How have the Adelaide Crows responded to community concerns…
By starting with an exaggerated oval size and framing the process as if they are giving back rather than taking
The AFC began with a plan that took more than they claimed they wanted. They exaggerated the size of an MCG oval and placed it as far west on Kings Reserve as possible. They essentially took 46,000m2 of consolidated community space and reduced it by more than 80% down to around 8,000m2 on the fringes.
They then reduced the footprint of the proposed Community Centre (a piece of infrastructure that they were neither responsible for funding or building and which offered no benefit to the club) so that they could move their oversized ‘MCG’ oval slightly to the east, claiming that they were now providing additional community space and ‘saving significant existing tree canopy’. In this same process, they relinquished this area from their lease along with any responsibility for maintaining it. Importantly for the Crows, no compromises were made on their outcomes.
The next step by the AFC was to claim that they had responded to community concerns by reducing the size of the second oval. Finally, some level of compromise. But what exactly have they compromised? While they’ve made it look like they’ve reduced the size of their second MCG sized oval significantly, they’ve actually only reduced its length by half a metre!
The Adelaide Crows exaggerated MCG oval
(13.6M longer than actual MCG)
The Crows used the arena fence-to-fence dimensions of the MCG to size the internal boundary-to-boundary dimesion making their proposed oval some 13.6 metres logner than the actual MCG.
The actual MCG size
The actual size of the MCG oval overlaid on the Adelaide Crows draft masterplan.
The Adelaide Crows reduced size oval
(only 0.5M shorter than actual MCG)
While claiming a larger reduction in size and larger return of land taken from the community, the Crows reduced size oval is only half a metre shorter than the actual MCG!