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Adelaide To Finally Land A Helipad With Council Vote In Favour

It’s the moment that Adelaide has been battling for – a nod for the creation of a city helipad.

It’s the moment that Adelaide has been battling for – a nod for the creation of a city helipad.

Tonight the Adelaide City Council held their council meeting and debated the creation of a city helipad. The item was moved by Houssam Abiad, who has been driving the item’s agenda for over 4 years to deliver a helipad to the City of Adelaide. Moving forward in the right direction, when votes were tallied, there were 6 Councillors in support and 4 against. The progressive Councillors who backed the motion put forward by Houssam were Alex Antic, Priscilla Corbell, David Slama, Anne Moran & Sandy Verschoor and Lord Mayor Martin Haese also spoke in favour for it.

Currently, the main commercial helipad servicing Adelaide’s central business district (CBD) is located on the western side of Adelaide Airport, which is about 10 kilometres from the city centre.

The creation of a commercial helipad in the city is a decision that will pull us into line with most other major cities in the world – and certainly Australia. We’re one of the only capital cities without a commercial city helipad, which is bizarre given it’s a practical piece of infrastructure, particularly with all the new business and tourism coming to the CBD. It’s quite baffling that we haven’t got one yet – but finally, after years of campaigning, it seems that Adelaide is finally ready.

Tonight’s decision follows on from approval by the Adelaide Park Lands Authority, who have agreed to have a helipad along the River Torrens, as long as the festival barge goes. It would be located west of Morphett Street, with a 5 year lease, which would be reviewed by the Adelaide City Council after 2 years.

Some key benefits of the city helipad include connecting Adelaide to the region, and creating extra bed night stays – which will in turn benefit rate payers and add to the experience offer in Adelaide. City laps will also be a possibility, allowing visitors and locals like, to get a bird’s eye view of our city.

The helipad would also be able to be used by Emergency Services, and its close proximity to Adelaide Oval would be of use.

There’s also the drawcard of attracting high net worth individuals, which could benefit both our city and our state economically.

It’s important to note that the Adelaide City Council will not be running the helipad. Instead the council have sought expressions of interest from operators. It’s a matter for the operators to still go through a three part process;

  1. CLMP Amendments require public consultation to take place.
    1. CLMP- Public Consultation
    2. Amendment to the CLMP, Council will need to pass this
    3. Minister will need to effect the change
  2. Development Assessment needs to be lodged before CASA will consider this.
    1. CASA will still put this through a process, Noise Mitigation, Flight Path, Environment Impact Etc. They will determine fight path and certainly not over built up areas.
    2. Council and CASA can ask operators to “Fly Neighbourly” as per the Guidelines used in Los Angeles a City that has 138 helipads. A city that is almost 30% our size! And has 3 times our population.
  3.  Lease Negotiation needs to be done by the CEO

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