Colonel Light Gardens state heritage area
Colonel Light Gardens was established as a State Heritage Area in 2000 under the Development Act 1993. This ensured that any future development of properties and open spaces within Colonel Light Gardens would be managed to maintain the Area’s heritage values.
Statement of Significance
The heritage value of Colonel Light Gardens State Heritage Area is defined in the Statement of Significance for the Area, entered in the South Australian Heritage Register (4 May 2000) as follows:
It exemplifies the theories of town planning of the early 20th century based on the Garden City concept, and is considered the most complete and representative example of a Garden Suburb in Australia, combining both town planning, aesthetic and social elements into coherent plan. The public and private spaces of the suburb meld to create a distinctive three-dimensional suburban design.
It represents the best work of Charles C. Reade, who was the first appointed Town Planner in Australia and South Australian Government Planner from 1916-1920. Reade was the leading exponent of the Garden City Movement to practice in Australia.
It is the repository of the majority of houses built under the mass housing program of the Labor Government of the 1920s known as the Thousand Homes Scheme and became the area identified with the Scheme. International visitors were taken to view the housing developments at Colonel Light Gardens during the 1920s. It contains a homogeneous style of residential architecture representing the particular workingman's house idiom of the mid 1920s, developed from the Californian Bungalow design.
It is the embodiment of other, more ephemeral social concepts of the 1920s such as 'post war reconstruction', 'homes for returned soldiers' and 'community spirit and self-help' which led to the creation and development of a community.
Heritage Standards for Colonel Light Gardens State Heritage Area
Under the new planning system for South Australia, development proposals to undertake development within Colonel Light Gardens are referred by the relevant (planning) authority to the Minister responsible for the Heritage Places Act 1993 (Minister), who has the authority to direct the decision.
Heritage South Australia is the Minister’s delegate for decisions on referred development applications and the Heritage Standards form a key part of how we assess development proposals.
The Heritage Standards (Colonel Light Gardens State Heritage Area) are the first Heritage Standards to be developed under the new planning system. The standards are an instrument under the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016, and a supplementary assessment tool linked to the State Heritage Area Overlay in the Planning and Design Code.
The Heritage Standards (Colonel Light Gardens State Heritage Area) include:
- Background - the historical development of Colonel Light Gardens and the principles that underpin the State Heritage Area listing
- Statement of Significance - the South Australian Heritage Register listing and the context and description of the heritage values
- Heritage Standards for Development - Principles and Acceptable Standards for development – for property owners considering repairs, alterations and additions and new development.
Download the full copy of the Heritage Standards (Colonel Light Gardens State Heritage Area).
Further information
- South Australia’s new planning system and the Planning and Design Code - visit PlanSA.
- Development related matters within Colonel Light Gardens - please contact the City of Mitcham.
- Heritage related matters in Colonel Light Gardens - please contact Heritage South Australia on (08) 8124 4922 or email DEW.StateHeritageDA@sa.gov.au.
