Residents opposed to the Adair Parade/Walcott Street project that’ll put five storeys in an area where two or three reign.
AN unauthorised billboard in Stirling has neighbours grumbling after discovering the council wasn’t going to order its removal due to a technicality.
The developers of the Adair Parade/Walcott Street block put up a massive sign spruiking their apartments, but did not get approval from Stirling council as required under local law.
Across the street in neighbouring Vincent, they might have expected a swift order to take it down, as its council views billboards as a mercantile eyesore.
But in Stirling it’s “certainly not a priority”, mayor Mark Irwin said at the March 21 council meeting.
Coolbinia resident Goya Zheng spoke at public question times and said the billboard arrived on March 1, making it than 20 days without an investigation from the council.
“Why does it take this long to investigate a sign that went up without council approval,” Ms Goya asked.
“How do we stop this from remaining up at this stage?”
Neighbour Deirdre Allen said the sign has “now been artistically graffitied quite extensively, very quickly, with black tags all over it and it’s become an eyesore.
“Why hasn’t it been ordered to take be taken down?”
Mr Irwin said the city was reluctant to restrict developers having signs up promoting their development if they were in tune with standard signage.
“I know they’re never pleasant when you’ve got a development happening in your area,” Mr Irwin said.
A council staff member said they’d acted within a day to issue a letter to the developer “asking them to remove the sign”. But the developers chose to lodge an application for retrospective approval instead, and “that compliance investigation is essentially, for lack of a better word, put on hold… so there is no ability for the City to enforce removal of the sign at that stage”.
A wave of discontented murmuring spread through the crowd as they learned how flimsy the rules were.
Ms Zheng asked if the council would be so forgiving if it was an ordinary homeowner who’d breached a local law and not a developer.
Mr Irwin said it’d be treated the same way, and said ordering removals was “the last thing the community would want us to do every time we get a complaint, whether it be a sign or a residential property… it would be a lot of resources to use when the sign could potentially then just go back up the next week”.
DRAG Queen Storytime events at Maylands Library have been targeted by homophobic protest flyers.
The events feature drag queens reading to children and parents, typically with themes of inclusion and self-acceptance.
Local drag queen Cougar Morrison says she was singled out in flyers which were posted in letterboxes near the Maylands library in the lead-up to the storytime on Saturday March 25.
The flyer says “Save our children!” and that “the City of Bayswater are hosting a transvestite event for children and they’re funding it through YOU, the ratepayers,” calling on people to contact the library and council to cancel the events.
Morrison says whoever put out the flyers must have trawled through years of her social media posts to find her more salacious-looking photos and posts featuring jokey double-entendre gags.
But the pictures were taken from night-time performances at nightclubs, and Morrison says her story time attire is far more modest.
“We’re dressed very conservatively,” Morrison told us. “Granted, very conservatively with lots of rhinestones and makeup. But this person who created the flyer deliberately chose pictures of me when I’m not at Storytime.”
She says a drag queen’s evening performances are analogous to an actor doing a horror film or raunchy romcom, and no one assumes an actor can’t be around kids because of a movie.
“The flyer did allude to the idea that I’m not safe around children, which is absolutely a fallacy!” Morrison says.
“I, like all people who present Drag Storytime, have a valid and current working with children check.”
Morrison says it’s possible whoever printed the flyers was emboldened by the recent visit to Perth of UK anti-trans campaigner Posie Parker, or recent anti-LGBTI+ rhetoric that’s had a resurgence in the US amid claims gay and trans people are trying to convert children.
“They think that Drag Queen Storytime is responsible for people coming out early,” Morrison sighs. “I know firsthand that Drag Queen Storytime doesn’t turn people queer or trans, because I, like every member of our rainbow family of my generation, grew up without Drag Queen Storytime and we all grew up gay as Christmas-time anyway.”
There’s been a strong show of support in the wake of the flyers’ distribution. Bayswater council admin and the Maylands Library got scores of phone calls and emails, and mayor Filomena Piffaretti said “the feedback the city’s received about its Drag Queen Storytime has been overwhelmingly positive”.
All up there were 89 emails and two phone calls, plus social media messages in support. There were three negative responses by phone and social media.
Speaking at the March 28 council meeting, Cr Piffaretti said: “Drag Queen Storytime encourages early literacy and a love of books while celebrating the differences that make us unique. The sessions promote inclusiveness and recognise the diversity that exists in our community.”
Morrison says she won’t step back despite the “emotional beating this weekend”, but added the show of support afterwards was “really humbling”.
DESPITE calls from wildlife experts to clamp down on cats in Kings Park and other nature areas, Perth council has decided against bringing in new rules to restrict roaming cats.
A lot of councils havebeen trying to bring in rulesto keep cats out of parks and bushland but they keep hitting stumbling blocks when it comes to getting approval from the state parliament committee that oversees council laws.
Those rules may be easier to bring in once the state government fixes up the Cat Act and gives councils proper powers to handle cats.
But wildlife advocates and cat lovers alike (who want cats to live safe, indoor lives) still want councils to bring in whatever rules they can while waiting for the WA government to give the laws more teeth.
Visceral warning
Bayswater resident David Dyke, widely recognised for his conservation work recording the calls of frogs to help track their populations, attended the March 28 council meeting and gave a visceral warning of what happens when cats are allowed to roam.
“How is the City going to manage cats in many places like East Perth, where I see cats while out recording frogs, without a local law?” he queried.
“When I’m out recording in your local area I see cats meandering everywhere. Quite often I go down a pathway and there’s a scream like this: Aaaaaaaaaaaugh!”
The chamber fell silent for a few seconds before lord mayor Basil Zempilas cautiously inquired: “…who’s doing that?”
“That’s the noise of a frog!” Mr Dyke said, “halfway down a cat’s mouth! It’s excruciating!”
Perth council staff say there’s hardly a cat problem in Kings Park, with an average of one caught there each year.
Perth resident Adin Lang is also a councillor in Fremantle, where they did bring in cat laws to keep them out of parks, beaches and riverbanks.
He’s been urging Perth council to start with Kings Park.
Cr Lang said “a single cat in an A-Class Reserve can have a devastating impact on wildlife”.
Other speakers pointed out there was no monitoring of cats in Kings Park.
Robert Madden said: “I personally have seen cats at night in King’s Park on multiple occasions and know that the officer’s report of a single cat being caught or reported is insufficient.”
Katie Madden said “methods like camera traps [and] GPS data loggers” would give a more accurate count.
Mr Zempilas commented: “I lived for 20 years in Mount Street just down from Kings Park. I cannot remember in 20 years seeing a cat.”
The council decided to wait for the McGowan government to change the statewide Cat Act.
Mr Zempilas was enthusiastic about their ability to patch it up.
“I have nothing but great respect and admiration forthe state government of WA,” the lord mayor rhapsodised.
“We work very closely, and I have great confidence – great confidence,” he repeated theatrically, “that the review of the Cat Act 2011 will deliver for all West Australians what we need to have delivered.”
• Lora and Frances Canestrini inside mixed business at 367 Oxford Street Leederville, 1949 (COV PHO0832)
TODAY, corner shops – also known as milk bars or delis – have all but vanished from our suburban streets.
Before the advent of supermarkets in the 1950s and 1960s, corner shops were located on the corner of almost every street.
They sold groceries such as fruit, vegetables, milk and newspapers.
From the 1930s, some corner shops took inspiration from the American diner, expanded their trade to sell milkshakes and soda fountains and adopted the name of milk bars.
Until the 1980s, there were hundreds of corner shops, mixed businesses and milk bars in the Perth area.
Every suburb in Vincent had their share of small shops, which were often along main roads.
One business was O’Grady’s grocery shop at 367 Oxford Street, which is across from the Oxford Hotel and is now a fitness gym.
Martha and William O’Grady moved from Collie after World War II with the hope of giving their children a better future with more job opportunities in Perth.
They bought a small mixed business on the corner of Anzac Road and Oxford Street and lived at the back of the shop with their family from 1946 to 1956.
Daughter Lorraine recalled the long hours her mother put into the business:
“(Mum) was a tireless worker in the shop. Then when the shop shut, she would be doing up the till and sorting through the money and paying bills. She did the business part of it really. Three days a week, Dad would head off at 5.30am and go to the Metropolitan Markets in Wellington Street. He would buy all the green groceries – lettuce, tomatoes and all the fruit – to bring back and line up in the shop window. We had dairy, even pharmaceuticals in those days. You could buy a packet of Bex Powders, Aspro or liniments, tobacco, cigarettes, ice cream, cold meats, boxes of biscuits… everything.”
Mixed businesses were also popular among migrants as a pathway to economic progress and self-sufficiency in a new land.
They were also important avenues for women’s independence during a time when work options were more limited for women.
Two doors down from the O’Grady’s at 363 Oxford Street, Lorenza ‘Lora’ Dell’Acqua (nee Canestrini) and her sister Frances ran a mixed business from 1944 to 1951.
The sisters moved to Perth from the mid-west where they had lived with their Italian migrant parents in Wiluna and Yalgoo.
They worked from 8am to 8pm daily and serviced the many Italian families in the area, particularly on Sundays when families would stop in on their way to St Mary’s church or nearby church hall.
Despite their proximity to O’Grady’s shop, Ms Canestrini recalls the support and friendship between the neighbouring businesses.
“Mrs O’Grady was a beautiful person. She had the shop on the corner to us and we looked up to her as a mother figure. We got on well together and we didn’t cut each other’s throats because they had a bigger shop and we had a little shop. It was twice as big as ours, maybe three times. We concentrated more on the green groceries.”
I’D like to correct some potential misunderstandings about the history of the 2007 Highgate East underground power project (“Resistance Fails,” Voice, March 25, 2023).
Mayor Cole is reportedas suggesting that other ratepayers somehow subsidised underground power in Highgate East. She mentioned that the City borrowed $3.7 million so that some people could pay by instalment. This is not correct.
The $3.7 million was borrowed to pay Western Power while they were doing the work – it had nothing to do with property owner instalments.
The money was spent by the time the City sent out bills to property owners.
The mayor also said that the interest on the loan was absorbed by all ratepayers.
The fact is that the council at the time made it clear that the beneficiaries would pay the full cost, including interest on the loan – there would be no subsidy.
This resulted in a ‘standard cost’ of $3,000.
Owners who chose to pay by instalment were charged an extra 7 per cent interest to cover the cost to the City of providing the instalment feature.
The way owners weretreated in 2007 is the same way the City currently deals with ratepayers who pay their rates by instalments.
They are charged interest to compensate the City for foregone interest that would have been received by the City if it could bank upfront payments.
If the 2007 owners were subsidised by the whole community, it follows that current ratepayers who pay by instalment are subsidised by the whole community, but I don’t believe they are.
Unfortunately the City seems to be using the popularityof underground power as a smokescreen to extract money from ratepayers.
While some people are under the illusion that the2.1 per cent rate increase will somehow reduce their cost of the underground power, the money is really there to provide bridging finance for the project.
Instead of borrowing from Treasury at lowish rates they are borrowing from the Ratepayer’s Bank at zero interest.
The biggest concern is that the administration has also got the cart before the horse.
Rather than develop a financial model, then work out sources of funding, they have started getting the money from ratepayers before they have developed the model.One of the key inputs of such a model is how many people will pay up front.
It is vital, but the staff have not yet asked the community – even though work on the first area is due to start in six months.
While the mayor has made a commitment to make the financial model public, I doubt that we will get much detail, and I doubt that it will be very timely.
My sense of unease is increased by the fact that the City used to have a policy on underground power but the mayor and her followers got rid of it in 2019 on the basis that it was no longer required.
Dudley Maier Highgate
Sent thema googly
OK. For your sins you’ve been long enough in Coventry.
Some months ago this scribe spent some time sharing a hospital room with a fall victim in his nineties.
He believed that his mother, from Dumfries in Scotland, was probably the maid who spilled the Ashes from the urn that was displayed in Cobham Hall, Kent, UK, in the late 1880s.
Since putting this to sources in the UK there has been no response.
As always, best regards to all.
Ron Willis Author: Cricket’s Biggest Mystery: The Ashes (Rigby, 1982) City Beach
You probably fall into one of two camps – only eat one when you’re blind drunk at 3am or know a place that does good ones and eat there regularly.
I fall into the latter category, despite growing up in the UK where the open pita kebab was a deadly weapon after a night out and you’d wake up in the morning looking like you had been stabbed (it was actually the bright red chilli sauce which always ended up on your clothes).
My love of kebabs can be traced back to childhood holidays in the Mediterranean, where glorious lamb skewers were cooked over an open grill in tavernas, and growing up friends with a Pakistani boy in Glasgow.
After school we would venture down to the nearby suburb of Pollokshields, where there was a large Pakistani community and loads of halal eateries.
There we would sample spicy lamb pizzas, kebabs, pakoras and all manner of unhealthy delights before our main meal back home – a bit like Scottish hobbits.
With this in mind, I took a Proustian trip to Arik’s Istanbul kebabs and Turkish bakery in South Perth – one of the first kebab shops I tried after moving down under.
It’s an unassuming little joint on Angelo Street, which over the past decade has become a chic hub with cafes, a small bar, designer shops and an upmarket IGA-style “Coles Local”.
Despite all the gentrification, Arik’s looks pretty much the same as when it first opened in 2005 with those old-school PVC flaps on the front door (the ones you have to part like the Red Sea to get in).
It’s got a nice little pavement alfresco, where you can munch your kebab and peer across at the prestigious Wesley College, or sit inside where it’s basic but roomy with a few tables and chairs.
Family-run and owned, there’s a nice feel to the halal takeaway and a younger member of the clan greeted me with a friendly smile as I walked in.
The illuminated menu board on the wall had all the old favourites including kebabs, burgers, seafood, gozleme, pide, pizzas, sweets and Turkish bread.
We recently dropped in for a spinach, lamb and cheese gozleme, which had a delicious filling and light bread, and a baklava and chicken burger.
Today I had my sights set on the humble chicken kebab with salad ($14). Forget about all that egg and cheese nonsense which strays into bastardising the dish into something it’s not – get the basic kebab with salad.
The Turkish bread was a standout – it had that classic mottled look and was light and tasty with just the right thickness and chewy texture.
The teared chicken wasn’t greasy or tough and had a nice almost marinated flavour. The flavoursome chook went well with the lettuce, tomato and onion.
My young son opted for a beef burger with cheese and salad ($12). His eyes nearly popped out his head when he saw the size of the burger wrapped up.
The large patty was wedged between two pieces of Turkish bread with a generous helping of onion, tomato and lettuce.
The Turkish bread gave it an exotic twist and he enjoyed the taste of the flamegrilled burger.
I had a sneaky taste and it was a moreish number with the patty having a nice smokiness.
The small chips were the only letdown ($8): they were meant to have salt and vinegar, but I couldn’t taste any and they looked a bit dark and overcooked.
If you’re in South Perth and fancy a casual bite to eat, Arik’s is worth a try. You might even reconsider any prejudice you have towards the humble kebab.
Arik’s Istanbul Kebabs and Turkish Bakery 67 Angelo St, South Perth arikskebabs.com
• Inkabee will be performing at Yagan Square as part of the Boorloo Heritage Festival.
TEN-YEAR-OLD Perth rap sensation Inkabee and cult artist Mo’Ju are some of the amazing acts performing at Yagan Square as part of this year’s Boorloo Heritage Festival.
Now in its 13th year, the Festival shines a light on Perth’s diverse heritage including the Whadjuk Nyoongar peoples of Boorloo.
Held throughout April, it features 90 family-friendly events including walks, talks, workshops and live music.
The Yagan Square concert includes talented local artists Optamus and Joshua “Flewnt MC” Eggington, an award winning Noongar rapper from Perth.
Flewnt burst on to the scene with his breakthrough single Kya Kyana (WAM song of the year 2018) – a roaring Noongar anthem about the history of his family, culture and people.
With a family legacy rooted in activism, Flewnt uses hip hop to articulate a powerful, positive and uplifting message.
He continues to tear up the Boorloo music scene with his live performances and engages with youth through activism and public speaking.
Scott Griffiths aka Optamus is one of the Perth’s most successful hip hop artists. He is MC of the Perth-based Australian hip-hop group Downsyde and a member of WA’s Syllabolix Crew.
Headlining the concert will be Mo’Ju, whose 2018 album Native Tongue was nominated for three ARIA awards including breakthrough artist.
They have toured with both national and international artists, and recently performed with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for WorldPride.
Mo’Ju draws on their rich cultural roots – their father is Filipino and mother is of Wiradjuri and European heritage – to create highly original, genre-defying music that flirts with multiple styles including pop, funk and soul.
“I have definitely explored my culture and heritage through my music, as any artist seeks to understand themselves and the world they are in through their art,” Mo’Ju says. “I’m not out here trying to make strictly ‘cultural music’. My culture is just part of what I carry with me into any situation. I am trying to make music that speaks to the current global culture that we all live in.”
Inspired by a wide range of artists including Billie Holiday, SAULT, Frank Ocean, Gabriel Garzon-Montano and Emma Donovan, Mo’Ju will be performing tracks from their new album Oro, Plata, Mata as well as some old favourites at Yagan Square.
“Always love coming to Perth – my last couple of trips there was to support the Hilltop Hoods,” Mo’Ju says. “Back in 2019 and again in 2022 as a member of A.B. Original. They were incredible shows. Great crowds, we had the best time.”
Also on the bill is 10-year-old Ethan Egginton, aka Inkabee, a young Noongar Wongi rapper from Perth who is making waves in the Australian music scene.
Born and raised in Kwinana, the talented youngster recently released his debut single Beat The Odds.
Drawing on his Indigenous heritage, Inkabee’s music explores themes of resilience, empowerment and cultural identity. His music is a reflection of being a young Noongar Wongi artist growing up in Australia.
The Yagan Square Amphitheatre concert is on Saturday April 15 6pm-9.30pm. Tix at eventbrite.com and for more info on the Boorloo Heritage Festival see visitperth.com.
• Zimboys are at the Fremantle Street Arts Festival.
THE streets of Freo will be full of chaos and entertainment when the Fremantle International Street Arts Festival is held over the long Easter weekend.
After a three year covid hiatus, the Festival is back with dozens of acts from around the world including those from Japan, Scotland, Zimbabwe, Northern Ireland, Ethiopia, Germany and the Philippines.
Making their highly anticipated Festival debut are Zimboyz, a trio renowned for their breathtaking acrobatics.
Originally from Zimbabwe in Ethiopia, the troupe now call Australia home and are a favourite in South Australia where they have played the Royal Adelaide show for the past eight years, delighting audiences with death-defying stunts using fire hoops and Chinese poles. They have toured Europe, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, and know how to put on a show.
Other highlights include the US act Her Majesty’s Secret Circus, a quirky mix of juggling and international espionage.
There’s lots of laughs, spy film references and audience interaction in this fun, energetic show.
You can’t go past a good old mime act and Japanese artist Ketch drags the art form into the 21st century with physical comedy and banging music.
It’s the world premiere of his solo show at Fremantle after two decades performing with the acclaimed comedy duo Gamarjobat.
The French know how to mix surreal comedy with fashion and style, so Coiffures Barroques is sure to be a festival favourite.
Watch in awe as Christophe Pavia uses ribbons, flowers, birds and butterflies to transform an audience member’s hair into a living piece of art in under seven minutes.
It’s not all international acts and Australia is well represented with a number of top performers including Bogomila and Son Pty Ltd, who provide comic fortune telling services, personal beauty care and ‘value added’ magical charms. There’s plenty of hilarity as they bestow their psychic wisdom on an unsuspecting public.
Stretching back to the days of Monty Python, the Brits are masters of the absurd, so it’s no surprise Paul Currie’s bread-filled show with mime puppets is completely bonkers. Get ready for mass anarchy and lots of fun on the streets of Freo.
First held in 1999 as a celebration of Freo’s local busking scene, the last Fremantle International Street Arts Festival in 2019 attracted about 150,000 people.
At this year’s festival the iconic Cappuccino strip will be closed off to vehicles, allowing venues to extend their alfresco dining onto the street.
Night shows will complement the daily program which will be held on stages around the city including at Walyalup Koort, Esplanade Park and Fishing Boat Harbour.
The Fremantle International Street Arts Festival is held from April 7-10. For the full program see streetartsfestival.com.au
IF you like historic buildings with plenty of style, you’ll love this 1930s Parkside property in Mt Lawley.
Situated opposite Hyde Park, the facade is a real jaw-dropper wth lovely arches and plenty of architectural gusto.
The WA Heritage Council were impressed too: “Parkside is an exemplar of the Interwar Mediterranean style of flats, which is one of the most sophisticated designs of its style and period, with a formality and exactness of detail that is noteworthy. The place contributes to the streetscape and demonstrates the attractiveness of apartment life in the latter Interwar period.”
There’s only four apartments in the building, two on the first floor and two on the ground, where apartment two is up for sale.
Sometimes old means poky and impractical, but this apartment has 90sqm of internal living space and a garage accessible from the rear laneway.
The apartment is awash with gorgeous period features including high ornate ceilings, jarrah floorboards, picture rails, lead light windows and a fireplace.
The Voice likes how there is good separation between the open plan living area and the bedrooms, which are tucked away at the rear, overlooking the peaceful gardens.
The bedrooms are big and have picture rails, creating a classy, vintage feel.
There’s even a stylish terrace where you can enjoy meals and drinks, while looking out through the arches.
The home includes air con to the main bedroom, attic storage, gas fireplace, original sash windows, walk-in pantry/internal store room and security screens.
Situated on Vincent Street, opposite Hyde Park, the Beaufort Street strip is a short walk away or jump on the bus to the CBD and enjoy even more nightlife.
And come Sunday, when you want to relax, just open your door and walk across the road to Hyde Park.
This Mt Lawley home will appeal to buyers who value style and history.
Buyers over $579,000 2/104 Vincent Street, Mount Lawley Beaucott Property 9272 2488 Agent Carlos Lehn 0478 927 017
Phillip Perroni owns two of the next door villas, and says one tenant has already decided to move out.
Planning leaving no winners
A NEW three-storey housing block planned for 109 Palmerston Street has been approved by a split Vincent council vote, leaving some neighbours unhappy most of their property will be overshadowed in winter.
“It’s really overshadowing the whole block next door,” says Phillip Perroni, owner of two of the four villas his family built in the 1980s next-door at 107 Palmerston.
His sister owns the other two, and the villas nearest the new development will be overshadowed by between 73 and 95 per cent during winter.
“I worked my guts out for these, and so did my parents,” Mr Perroni says, adding that they followed the planning rules when they built the villas.
Mr Perroni doesn’t live at the site but feels sorry for the tenants who’ll be living in shade, and he says one tenant has already decided to move out once the development goes up.
“You can’t sit in the backyard and enjoy a simple thing: to sit in the backyard and have a quiet beer in the sun,” Mr Perroni says. “That’s an Australian right.”
The owner who wants to develop 109 Palmerston, opaquely listed as “AGV Wealth Pty Ltd”, first lodged plans in July 2022.
Councillors finally considered the application in November 2022, but deferred voting on it, mainly because it didn’t meet the fast-track standards for building height, boundary setbacks and overshadowing the neighbours.
Usually only 50 per cent overshadowing is allowed, but the version councillors deferred was projected to put the neighbouring block in 61 per cent shade in winter.
Some small adjustments were made before amended plans went back to Vincent council’s March meeting, but the overshadowing issue wasn’t fixed, and the version council approved overshadowed 63 per cent.
The owner’s hired planning consultant, Petar Mrdja from Urbanista Town Planning, told councillors the properties were already overshadowed anyway by a towering 28-metre Moreton Bay fig in nearby Robinson Park.
Mr Mrdja said they’d undergone many revisions to try to appease neighbours, and also had to rework the design to avoid damaging the fig tree’s roots. He said the shade concern was “clearly a bit of nonsense given the fig tree overshadows the existing development”.
The updated plans didn’t impress Mr Perroni and two others who put in opposing submissions.
“They tell me that they’ve done a lot of changes,” Mr Perroni says. “They changed the colour of the bricks, they’re putting in a lot more flowers. But to talk about the impact that they’re having? To me, it didn’t change anything.”
Three councillors – Ron Alexander, Ross Ioppolo and Ashley Wallace – voted to refuse the development, wanting instead to defer it to make more changes.
But the council was on a timer. Development applications are meant to be handled within 90 days. After that, the applicant can appeal to bypass council and get the State Administrative Tribunal to make a decision.
Mr Mrdja told council he’d already advised his client to lodge that SAT appeal given how long council had already taken to come to a decision.
Mayor Emma Cole advised councillors to “consider what is the likely success of taking something to the SAT, and I just really don’t know that this is defensible” given the constraints of the site. Ms Cole said even a building that did tick all other planning boxes would probably still overshadow just as much, given they can’t build too close to the fig tree’s roots and instead have to be closer to the neighbours.
Mr Perroni says he can’t understand how the council could refuse the first plans in November, ostensibly because of the overshadowing, then approve new ones with an even higher percentage.
“The whole process was nothing but a travesty.”
Mr Perroni, who came here from Sicily in 1959, says he’s had some sleepless nights since the decision.
“It’s affected a strong belief I’ve had all my life, since I’ve been here as a kid, that everyone would be given a fair go.”
The fig tree in the nearby park makes the empty lot hard to build on, so the design’s been moved closer to the neighbours.
No winners
THE neighbours hate the design, the applicant’s frustrated with the 400-odd days and numerous revisions it’s taken to get approval, and Vincent council’s split over whether to keep fighting for improved plans given they can be overruled on appeal; Palmerston Street highlights how WA’s planning system is ailing and leaving everyone unhappy.
The developer’s hired planner, Petar Mrdja from Urbanista Town Planning, knows both sides of the process as he was previously Vincent council’s director of planning services.
He told councillors at a March briefing the first application went to Vincent’s Design Review Panel for advice in December 2021. Many revisions and a formal deferral followed. If councillors deferred it again, as three of them wanted to, Mr Mrdja said it “would have taken the city more than 450 days to determine an application that the planning and development regulations allocate a time frame of 90 days.
“Unfortunately it highlights an ongoing problem we’re dealing with applications at the city: the assessment process being blown out time after time with applications that involve group dwellings.”
These kinds of delays and neighbourly fracas led to the Barnett government introducing Joint Development Assessment Panels in 2011, with a majority of state-appointed members allowing the panels to overrule a council and approve buildings that councillors and communities might not like.
Originally the JDAPs handled bigger projects, letting developers opt-in if their project was worth $7.5 million or more. That limit was later lowered to $3.5 million, and in February premier Mark McGowan announced any multi-dwelling project could go straight to JDAPs for a decision.
Mr McGowan called the change “cutting red tape,” saying JDAPs would deliver more housing.
Mr Mrdja said given the lengthy process to get 109 Palmerston Street approved, “the recent announcements made by the state to increase the power of the JDAP at the expense of local government seem to make sense”.
While the developers want to speed up the process, the aggrieved owner of the block, Phillip Perroni, wants the process to take as many revisions as it needs until the design fits the exact rules.
And like many neighbours over the years who’ve been aggrieved by planning decisions, Mr Perroni says it’s unfair that he has no right to appeal a council decision.
“What is disturbing is that [the developers] can appeal if the thing is rejected, but we as [neighbouring] owners have no option, we have to accept how things are, we have to accept the decision whether it was right or wrong.”
The Greens and some independent WA MPs have called for third party appeals, but both Labor and Liberal governments over the years have opposed the move, fearing it’d slow house building,
clog tribunals, and turn the planning process into a series of adversarial legal battles.
In 2020, independent MP Charles Smith proposed third party appeals as a check against the McGowan government’s
“state of emergency” planning measures to fast-track development approvals during the Covid era.
“In our haste there is a significant risk that we have been too permissive,” Mr Smith told parliament in September 2020.
He said third party appeals were needed as “this government is stripping away most of the decision-making power from local government and putting it into the hands of yet more bureaucrats such as the Western Australian Planning Commission and the development assessment panels, which are both unelected by the community”.
The Greens backed his idea, as they’ve supported third party appeals for decades, but neither Labor nor Liberal parties offered any support.
“There has been a consistent, historic, bipartisan agreement to oppose third party appeal rights in this state,” Labor MP Stephen Dawson said in the 2020 parliamentary debate.
“Now is not the time to increase red tape and uncertainty for industry.”
Perth Voice Interactive 