THERE have been many difficulties faced by musical groups during the pandemic. 

City of Perth Bands have managed to rehearse, with precautions taken and social distancing maintained. 

The Concert Band is a group of about 30 players, mostly wind instruments, and we are looking forward to our performance at John Leckie Pavilion at College Park. 

We most recently entertained the crowds at the City of Perth event where Matildas superstar Sam Kerr was the first Western Australian woman to be handed the Keys to the City of Perth, an honour not bestowed on anyone for several years. 

At this event, the West Coast Fever netball champions were also acknowledged for winning their maiden premiership of the Suncorp Super Netball competition. We provided the supporting musical entertainment at Forrest Place in the city.

The age range of our members is from teenagers to octogenarians, and we have a variety of instruments from piccolo through to double bass.

We recently purchased an excellent baritone saxophone which we are still fundraising for, hence there will be also be a raffle with wonderful prizes to be won at our concert. 

We are also preparing for a quiz night in late September to add to our fundraising for this very expensive instrument. We have an excellent player, Emma, who is studying at UWA, playing the baritone saxophone for us at this concert.

We will also be performing under the baton of Connor Siekman, who has recently stepped in due to the Covid-related illness of our resident musical director Dale Pointon. Reuben Christman is a respected trumpet player and also assistant conductor, who is supporting Connor as he conducts his second concert with us in three weeks.

We are very proud to present a blended program of music, hopefully a range that will entertain and suit all tastes. The pieces include Seagate Overture, American Riversongs, A Walk in the Morning Sun, A Longford Legend, On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss and Toccata for Band.

City of Perth Concert Band Annual Family and Friends Concert Sunday July 24, 2.30-4pm
John Leckie Pavilion, Melvista Ave, Nedlands
Tix $20 or $10 conc at https://events.humanitix.com/ffc2022

CAROLYN BENDOTTI is the secretary of the City of Perth Band committee

But legal fees may bankrupt vendor

A NIGHTMARE neighbour on Bulwer Street is so badly behaved the Supreme Court’s declared his presence should’ve been disclosed to potential buyers of the adjoining unit. 

Sarah Thillagaratnam bought the ground floor unit at 6/34 Bulwer Street for $390,000 in 2015 but quickly found it unliveable due to the extreme aggressive behaviour of upstairs neighbour Laurence Pratt.

The sellers Henry Doan and Thi Van Anh Nguyen did not disclose Mr Pratt’s behaviour before the sale so the court’s found Ms Thillagaratnam is entitled to have the sales contract rescinded. 

Angry backlash

The court heard evidence from other tenants who’d previously lived in unit 6, summed up by Justice Jeremy Curthoys: “Mr Pratt made their lives misery because they could not make any noise above a whisper, including by turning on the hot water for fear of triggering an ‘angry backlash’ from him.

“If Mr Pratt could see you, he would scream out the window at you. If he could not see you, he would turn up his music to a ‘ridiculous level’ or start making noise by hammering the floor which would cause their entire unit to reverberate with noise.”

Like previous residents Ms Thillagaratnam got a restraining order on Mr Pratt, but it did not solve the problem. One former unit 6 tenant told the court they called the police on Mr Pratt an average of once a week for the eight months they lived there. 

Mr Pratt, who’s owned his unit since 1980, has a long history of breaching violence restraining orders and assaulting other tenants in the complex dating back to at least 2001. 

Unable to sleep, feeling sick and depressed, and losing her hair, Ms Thillagaratnam felt the apartment was uninhabitable and moved out in 2016, then took the sellers to court seeking rescission of the contract.

She argued the sellers breached the standard sale condition in the contract that contains the undertaking “the seller does 

not know of anything that will materially affect the buyer’s use or enjoyment of the strata lot or of the common property”.

Mr Doan and Ms Nguyen had limited English but told the court that apart from a few incidents they thought Mr Pratt was a “normal” neighbour. 

Justice Jeremy Curthoys’ finding stated: “A ‘normal’ person does not react so adversely to noise, they do not hammer on the floor, they do not abuse their neighbours by swearing and insulting them.”

Justice Curthoys added Mr Doan had called the police over the neighbour’s antisocial behaviour and “it is difficult to accept that the behaviour of a ‘normal person’ would cause Mr Doan to call the police”. 

The finding states that failing to disclose Mr Pratt’s behaviour was “reckless fraudulent misrepresentation” and Ms Thillagaratnam is entitled to have the contract rescinded and all costs associated with the purchase refunded. 

Including interest on the loan and all other fees, it comes to about $480,000 owed to Ms Thillagaratnam, but Justice Curthoys said “her victory is likely to be pyrrhic”.

The defendants have already had to sell their home to meet their legal fees trying to fight the case across the past five years, and may now end up bankrupt and unable to refund the costs. 

“This case illustrates the folly of litigation,” Justice Curthoys wrote. 

How much can a grouch set you back?

A SEVERE nuisance neighbour could make a house harder to sell than if someone had been killed there, and can knock anywhere from 25 to 50 per cent off the price according to expert evidence given in the Thillagaratnam v Doan case.

Unit 6/34 Bulwer Street sold for $390,000 in 2015 without the buyer knowing about the horribly behaved neighbour upstairs.

The plaintiff called on valuer David Moore who placed the correct value at $200,000. He found no directly comparable sales affected by a neighbour this bad, but did consider the price of other properties affected by “blight or stigma” including two houses “in which people had died and their corpses had remained in the premises for some period”, according to the court judgment.

His pricing included the consideration that the bad neighbour would probably live another 20 years past the 2015 sale according to life expectancy data.

Heavy traffic

The defendants called valuer Blake Lieschke who valued the property at somewhere between $350,000 to $290,000, depending on whose account of the neighbour’s behaviour was accurate. He looked at other properties in troublesome surrounds subject to heavy traffic noise, or that were near a prison or mental health facility.

But Justice Curthoys found the examples used to estimate the proper value were too different to apply to this unit, as noise from an aggravated neighbour banging a hammer on the floor or shouting abuse was “quite distinct” from loud traffic, and the previous presence of a corpse “does not provide a meaningful comparison to Mr Pratt’s conduct”. 

Justice Curthoys also found the valuation based on Mr Pratt’s life expectancy had too many variables: “Mr Pratt at 85 years of age will be a very different person from Mr Pratt at age 65 to 70. His ability to harass the occupant of Lot 6 is likely to diminish as he ages.”

Certain buyers might not be as deterred, Justice Curthoys said: “Although Ms Thillagaratnam believes that Lot 6 is uninhabitable it does not follow that a male in his 20s or 30s would have the same reaction as her to Mr Pratt. 

“They might well ‘hit back’ and direct noise at Mr Pratt when he starts hammering on the floor of his unit. They might bring 

an action in nuisance,” suing him which could lead to fines or imprisonment if he breaches an order made by the court.

“These are the only sanctions which seem likely to restrain Mr Pratt’s conduct,” Justice Curthoys said.

by DAVID BELL

TRADERS dotted around Vincent’s town centres fear the end of the free first hour in council carparks could also end their businesses.

The council this week voted to charge $1 for the first hour of parking to raise enough funds for this year’s budget without having to tax ratepayers even more than this year’s 7.6 per cent rate increase.

Andrew Parissis from Siena’s restaurant in Leederville said it could be the death knell for retail in the town centre.

“Truth be told, paid parking will not affect our business, especially during the day because we’re not open during the day—because no one is around.

“And why is no one around? Because the retail in Leederville is dying, and if the retail continues to die in Leederville we’ll be left with a night-time precinct only.

Death knell

“That’s why I feel that we should be encouraging people to come to Leederville, and if that means giving them an hour free parking, then we give them an hour free parking… give them some incentive to come to Leederville.”

Wayne Crofts is CEO of the IGA Good Grocer in Leederville, and said “any barrier to admission to attend a supermarket… will absolutely impact the customer’s mindset as to whether or not they will attend that store. So a barrier of having all parking bays paid for… would absolutely be a barrier and we would be significantly concerned with that.”

Mount Hawthorn business owner Greg Johnson said “I’m very, very concerned about this proposal. It is a complete misunderstanding of the ecosystem as to how important parking is to the success of all retail, both daytime retail and nighttime retail.

“The proposal to introduce paid parking… assumes an inelastic demand for paid parking,” he said, and it’ll incentivise people to instead head to shopping centres with free parking.

“I just request that you have a look at what happened to the City of Perth: It’s wrecked, the foot traffic is wrecked by a crazy system of parking. Subiaco’s gone in the same direction. Why would you want to emulate a failed model? 

“Both those cities are now trying to get those pedestrians back on the street by offering free parking and other incentives. Here in Vincent in the midst of all of this we’re going against that.”

A lone voice in favour of paid parking was Leederville urban planner Anna Kelderman. She said paid parking should be brought in to encourage people to use public transport instead, and pointed out that ‘free’ parking actually just ended up being paid for by ratepayers.

“As a ratepayer I want the public carparks to do more heavy lifting in obtaining funds,” she says.

“The land is not free, and if it’s not earning money for the city which befits its land value, then we as ratepayers are subsidising the choice of others to drive, many of whom are not city ratepayers.”

Ms Kellerman said “a lunch or dinner on the strip of Leederville is all the poorer for the never-ending traffic nose and smell and the lack of safety.

“We can only imagine a future without that for our centre if we reduce vehicle movement.”

Three councillors — Ron Alexander, Ross Ioppolo and Suzanne Worner — wanted to keep free parking but were outvoted.

Cr Ioppolo referred to “a neuromarketing and behavioural principle known as ‘the power of free’,” saying research had found even a one cent fee could be a deterrent and introducing paid parking “could have catastrophic effects.”Cr Alexander pointed out “the action is opposite 

to what some other local governments are considering in the light of the fight with the competition — which is largely big shopping centres that offer free parking… in 2022 the City of Perth introduced free night time parking in city bays after 6pm, as well as extending one hour free parking in select areas of West Perth because they were trying to rejuvenate those areas.”

Cr Worner suggested that instead of getting rid of the free hour they could instead increase rates for all-day parkers, typically city commuters who leave their car in Vincent and head off to work.

But most councillors went with scrapping the free hour.

Vincent mayor Emma Cole said a test run removing free parking at Barlee Street hadn’t resulted in negative impacts. 

“And if there are catastrophic impacts,” Ms Cole said, “…if we do get it wrong, we can reverse it.”

A FESTIVAL will be held this summer to mark the removal of the notorious and “hilarious” Bayswater bridge (right), known for vehicles routinely getting wedged underneath it despite the “low clearance, 3.8m” sign.

The bridge’s siren sign lures in an average of 10 trucks and vans a year and the 4.8m replacement bridge, part of the Metronet upgrades, will hopefully mean an end to the traffic chaos.

Metronet asked locals how the bridge should be commemorated and farewelled earlier this year, and after 340 submissions they’ve decided to go with a summer festival celebrating the decades of mayhem.

A public art piece is also being commissioned in honour of the bridge with a $45,000 budget for the selected artist who creates “a design that invokes the character and uniqueness of ‘Baysie Bridge’” and that can “respond to the community.”

TREE vandalism could become rife in Bayswater after the majority of its councillors binned a policy that puts ‘shaming signs’ in place of dead trees that were deliberately killed.

The council’s had a longstanding policy that when a public tree has been purposefully poisoned or cut down they erect a large sign, up to 3m by 3m for a period of two years, stating the tree has been vandalised.

It’s intended to shame the vandals, since it’s usually obvious who’s poisoned a tree to get a better view or keep falling leaves off their lawn.

The shame sign policy is used because it’s nearly impossible for the council to get enough proof that someone’s damaged a tree.

But the policy’s now been abolished by the vote of a majority of councillors as part of series of recent measures that’ve reduced Bayswater’s unilateral control over establishing and keeping public trees.

Cr Dan Bull urged colleagues to keep the policy, as without it “the city has no levers to stop tree vandalism. 

“It is so rare to find the person who has done it, and when this proposal was put forward it was actually ground-breaking in Western Australia in the metropolitan area. We were one of the first councils that was doing it, and it may not be perfect but it’s pretty much all that we’ve got.

“So if we’re fair dinkum about protecting and growing tree canopy then we need to have something to deter people from vandalising street trees.”

Councillors Elli Petersen-Pik and Sally Palmer agreed but were outvoted. 

The signs policy hadn’t always worked smoothly: A staff report to councillors says there have been “instances where the signage reflected unfairly on residents that were not involved in the tree removal”, such as the 2017 Maylands case where a cluster of houses along Clarkson Road felt falsely accused by an ambiguously placed sign (‘We’re no tree killers’, Voice, March 25, 2017).

The council can still seek compensation from tree killers if they’re ever lucky enough to catch someone red-handed. 

by DAVID BELL

IN an effort to revive the Perth CBD from pandemic-era doldrums the state government will throw in $4million to boost foot traffic and fund city events.

Businesses, not-for-profits and property owners with ideas for vibrant events to revitalise the CBD can now apply for up to $100,000 in grants.

Organisers will be able to use state government spaces like Elizabeth Quay, the Perth Cultural Centre and Yagan Square, which was meant to be a thriving event space but hasn’t had much activity outside of Fringe season. 

Local government minister John Carey announced the grants saying: “We want to get people back into the city supporting small businesses and driving vibrancy, and this $4million grants program is a fantastic opportunity to make that happen.

“We’re envisaging pop-up markets, long table dinners, live music performances, food and wine events, fashion shows, art exhibits, children’s entertainment, and more.”

Mr Carey said: “After the past couple of years, social reconnection is powerful and as well as being good from a human interaction perspective, these activation events have great potential to increase spending and assist businesses needing support as they recover from the impacts of the pandemic.”

Grant applications will be assessed by the local government department and they want to see new events that’ll bring in a lot of people who’ll spend money on surrounding businesses and liven up under-utilised areas. 

Perth council’s also been spending big trying to get people back into the city in recent months, trialling free parking periods and giving out small business grants.

At the June 28 council meeting, deputy lord mayor Di Bain said the city-funded Saturday’s Rugby fan day in Forrest Place had brought in 2300 extra people to the city, and other events like Supanova Comic Con and the Van Gogh Alive exhibition had helped boost numbers. 

The state’s $4million in grants bolsters the $7million announced in April to help improve Yagan Square, a project delivered under the previous state government that’s proved to be too boring on the inside and too combative on the outside.

Turnover of businesses inside the main Market Hall food court has been pretty high due to a lack of customers since the 2018 opening, and the outside area is dogged with so much antisocial behaviour, a mobile policing station is now a permanent fixture. 

The $7million will redesign Market Hall to get more pedestrian flow and events company Nokturnl have been selected as an anchor tenant to lead the revamp. They’ve previously created the multi-venues The Old Synagogue in Fremantle and The Beaufort in Mount Lawley.