THE future face of North Perth is to be decided this week with the Development Assessment Panel to rule on a proposed $80 million, 13-storey apartment block on Fitzgerald Street. Developer Celsius’ plan for two towers, 13 and 11 storeys, would occupy the block stretching from Raglan to Alma Road. Along with a huge number…

BARS and clubs in the Northbridge will be allowed to keep rocking at a “common-sense” noise level of 95 decibels, staving off a proposed rule that’d limit them to emitting a much-meeker 90 decibels.  The decibel scale is quirky and there’s a big difference between just five decibels, with 90dB being about as loud as…

NEW petrol stations woiuld be banned from opening in the vast majority of Vincent under proposed rules intended to safeguard public health.  Petrol stations aren’t allowed in residential areas and the proposal would ban new ones from ‘mixed use’ zones and town centres. New ones could only open on land zoned commercial, and only then…

THIS week the Vincent Local History Centre brings us the story of Susan Adelaide Casson, who 100 years ago founded an organisation to provide community care for psychiatric patients. After sitting on a government Board of Visitors to Claremont Hospital, Susan Casson became convinced there was a need for discharge and community rehabilitation of patients,…

A BID to rename Northbridge Piazza as “Pride Piazza” has been shot down by a majority of Perth councillors. Pride WA, which has organised Pride rallies and festivals since 1990, moved its headquarters into the building by the piazza in November this year just in time for Pride Month festivities. The area was temporarily dubbed…

FOUR more suburbs in Vincent will get underground power, marking the complete undergrounding of power lines in residential streets and town centres by 2028. In May the council signed a memorandum of understanding with Western Power to partly cover the cost to sink power lines in three areas where tired out power poles needed replacing…

AFTER surprising St Georges Terrace with a group nude photoshoot at peak hour in March this year, East Perth photographer Lauren Crooke is launching an exhibition covering two years of her work with another nude shoot on opening night. Crooke’s work photographing nude women aims to encourage body positivity, and the voluntarily-nude shoots call into…

MOUNT LAWLEY Golf Club has paused a draft masterplan to remove 550 trees and widen its fairways, but is itching to get started on a scaled back project involving 63 tree removals. MLGC is a members-only golf course on public land that Stirling council leases to the club for $13,640 a year, lower than the…

A PLAN to protect city music venues from being shut down by noise complaints has left just about everyone unhappy. Some have complained the proposed noise ceiling is too loud for human health and others that it’ll kill Perth’s music scene by locking in a too-quiet limit. For more than three years the state government…

PERTH can’t do snow for Christmas, but it does have 100 tons of sand painstakingly carved into intricate Christmas scenes at Elizabeth Quay this month. Perth-based sand artist Jenny Rossen is internationally renowned for her sculptures, having won multiple world championship sandcastle events over the past 23 years. For the past month she’s led a…