Perth Voice Interactive

EIGHTY cars will be queuing up to turn into East Parade from Guildford Road by 2026 unless a double slip lane is added to the latter – putting more pressure on Vincent council to delist a heritage home that’s in the way.

The traffic queue would result in more rear-end accidents and leave drivers waiting nearly two minutes to get around the corner, according to modelling by Main Roads, which owns the house and has asked the council to take it off the municipal heritage list so it can be demolished.

The application has come through the state’s powerful planning department, which is overseeing a large social housing subdivision on 34 adjoining lots surrounding the cottage.

The issue came up for discussion at Vincent’s briefing forum on Tuesday, with staff recommending the council agree to the department’s request.

WA planning department housing diversity manager Scott McGill told the meeting housing affordability and availability were “critical problems” for all tiers of government.

“Vacancy rates are at record lows, sales prices, build times and build costs are at record highs and unfortunately most projections show that this is going to get worse before

 it gets better, in Western Australia at least,” Mr McGill said.

“The reason why we are seeking demolition of the property as soon as possible is it will just provide us with certainty about exactly what is the actual developable area of the site, to allow us to remediate the site, ready it for construction and it will also allow us to deliver and better development outcome.”

The department says the cottage is too far gone to make a restoration feasible, though the City’s planning staff say it is possible.

“In general, there is little evidence of any original finishes as the place has been stripped of all architectural details, such as architraves, skirtings and the majority of the floorboards,” a heritage report commissioned by the department found.

“Windows are all broken and some window frames have been completely removed.”

Main Roads first tried to have the 1904 cottage demolished in 2000, but the council ordered it to be retained because of its heritage value while the surrounding homes got the death knock.

Vincent councillor Ashley Wallace noted that the council’s recent deferral of the demolition request was about Main Roads’ plans to create the double slip lane, and he wasn’t sure they’d answered that in a report they’d recently submitted.

“The report kind of compares two options: a single turning lane versus a dual turning lane..

“There’s no dispute two lanes go in closer to the intersection; what is the impact of shortening that dual turning lane by the 20-metre frontage of this building.”

“I don’t think that’s addressed in the report,” Cr Wallace said.

The home was first owned by Alice McColl and her husband Stawell, who was a railways employee.

by STEVE GRANT