Perth Voice Interactive

PUBLIC housing tenants have been told to remove car shelters and carbay markings they’d installed to help manage carparking at their Smith Street complex.

The WA housing department has already brought in contractors to remove numbers from the bays, saying the three-year-old enhancements were unauthorised.

Julius Re, 82, says the improvements help “make life a little better”. Without shade, cars turn into summertime ovens and the bay numbers had overcome parking chaos.

‘Here we are trying to solve our own problems’

Instead of calling the department to come and spend money, the tenants had banded together in a spirit of community teamwork to do the jobs themselves.

“Here we are trying to solve our own problems, and Homeswest … told us to get rid of them,” Me Re told the Voice.

Department service delivery manager Steve Parry says residents “erected illegal structures without the written consent of the department of housing”. 

“No approval has ever been granted to erect them,” he told the Voice. “The structures were deemed by department officers to be unsafe and the tenants who erected them have been requested to remove them.”

As for the numbered bays: “There is no ownership of a particular bay at the complex.”

Mr Re says the numbers made life easier: “We’re trying to bring some harmony to the place, which is very hard with old people,” he chuckles.

As for the shelters being unsafe, he points out they’ve been there three years without incident. 

 by DAVID BELL