Prospect Concerned Residents Group

30/05/2026

FYI - Update from the special council meeting on Thursday from Cr Mark Groote.

Mark has recently announced he is running for Mayor of Prospect in the upcoming council elections later this year. He has similar views to the Prospect Concerned Residents group in relation to the PLP so we wish him the best of luck with the upcoming campaign!

27/05/2026

🗺️ What Roadmap?! 🗺️

As we’ve heard many times before, the council have been following the stages of the Prospect Oval development according to their own roadmap which was conceived at the start of the PLP project.

As part of this roadmap the Expression of Interest (EOI) process wasn’t to be conducted until there was Ministerial approval for the land revocation, but they went ahead anyway based on legal advice that the EOI is not binding.

At Tuesday nights council meeting there was a placeholder item to discuss the next step with developers, the Request for Proposal (RFP). This again according to the roadmap wasn’t expected to commence until the land revocation had been granted. And at this stage it still hasn’t been granted by the Minister for Local Government so the RFP should not proceed.

But again the council has sought legal advice enabling them to push ahead with the RFP regardless (committing council time and money on the process where the land still belongs to the community).

This legal advice was discussed in a confidential discussion at the end of the council meeting so it’s unknown exactly what was said. This goes totally against their own roadmap. It is a desperate step to push the process ahead so they can sign up a developer before council elections this year and lock in the high development, 12 storey option which won’t easily be changed at a later date.

There is a special council meeting being held tomorrow evening (Thursday) at 5:30pm to discuss the RFP and whether to proceed. It is a public meeting so everyone is welcome to attend.

City of Prospect
Lucy Hood MP
Rhiannon Pearce MP

02/05/2026

🏟️ How did we get here? 🏟️

The direction that the council are pushing the PLP towards is clear, they want a large scale development of up to 12 storeys regardless of any community opposition around the Prospect oval.

Now is a good point to reflect on how this development started and how it has arrived at this point.

In June 2024 a group of Councillors, Council staff, the Mayor and CEO took a trip to Perth as a ‘fact finding’ mission for the Prospect Oval redevelopment. They visited Subi East Oval (The former Subiaco Oval Stadium) and Claremont on The Park (Claremont football ground). The visit was coordinated by Holmes Dyer, who you may have had an encounter with at one of the council drop in sessions. Holmes Dyer is the Consultancy company engaged by the council to assist with planning the project.

The Subi East development comprises of a large parcel of land and has a maximum proposed building height of 30 storeys. This project is similar to the old Footy park development at West Lakes as Subiaco was previously used as an AFL ground.

The Claremont oval development (known as the “Claremont Colosseum”) has 6-8 storey buildings around almost the entire oval. In his video Cr Standen notes how this development “feels oppressive” as the buildings are so close to the oval and “is an example of what not to do”. This is an interesting point, as the proposed building on the north eastern side of the PLP up to 8 storeys is actually very similar to the development at Claremont.

This trip took place prior to phase 1 community consultation which commenced in July 2024, whereby the community first had any say as to what should happen with the space. Consequently you have to wonder whether there ever was an option for a smaller scale ‘lifestyle precinct’. Were the plans always to push for a high scale development, which wasn’t revealed to the community until much later in the process (in November 2025 building heights of 12 storeys were brought to light in a council workshop)?

A key takeaway from this video is one of the final comments. 600 people were against the Claremont oval redevelopment, and the council went ahead with it anyway. The Claremont council are still convinced it was the correct decision. Has this influenced the thinking of the Prospect council? As even with our petition of 2,230 signatures they are still pushing ahead.

We encourage you to watch the video here

https://youtu.be/7gc8dhzSDk8?si=4QJi0fVEnloGxO1d

City of Prospect
Lucy Hood MP
Rhiannon Pearce MP
Nick Champion MP

Perth Trip 2024

19/04/2026

🗳️ Council decision on code amendment 🗳️

At a special council meeting last Tuesday the Prospect Council voted 6 for and 2 against to proceed with the code amendment next to Prospect Oval. This will now go to the Minister for Housing Nick Champion and if approved will allow the council and the CCH site to build up to 12 storeys.

This shows that despite overwhelming evidence that there is no broad community support for this, they are proceeding regardless.

The 2 councillors who voted against were the central ward councillors Cr Groote and Cr De Backer.

Cr Groote made some excellent points during his response. He asked if any changes to the code amendment had been made as a result of the community feedback, and the response was “basically none.”

He made the point that this decision is significant as it “sets the rules for the game” in terms of what can be built.

He made a strong argument that the council should listen to the community sentiment, the 76% of people who voted against in the consultation and the 2,230 residents who signed the petition. He asked what percentage of people would need to be against this for the council to reconsider “If 76% isn’t enough then what the hell is!”

The councillors who voted for essentially said that community feedback is not the only item taken into account when making their decision.

Councillor Nelson stated that the councillors are there “not just to listen but also to make important decisions”, that “there is a large contingent of residents who support this project” and that the councillors need to have the “courage to act now”.

Councillor Thuy Nguyen stated that this is a “moment for leadership, not hesitation”, that “community feedback matters, but also leadership matters” and Councillor Hollitt stated “community feedback is important, but it is not a referendum”.

Councillor Standen, Cr Trinh Nguyen and Cr Standen didn’t respond to the motion.

It seems that the most important stakeholder, the residents of Prospect, are yet again not being listened to. If you’d like to see the whole discussion you can watch the video on YouTube.

City of Prospect
Lucy Hood MP
Rhiannon Pearce MP
Nick Champion MP

11/04/2026

❓How much proof does the council need?
Code Amendment Consultation results and April Special Council Meeting❓

At last weeks council workshop the council presented the results of the Phase 4 consultation on the code amendment (which will allow them to build up to 12 storeys high).

76% of participants (208 people participated) were not in support of the code amendment. This is another clear statement that the community does not support the excessive size and scale of this development, and echoes the results found in previous consultations and in our petition of 2,230 signatures. Based on our petition we know that this is not just local resident bias and these results are shared across the council area.

The council will vote on whether to send this code amendment to the Minister for Housing in a special council meeting this coming Tuesday. A fair question to ask is why this decision can’t be left until the regular April council meeting at the end of the month? We presume it’s because they are trying to rush it through to support the EOI and RFP being completed by the end of July prior to the council caretaker period. Please come along to the council meeting if you would like to see for yourself how the council votes.

Also of note is that at the end of last weeks workshop a confidential meeting on the EOI was held. There will be another confidential meeting this Tuesday on the RFP. This is despite them still having no approval for the Land Revocation or the Code Amendment at this stage.

Finally, a few members of our group have kindly put together the attached 3D printed model highlighting the size and scale of the buildings based on the code amendment proposal. This model shows just how massive the development has the potential to be, especially if the CCH building area ends up being redeveloped as well.

City of Prospect
Lucy Hood MP
Rhiannon Pearce MP
Nick Champion MP

06/04/2026

📜 March Council Meeting Part 2 and upcoming PLP workshop 📜

Another key item from the March Council meeting was the motion brought by Cr Groote to delay any significant decisions on the PLP until after the caretaker period and council elections later this year.

This is so that the new council isn’t encumbered with some of the decisions of the current council (ie signing up a developer for a development the majority of the community doesn’t want).

Cr Groote stated that the PLP is the biggest project in Prospect’s history, that there is no rush and it is our roadmap to decide. He also made the very important point that none of the current councillors took the PLP to the last election.

There was a lot of debate on this however it was voted down 6 to 2 with Cr Groote and Cr De Backer being the only 2 in favour (video timestamp 01:50:00).

The feedback from the other councillors was that we need to proceed as per the roadmap to avoid financial and reputational impacts. Cr Barnett specifically talked about making the right decision rather than the popular decision.

Also, please note that this coming Tuesday night (7th of April) there will be a council workshop on the PLP. We encourage anyone who is interested to come along, unfortunately these workshops are not livestreamed but we will provide a summary afterwards.

Firstly the Council will discuss the results of the Phase 4 consultation on the Code Amendment (to be able to build up to 12 storeys) and the results from the survey conducted by Urban and Regional Planning Solutions outside Bunnings etc.

Secondly, (in a private session which unfortunately we cannot attend) they will discuss the EOI responses and the RFP document. They still don't however have any approval for the Land Revocation so we’re unsure how they will progress with this.

Please see the agenda below.

29/03/2026

📜 March Council Meeting Part 1 - Largest petition in Prospect’s History 📜

On Tuesday night we presented our petition to the council. For those who are interested you can watch the whole meeting on YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/live/5yDsRL48bU4?si=rL6d5uTXw_MM-XYb

Council process is to firstly respond to the petition as a separate agenda item (video timestamp 18:10). Cr Groote asked the question - is this the largest petition in Prospects history? Which the Mayor and CEO stated they didn’t know. It was later confirmed by email from the council that it is.

The petition was later presented by a deputation to the council, a 5 minute speech highlighting the key takeaways of the petition (timestamp 38:00). After applause from the audience the councillors were then able to ask questions.

- Cr De Backer thanked everyone for their hard work on the petition and asked some questions about the Community Reference Group.

- Cr Groote also thanked the group and asked some questions about the communities awareness of the development during door knocking, and their attitude towards the height and scale of the development.

- Cr Nelson asked several questions stating that he “didn’t want to catch us out” such as regarding the financial costs of the development. His questions were trying to demonstrate that a lower density development isn’t feasible.

- Cr Barnett, Cr Standen, Cr Hollitt, Cr Trinh Nguyen and Cr Thuy Nguyen had no questions or comments to contribute.

In terms of whether the council will acknowledge the communities concerns and move forward with a lower scale development is not yet clear. It won’t be know if this has any impact until we see the results on how the councillors vote on upcoming decisions such as the land revocation and code amendment. These will be presented in council meetings in upcoming months as per the PLP roadmap.

There was further discussion on the PLP during the meeting which we’ll update you on in part 2.

City of Prospect
Lucy Hood MP

Due to a technical issue, unfortunately this recording does not include the first 5 minutes of the Council meeting. Apologies for this inconvenience.Please n...

20/03/2026

🗞️ Media Interest on Petition Results 🗞️

Indaily have published a well written article today on the Prospect Oval development and our petition. We hope that the petition results help guide the council in their decision making on the land revocation and code amendment and move towards a lower scale of development as desired by the community.

If you are interested in seeing how the council responds to the petition please come along to the council meeting on Tuesday the 24th of March at 7pm, upstairs at the council building.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1b11F7rC2r/?mibextid=wwXIfr

City of Prospect
Lucy Hood MP
Julian Amato - Liberal for Adelaide
Keiran Snape - Community Independent for Adelaide
Joe Szakacs MP
Nick Champion MP

A plan to revitalise an Adelaide oval precinct with high rise housing along Main North Road is facing a backlash from local residents.

15/03/2026

🗳️ State Political Candidates Positions on the Prospect Oval Development 🗳️

As the state election approaches you may be considering how to cast your vote, here are some details on the relevant political candidates positions on the Prospect Oval Development.

Labor - Lucy Hood has been vocal in asking for people’s feedback on the PLP however has not stated she is against it. Our understanding is that she supports the high level of development for housing, and the basketball stadium despite already opening The W at Walkerville this year.

Liberal - Julian Amato has been vocal in his opposition to the PLP and how the consultation has been conducted. He was hoping to gain signatures to our petition at the Autumn Fair, but it was unfortunately postponed due to weather. Please see his latest social media post on the PLP here: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/18UZRSCEM5/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Independent - Kieran Snape has also been vocal with his concerns. While door knocking across the Prospect council area he has found many residents were in opposition to the current Masterplan, and also helped to collect signatures for our petition. You can see his election announcement on the PLP here: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BcFC7biPR/?mibextid=wwXIfr

One Nation - Aoi Baxter was late to the issue however has also asked the community for their feedback on the PLP

Greens / Australian Family Party - these 2 candidates haven’t been involved with the issue.

Also, in the Legislative Council Independent Craig Pickering has voiced his support for our cause. He has been involved in other proposed developments around Adelaide as a community advocate.

10/03/2026

✅ Petition Results! ✅

Today we submitted our petition to the Prospect Council. The petition requests council to scrap the current Masterplan with its very high level of development (up to 12 storeys), develop alternative lower density options and present these to the community.

In total we received 2,230 signatures! 814 of these were obtained through the online petition and 1,416 through door knocking of local residents. Of these signatures 73% (1,623) were people who live in the council area and 27% (607) outside.

This is an outstanding result achieved in only 26 calendar days! We believe this demonstrates that a significant amount of people across all wards in Prospect do not support the high level of development proposed by the council, not just those residents living close by.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to sign the petition, shared it with friends and especially those who participated in the door knocking! It was a huge undertaking and it’s greatly appreciated!

The next step will be to present the results at the next Council meeting on the 24th of March. Please mark this in your diaries, your attendance will be valuable so you are able to hear for yourself how the council responds to this feedback from the community.

Finally, if you haven’t yet please make sure you give your feedback on the Phase 4 consultation on the Code Amendment on the Plan SA website. You have until the 15th of March to participate.

City of Prospect
Julian Amato - Liberal for Adelaide
Lucy Hood MP
Keiran Snape - Community Independent for Adelaide
Joe Szakacs MP
Nick Champion MP
Peter Malinauskas