by Shane Sody

A world-renowned urban planner has called for an expansion of your Adelaide Park Lands; while densifying Adelaide's CBD and inner suburbs.

Associate Professor Robert Cheesman is the founder of Cheesman Architects.

He is widely recognised for his successful career as an architect and master planner which spans more than 50 years in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Mr Cheesman says one of the reasons for the 1837 creation of your Adelaide Park Lands was to increase the value of allotments within the CBD. The Park Lands, he says, are an integral part of the world-unique Adelaide city plan.

*Associate Professor Robert Cheesman AM*

To save productive farm land from continual urban sprawl, he argues, and make the best use of inner-city infrastructure, the City and inner suburbs could be significantly densified, increasing population, but not at the expense of losing any more Park Lands; but the opposite: increasing them.

Mr Cheesman has told APA's Christel Mex that the City of Adelaide could easily house more than 200,000 residents, well up from its current population of 25,000.

Christel Mex and Associate Professor Robert Cheesman

The Adelaide Park Lands and other open, green, public land in inner suburbs, he says, will be "essential parks for tomorrow, when we densify the city".

Recent Government initiatives have chipped away at your Adelaide Park Lands, with open public spaces being crowded out by new hospitals, schools, university buildings, car parks, and even an office tower.

Mr Cheesman says commercial development on your Park Lands has the effect of de-valuing commercial land within the city CBD. He likens it to shifting goal posts during a football game. For developers "it's like being given a goal for kicking out of bounds!"

Rather, he says, "as we increase the population we need more open space, not less."

See the full interview here: https://youtu.be/LT53vQGn26g