Perth Voice Interactive

A LOW-COST, creative solution to a lack of play areas for older kids is taking off across Vincent as a “Pop up Play” revolution.

There’s plenty of slides and swings around town for younger kids, but there’s a gap for older children and Vincent council’s PUP aims to provide low-cost creative stuff for them to do.

There’s no sterile plastic play equipment and there could be some splinters or grazed knees, but the projects are aimed at getting the kids to use their initiative and judgement.

The first PUP project came about at Woodville Reserve when kids were spotted building forts and cubbies out of found treasures and leftover materials from the North Perth Community Garden.

Mayor Emma Cole and city staff met up with the kids in April and liked the cut of their jib, deciding to support what they’d started by providing logs and pallets so they could keep at it.

The next project’s been the new bicycle pump track at the northern end of Britannia Reserve. It has an opening day sausage sizzle and demonstration on Sunday July 7 at noon, but even before it was finished kids were down there every day trying out the track.

The idea came about from the council’s community budget submission process, where four people suggested a bike trail over the past two years.

Ten-year-old Felix Cooley was one of them, who said “a track at Britannia would be great, because we can ride here rather than having to be driven.

“I put the submission in because there isn’t much for us to do, apart from the Leederville Skate Park. There is stuff for older teenagers through Leederville HQ, and playgrounds for little kids, but nothing for people my age.”

Ms Cole said it was already popular when half-finished.

“Kids, dads, mums are out there riding it and building jumps with logs that Main Roads have given us for free, and it’s fantastic to see that the community’s really embracing that and have been really excited by it,” Ms Cole said.

City staff will be around for the bike track opening Sunday to chat about pop up play and get other ideas from the community, and are taking online suggestions at imagine.vincent.wa.gov.au/pop-up-play

by DAVID BELL

THE Bayswater Bowling and Recreation Club is challenging a $19,000 rates bill owed to Bayswater council, claiming it was blackmailed into signing an unfair lease.

Club president Mark Cameron told the June 25 council meeting “we signed that lease under duress” and as a result it should be considered “null and void”.

In 2016, after 11 years without a formal lease, the club started a major $124,000 program to install synthetic turf, with the council promising to pitch in $72,000.

Mr Cameron said when the works had already started, council staff turned up with a new lease that included charges for rates and the emergency services levy.

“It’s fair to say that in the end, the City of Bayswater gave us an ultimatum, and said ‘if you don’t sign the lease we won’t release the $72,000 payment’ for their part of the bowling green replacement,” Mr Cameron said.

“We went away from the meeting convinced that all sporting clubs would end up having to pay rates.”

But this April the council adopted a new policy excluding “community” groups from paying rates if they were leasing council property, effectively restoring the status quo.

But BBRC is stuck with eight years left on its lease and has to cough up nearly $10,000 a year.

Mr Cameron said that’s unfair on the club when other non-profits don’t have to pay and asked for a new lease, though staff urged councillors to take a tough line in case other rate-paying groups also started asking for relief.

Confusing

Councillor Lorna Clarke moved to defer the item because of too many unanswered questions.

Cr Clarke said the city’s legal position needed clarification, especially given the allegations of duress. She hoped the council could avoid being in dispute with a local club.

The quandary will likely reappear at the August council meeting.

Bowls club vice president Mark Doyle told the Voice the rates bill was a “significant impediment” to carrying out improvements at the club.

“Over $9000 per annum is quite a significant amount of money for a not-for-profit club that’s run entirely by volunteers.

“It reduces our ability to advance the club, but it won’t kill us because we’re working very hard to try to generate funds.”

We put the claims of the duress to the council.

CEO Andrew Brien said: “In 2016 the Bayswater Bowling Recreation Club approached the city for a contribution of $72,000 towards synthetic turf for a new bowling green. At this time the club was operating from a city-owned facility without a lease.”

It had expired in 2005.

“Council formally considered the matter and resolved a peppercorn lease was to be put in place to provide some certainty for community members who use the facility. In addition to the peppercorn lease payment the club was required to pay rates and other outgoings associated with the site.”

He said the city couldn’t have preempted the new policy giving community clubs rates exemptions.

He noted even the rates-free clubs still have to pay utilities and the emergency services levy.

by DAVID BELL

AT least one developer has some confidence in Beaufort Street, with an eight-storey, mixed-use development on the way for the long-empty Highgate Drycleaners site.

Baltinas Architecture designed the $10 million, 26-apartment block with four small retail spaces on the ground floor, and two offices upstairs.

It generated 20 objections from neighbours, and is taller than the six storeys Vincent council usually allows (it’s 25.9m tall, whereas the suggested limit is 20.5m) but the council unanimously okayed it because the setbacks of the upper levels means they’re not visible from street level. The council’s “deemed to comply” rules state it’s okay to go outside the standard limit if the end result is practically the same.

To ensure the leafy dream of the architect makes it to reality, rainwater will irrigate balcony planters, and plant maintenance is mandated by strata by-laws.

Mayor Emma Cole said: “I think there’s a lot to love about this development. I think it is really interesting in its approach to on-structure planting.

“There is talk of achieving up to 50 per cent canopy this way, so that is really quite exciting.”

by DAVID BELL

NEWSPAPER conglomerate Community News Group, owned by 7West Media, has killed off the Guardian Express newspaper in a round of major amalgamations and redundancies.

The Guardian has been merged into the Eastern Reporter, which currently covers Morley, and will now carry that name.

CNG says the changes are aimed at “simplifying its masthead names” and streamlining news access, with the Express the sixth masthead to disappear since last August.

The director of the WA branch of the journalists’ union, Tiffany Venning, said any closure of mastheads carried with it redundancies which were a loss for local communities.

“They’re down to, what I consider, a very limited number of reporters,” Ms Venning said.

“It just doesn’t seem it would be possible [to report] in any sort of adequate or in-depth way.”

The discreet notice on page two of the final edition of the Guardian Express outlined Community News Group’s continued commitment to “bringing you the best in local news and information”.

“It would seem a stretch – that’s a very generous way of putting it,” Ms Venning said.

“Sounds just like fancy management terms for ‘we’re just cutting back’.

“These unfortunate things; they sort of become a self-fulfilling prophecy in that [owners] go ‘oh, we’re not getting revenue so we need to make costs, so we need to get rid of journalists,’ which produce the content and then advertisers go, ‘what am I actually paying to advertise in because there’s not much,’ and it just becomes this vicious cycle.

“It’s pretty shit.”

The advertising manager of Perth Suburban Newspapers (which represents independent publishers such as the Voice), Greg Christian, has crunched the numbers and said CNG’s circulation has dropped from 633,500 in March 2016 to 347,000 under the new model.

CNG didn’t respond to questions.

by SEAN HILL

THE Vincent Men’s Shed has a new free little library outside its premises at 10 Farmer Street, North Perth.

“The library is for all members of the public from children to adults to encourage reading and put down digital devices for a short time,” shed treasurer Roy Haagman said.

“The aim of the library is for the public to find a book to read and if possible, replace the book taken with one they have already read.”

The shed’s open mornings from 8.30am on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and Saturday morning from 9am. The little library is always open.

VINCENT council has ushered in its 2019/20 budget with an average residential rate increase of 2.7 per cent.

Mayor Emma Cole said it wasn’t a showy or flashy budget, but was about “future thinking” to deliver key community initiatives, such as the roll-out of its three-bin FOGO system. It’s due to start next financial year but the council is paying down $500,000 of the $1.3 million bill this year to smooth out the cost (which makes up a hefty 1.4 per cent of the rate rise).

Leederville resident John Siamos wrote to the council complaining that rate increases should be in line with the Perth inflation rate and wage growth rate, “as the city has already charged well over that benchmark for the past three years”.

Council’s moneyfolk replied that standard measures of inflation don’t translate well to local government. Instead of the CPI’s “basket of groceries” measure, they refer to the “Local Government Cost Index” which takes into account the costs of road construction, machinery maintenance, street lighting and all the other council stuff. That’s projected to be 1.8 per cent in 2019/20.

FOGO

Ms Cole noted the base rates increase (sans FOGO) is below that index.

The state government wants all councils to switch to FOGO by 2025, so Vincent council’s reasoning is that getting in early will bring them savings sooner because it’s far cheaper per tonne to process FOGO into mulch, compared to the current landfill system.

City staff had originally drafted a 2.9 per cent increase, but Josh Topelberg moved to drop plans for a $60,000 padding of the council’s cash reserves to ease ratepayers’ bills.

The 2.9 per cent made it into the West Australian’s report on council rates, with a pic of Ms Cole beside an all-cap heading “2.9% INCREASE” which noted it was the third-biggest in the city. The revised figure would have put Vincent in sixth place.

In response, Vincent issued a release noting its average residential rate was $1501.54, compared to neighbouring councils which averaged $1670.96.

by DAVID BELL

A DOGGY daycare in the West Perth scout hall has been rejected again by Perth council commissioners, despite warnings from staff the decision could be overturned on appeal and the city hit with legal costs.

Commissioners Andrew Hammond and Gaye McMath first rejected the Madame Ma’s Doggie Daycare application for a change-of-use for 581 Murray Street on April 30.

Council planning staff said the proposal met all requirements, but it was rejected over fears the dogs would be too noisy for nearby apartment residents who’d submitted a list of concerns (including that a dog centre there would hurt property values).

Applicant Marian Gorman appealed to the State Administrative Tribunal which told the council to rethink its decision, while Ms Gorman provided more information about sound-proofing the luxury pooch centre.

City staff recommended commissioners approve it a second time round, citing a legal precedent of a similar case in Belmont where the dog centre won on appeal.

The SAT could also reject strict conditions the city wanted to impose, they warned.

Ahead of voting commissioners heard a lengthy deputation against the daycare centre from Alice Brown, strata chair and resident from the nearby “Iceworks” apartment at 611 Murray Street. Her concerns included noise, odour, and having more traffic of up to 60 dog owners dropping off their animals.

But it was the noise that remained the commissioners’ biggest concern.

“I do not believe that the extra information that was provided, and the extra actions contained therein, they did not give me enough confidence to think that there was not going to be a future noise problem and an inappropriate impact on the amenity of that surrounding area,” Comsr Hammond said

Ms Gorman, having already spent tens of thousands on a fit out and acoustics report, is taking it back to the SAT for a second time.

by DAVID BELL