Perth Voice Interactive

AFTER a “frustrating” delay of years, more trees and a leafy town plaza are coming to the sun-baked stretch of Beaufort Street north of Walcott.

Stirling councillor Suzanne Migdale has urged the city to get a move on and start planting, as “suggestions to improve this part of Mount Lawley have been ongoing since December 2015”.

Cr Migdale says locals “are getting frustrated with the lack of action” for Beaufort.

There was a little planting on Walcott but the Beaufort strip’s endured some sun-scorched summers while the city carried out its Mount Lawley “visioning workshops” to find out exactly what locals want.

Following Cr Migdale’s successful motion, money’s been put aside in the budget for spotted gums and plane trees along the median strip (and on some private land if owners are keen).

Stirling’s also planning a $347,000 town plaza for the carpark just north of Walcott Street. The final design’s yet to be settled on (and the concept drawings are very drafty), but the idea is a few carbays will go to make way for a tree-laden amphitheatre-like space, flanked by brick colonnades and with space for stalls. Construction could start early 2020.

Linger

Cr Migdale told the Voice the trees and plaza were “all about creating a wonderful, enjoyable space for residents to linger, and for business owners to reap the benefits too”.

The trees and the plaza project are partly funded by the $270,000 the city’s getting from the contentious sale of the strip of land at 80A Walcott Street (“Curtain call for public space?”, Voice, August 10, 2018).

The council’s also got $120,000 spare cash because irrigating the Hamersley Golf course came in cheaper than expected, and there’s $57,000 of developer contributions from the “public open space cash-in-lieu” reserve, which various builders have had to pay into when they haven’t provided the required open space on their project sites.

Further up the road, mobile parklets are in the works for the Inglewood town centre part of Beaufort Street. A $25,000 prototype mobile parklet that’d be able to pop up in parking bays is proposed as part of the budget, to be trialled outside Finlay and Sons Café at first.

by DAVID BELL

A NEW free parking trial in the City of Perth aims to revitalise high streets that have empty shopfronts.

On Tuesday (June 25) Perth city commissioners approved a year-long trial of free one-hour parking on “high streets” in East Perth, West Perth and Claisebrook precincts.

They’re prioritising the rollout to areas that have lots of empty commercial premises like Royal Street in East Perth. It has been identified as a priority and the trial will start there “immediately”.

Commissioner Andrew Hammond moved the motion for the trial saying the city needed to wean itself off parking revenue.

He said a “paradigm shift” was needed, as “for too long our parking revenue has been the tail that wags the dog for the city, and this is creating a real problem particularly for activation in some of our high street areas, where the revenue that we require for our operating activities comes at the expense of quite detrimental parking regimes in these areas.

Efficiencies

“The reliance on revenue from parking needs to stop, and I’m sure with the structural efficiency changes in the city, that can be achieved, and at the end of the day if we can change the financial DNA of the city so as parking revenue is important, but it’s not necessarily critical, and we do have the flexibility and the reduced expectations of parking revenue so as our high street areas can compete effectively with the likes of Oxford Street, Leederville, Albany Highway in Victoria Park, Hay Street in Subiaco, etc.”

Commissioner Gaye McMath agreed: “Driving down Royal Street, by way of example, for a large part of the time seems very desolate and I think anything that the city can do in order to trial alternate approaches of attracting activity and business is to be supported.”

Locals in those areas have been pushing for some free parking for years, but petitions and lobbying by councillors and local MPs have amounted to zilch.

Cr Reece Harley first proposed a free parking trial in East and West Perth when he ran for mayor in 2015, but he was defeated at that election by incumbent Lisa Scaffidi.

He put up a free parking motion in 2017 but only got support from councillors Jemma Green and James Limnios.

The lord mayor and her faction voted it down, saying they were concerned about a potential loss of $45,000 in parking revenue.

With the council suspended pending the outcome of a state government inquiry, commissioners decided they could take the budget hit if they ran things efficiently across the next financial year and kept “discretionary” spending low.

The move’s been welcomed by Perth state MP John Carey who’s been urging the city to trial free parking. He thanked the commissioners “for listening, engaging with locals and doing what the former senior leadership at the City of Perth would never do”.

It’s also been celebrated by community groups West Perth Local and the East Perth Community Group.

When we spoke to EPCG chair Anne-Maree Ferguson last week about the city’s contentious CCTV rollout, she said far more people were concerned about the plight of traders and the urgent need for free parking.

To see if the trial works they’ll be measuring whether there is increased footfall and high street patronage, reduced vacancy rate, improved community safety perceptions and an improvement in “street hygiene and general amenities”.

by DAVID BELL

GREYHOUND lovers are lobbying the state government to axe laws requiring the dogs to wear muzzles in public.

Maylands Labor MP Lisa Baker is backing the push and says the law hinders greyhound adoption because it creates the perception that they are more likely to bite than other dogs.

“This flies in the face of clear academic and scientific evidence,” Ms Baker said, adding it was outdated breed-specific legislation.

The RSPCA agrees.

The vestigial law stems from the days when greyhounds were viewed as racing machines and had an unfair reputation for aggression.

Racing

Greyhound advocates Alanna Christiansen and Andrea Pollard from Free the Hounds presented a 4000-signature anti-muzzle petition to state racing and gaming minister Paul Papalia at parliament on Wednesday (June 26).

The group also has the support of Greens MP Alison Xamon, who wants greyhound racing abolished.

Greyhounds currently have to pass Racing and Wagering WA’s National Temperament Testing Assessment to go sans-muzzle, which means staying with “Greyhounds as Pets” for four days. Their owners have to cough up $175.

Some greyhound adopters don’t feel comfortable sending their pets to stay with an organisation connected to the industry that “discarded” them.

The state government is currently reviewing the Cat Act and the Dog Act, which contain the muzzle laws.

Mr Papalia welcomed the petition and said “it’s timely we look at it”.

He’d just survived a photo shoot with three greyhounds before talking to us, and far from them being fierce hounds, he said “we had to wake one of them up to get a photo”.

While Ms Baker says she’d prefer to see the end of the racing industry altogether, Mr Papalia does not support those calls.

“That’s not on the table,” Mr Papalia told the Voice. “As the state government, we recognise all codes in the racing industry are important contributors to the state. They employ a lot of people, they generate an opportunity for people to make their living, and they also contribute to the calendar of events.”

He said when Labor took government, he told the industry they’d have to have the best welfare standards if they were to continue operating. Two years on he says “as a result of working with the advocacy groups, I believe we have the highest standards in the country, if not the world.

“I’m satisfied that there is no behaviour [in WA] of the like that people were so deeply aggrieved over on the east coast.”

by DAVID BELL

THE opening of Lyric Lane in Maylands has been delayed again, after two subcontractors went bust.

Musicians Rob Snarski and Shane O’Mara were advertised to play at the bar/music venue on June 21, and the Little Lord Street Band on June 29, but those gigs were moved to The Bassendean Hotel.

The ambitious venue, built on the site of the old Speedlite bike shop on Guildford Road, will have a bar, cafe/bistro and basement venue for gigs.

But after five years of development hell, Lyric Lane co-owner Michiel de Ruyter says they are now planning a soft opening of just the bar and cafe/bistro in the “very near future”.

“Given that we have set opening dates previously and missed them we have decided not to set any anticipated dates until we have the required sign-offs,” he told the Voice.

“The main problem has been subcontractor issues. It is a complex build and then the added challenge of two main subbies going into liquidation at the wrong time.

“We have decided to open the bar and café/bistro and hold off a bit with the underground for now as we need a few more boxes ticked for that.

“At this time we have applied for clearances and certification for occupancy so we anticipate a soft opening in the very near future. Basically the venue is fully fitted-out and ready to roll. We just need the boxes ticked.”

When the de Ruyter family first floated the music bar in 2014, they hoped to open two years later, but planning travails and construction issues have waylaid their plans.

Despite the setbacks, locals have inundated Facebook with praise for their commitment to opening a music venue.

“In time to come, these delays will be insignificant and seemingly forgotten about. Keep building the dream and very soon you will get to share it with all with us. It will be yet another pearler of an addition to this eclectic, pure and funky place that is Maylands,” posted Shaun Kaesler.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

WEST PERTH’S Jennifer Motherway sent us this photo of her luscious cat Salem finding a new use for the Voice–as a bed.

The Chantilly-Tiffany breed was adopted from Cat Haven shelter, and even though he’s got a cushy life now, he seems to prefer sleeping on the paper over his fluffy bed.

“He reads it every morning with his coffee,” Ms Motherway assures us.