

“The whole concept of the character area is to maintain its ‘character-ness’, and if you can just imagine sitting in your house in Glandore in a character area and looking up and seeing a whole array of eight storey buildings, that’s not really in line with what the intention was for the character zone.

“I think it (the code amendment) just protects the character zone and the original intent of the character zone.”