Perth Voice Interactive

LYNDON RODGERS’ badly damaged building on Beaufort Street is to be demolished.

Damage from siteworks vibrations next door is so bad the 1895 federation bungalow is considered “structurally unsound” and it “has no value to the streetscape”.

Mr Rodgers, a former Perth councillor, has been pursuing neighbour Steve de Mol for five years.

Unable to run his real estate business from the damaged building, he was forced to sell.

Vincent council approved the demolition but it won’t be allowed to proceed until plans for a new building are presented: the council is desperate to avoid having the block sit vacant for years.

New developer David Caddy from TPG asked if his client Peter Bacich could knock the place over right away, before a new plan’s been approved, saying vagrants keep sneaking in and the building’s been set on fire a few times, a threat to the cafe next door.

Mr Caddy says security keeps getting breached”.

Only Cr Josh Topelberg agreed to the request. He says if the vacant lot is managed properly “I’m sure we’d get a better outcome than a Colorbond fence and a dilapidated house that people keep setting fire to”.

The rest of the council stuck to its guns. Mayor John Carey, who’d initiated a plan to charge vacant blocks double rates, said he didn’t want a scenario where “you knock it down, development plans change, and we have a vacant block.

“We don’t want Beaufort Street to look like a graveyard because that’s an absolute killer for the city centre.”

Mr Caddy says plans for a four-storey mixed use building will go to council soon.

by DAVID BELL