Perth Voice Interactive

VINCENT councillors have voted to scrap rules banning swings, rope ladders and cubbies on verges after reading an emotional letter from a parent.

At Tuesday night’s meeting councillors also gave the tick to residents who want to tart up their verge with raised garden beds, seats, logs or rocks.

In November, Vincent council removed a rope ladder and a swing on a Chamberlain Street verge after receiving a complaint.

The move infuriated the parents who’d put up the mini playground, who pinned a terse letter to the tree addressed to the complainants.

“Congratulations, we have been asked to take them down,” it read.

“Unfortunately, you missed the event of us telling our child that he can no longer play on the equipment that he loves so much.

Tears

“You also missed seeing the stream of tears run down his face as we consoled him.”

After reading the letter, Vincent mayor Emma Cole called for the rule to be changed.

It’s taken some behind-the-scenes finagling over the past few months, but Ms Cole says common sense has prevailed.

“It is fantastic to see the rules change to reflect what is such a wonderful part of life in Vincent—kids playing outside and our community coming together over creative verge gardens,” Ms Cole said.

“Play equipment on our verge trees livens up our neighbourhoods. It brings kids outdoors, encouraging them to play together and have a sense of old time fun on the streets that is sometimes lacking in modern life. We believe that as long as the tree and verge additions are safe and keep the street trees healthy, they should be allowed to stay and encouraged in our community.

“If a resident wishes to improve their verge to be a great place to play or grow veggies, I think our role as a local government is to say ‘yes’.”

The policy will go out for public comment for 21 days.

by DAVID BELL

AFTER years of delays the Grand Central building—part owned by lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi—has been heritage listed by Perth council.

Commissioners ended the three-year saga by approving the listing at Tuesday night’s council meeting.

City of Perth heritage experts have wanted to list the Wellington Street building for years, saying it’s historically significant having been an alcohol-free “coffee palace” during the gold rush.

But Ms Scaffidi’s husband, Joe, wasn’t keen on the listing, saying there wasn’t much of the original building left intact and he had plans to redevelop.

In September 2016 city staff told councillors it should be heritage protected, but three of Ms Scaffidi’s allies on the planning committee—Judy McEvoy, Jim Adamos and Keith Yong—voted to defer the listing.

Earlier in the year, then-acting CEO Martin Mileham had also stopped it going to council, saying more work needed to be done on the report.

In response, city director Annaliese Battista sent Mr Mileham an email saying she was “concerned” that attempts to list the building kept getting delayed.

For 17 months her department was trying to put a recommendation to the council to have it protected.

She wrote in that email, uncovered by the Sunday Times, that the long delays “perpetuates the speculation that this property is being afforded special attention”. She said “any further work would continue to unreasonably delay the report”.

Eventually the Grand Central listing did come before council in November 2016 and they voted to approve it.

It should have been listed shortly afterwards: normally the owner has 21 days to make a submission for or against, then it would go back to council for rubber-stamping. For some reason, that didn’t happen.

A report issued this week to commissioners, standing in for suspended councillors, said “due to an oversight, this has not been progressed.”

The Grand Central has also had an extraordinary three heritage assessments; most buildings get one. At Tuesday night’s meeting commissioner Andrew Hammond said: “I think the matter has gone on for some time, and I’d be confident now that processes and systems are in place so we don’t get this kind of slippage in the future”.

by DAVID BELL

Before it was renovated in 2016 and rebranded Akara Hotel, it was one of the worst-reviewed backpackers’ lodgings in town. There had been years of complaints sent to the city, complaining of cockroach infestations and dangerous conditions, but no action was taken to shut the place down.

Even the renovations caused controversy: A bunch of debris and dozens of soiled mattresses were taken out of the building and dumped on a Scaffidi-owned block in Vincent, ticking off the neighbours.

A staff member for Mr Scaffidi claimed the garbage wasn’t his and had been left by a previous owner of the block, but amongst the massive pile of rubbish was a sign stating “GRAND CENTRAL ACCOMMODATION”.

VINCENT’S latest local planning scheme was more than a decade in the making—but it’s stumbled at the finish line with 6300 letters sent out with the wrong address.

Anyone who was affected by the rezoning was sent a letter that was meant to explain the change to their property, but every letter stated “your property at 2A Albert Street, North Perth, has changed from Commercial [zoning] to Mixed Use R60”.

Embarrassed

It has cost the council $8000 to rectify the admin bungle by sending out priority-posted letters containing an apology and the correct information.

The correction letter stated: “LOCAL PLANNING SCHEME NO. 2—SORRY!”

“We’re very embarrassed to say that the letter you received incorrectly provided the details for another property instead of your property.”

The planning scheme rezones some parts of town to encourage more development along transport corridors, keeping the residential areas intact and shifting the old concrete batching plants out of Claisebrook.

One complaint to City of Vincent’s Facebook page said; “it is a pity the mail-out informing ratepayers of the changes was so badly messed up. It caused great distress to some elderly ratepayers”.

Vincent CEO Len Kosova explained the mistake.

“Unfortunately, the data wasn’t correctly merged by the distribution company and the error wasn’t apparent when the city received one letter to proof prior to printing.”

by DAVID BELL

COMMISSIONERS filling in for suspended Perth councillors will take home more than $300,000 a year—10 times a councillor’s salary.

The fee for commissioners are set by local government minister David Templeman. Chair commissioner Eric Lumsden will be paid $320,000 and his deputy Gaye McMath and commissioner Andrew Hammond will get $310,000 each. They will also receive 14.5 per cent superannuation.

A council agenda notes it will need to find an extra $358,000 to cover the commissioners’ pay packets despite having saved $814,000 by stripping councillors of their wages while suspended, and reducing lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi’s salary to the minimum rate.

The city could also have to pay for the year-long state government inquiry into its affairs, which is estimated to cost $2.4 million.

If there is an adverse finding against Perth council, a councillor or an employee, the local government minister can order the city to pay some or all of the costs. The agenda included advice from staff to the commissioners to put some money aside to cover potential costs.

by DAVID BELL

MARK LOADER hopes that one day his business Cleanamarina will go bust, because that will mean WA has finally got pristine and pollution-free waterways.

The South Freo local been involved in maritime endeavours for almost 50 years, including various transport roles and delivering vessels around the world.

He’s so passionate about cleaning up WA waterways that he’s designed a skimmer box from plumbing pipes.

Simple and effective, the device has arms that scoop up rubbish in the drink at Elizabeth Quay and Mandurah.

The company is currently in talks with Indonesia to install them at Lombok, which has huge problems with rubbish in waterways.

When the Voice dropped in to check out operations, Loader spotted a scooped-up syringe, which he carefully picked up and placed in a special container.

He’s scooped up lots of syringes from the water over the past two years.

“The funny thing is they throw them in the river, but they always put the cap on,” he says.

Hardly any of the rubbish gathered comes from the foreshore on Elizabeth Quay, thanks to a special mesh that stops objects as small as a cigarette butt from entering the water.

“Most comes from the west with the wind,” Loader says.

Even the boat used to gather the rubbish is environmentally friendly, fitted out with solar-charged outboard motors.

“We couldn’t see the point in cleaning up hydrocarbons from harbours and contributing to the hydrocarbons as we went by using a conventional outboard motor.”

The rubbish is placed in plastic bags, but not just any plastic bags, these are BioBags made from cornstarch.

They are completely compostable and break down into organic matter, unlike plastic bags that are harmful to marine life.

Tests undertaken by Cleanamarina marine biologist Tim Daly found fish stomach acid broke the BioBag plastic down quickly.

“If turtles or fish eat it, it’s just corn starch,” Loader says.

He’s so impressed with the BioBag he’s talking to Perth council about using them for their dog poo bags.

A supporter of banning petrol-based plastic bags, Loader reckons Australia should not export plastic-wrapped items overseas.

And he reckons making cornstarch-based bags in Australia makes environmental and economic sense.

“Making bags here, with corn grown here.”

http://www.cleanamarina.yolasite.com

by JENNY D’ANGER

PERTH council will continue to provide generous financial backing to the Perth Fashion Festival, despite city staff recommending funding be slashed from $200,000 to $50,000.

After listening to a deputation from the Fashion Council WA at Tuesday night’s council meeting, commissioners Gaye McMath and Andrew Hammond decided to give the festival $200,000, plus $30,000 of in-kind sponsorship.

From 2013 to 2017 the festival has received on average of $300,000 per year in funding from the city.

But one of the keynote events at this year’s festival has been moved to Burswood, outside City of Perth boundaries, prompting staff to recommend $50,000 for the free part of the festival in the CBD, known as Fashion Central.

That suggestion prompted an outcry from city retailers and more than 1000 people signed an online petition to save the event; while Fashion Council WA said they couldn’t hold it for $50,000.

Another sponsor, Healthway, which had given $75,000 in 2017, decided to pull out of this year, saying the festival didn’t connect with their priority groups.

Commissioner McMath said “cancelling Fashion Central is not consistent with supporting city ratepayers and visitation to the city”, especially given the building works in Forrest Place and the challenging retail environment.

She said it was a bit harsh to slash funding by so much in the space of one year, “however, the Perth Fashion Festival does need to be on notice that the city has to make decisions consistent with the overall economic environment” and they “should not automatically assume that future support can be obtained at the same level as in the past”.

by DAVID BELL

SPIDERS at Lake Monger have gone into overdrive and covered a huge stretch of trees with their web.

Locals who regularly walk around the lake are used to a seeing a few webs, but they told the Voice they’ve never seen the trees so thoroughly coated.

It’s been a bad season for midges and Cambridge town council doesn’t use chemicals to kill them off.

That’s good news for the spiders at Lake Monger, whose webs are dotted with tiny midgie corpses.

We sent a picture of one of the small, spindly spiders at the lake to WA Museum.

Arachnid expert Julianne Waldock says it’s a “male long-jawed spider, Tetragnatha sp”, which roughly translates to “four-jaw”.

They’re an orb-weaving spider that usually spin horizontal webs over water, but there might be other species at Lake Monger contributing to the web epidemic.

The four-jaw spider is known to share its web with other types of spiders.

by DAVID BELL

PERTH council will spend $17.5 million transforming the sleepy East End of the city into a lively, pedestrian-friendly zone.

This week city commissioners approved a five-year plan to turn the Pier–Irwin stretch of Hay Street into a pedestrian priority zone. Two-way traffic will be reintroduced to Hay Street, speeds will be lowered, there’ll be wider footpaths, and the sparse tree canopy will be bolstered with more plantings to cool things down.

The changes will pave the way for upcoming developments in the area, like the King Hotel upgrade, the St Andrew’s Church redevelopment and planned new student accommodation.

New street lighting and CCTV will also be installed, after feedback from locals that “the area feels unsafe and is not enjoyable to walk around”.

City of Perth commissioners this week voted to budget $1.2 million for detailed design and initial construction.

Commissioner Andrew Hammond added an amendment to ensure they get community feedback before the design is set in stone.

“We don’t want the horse to have bolted before there’s any meaningful engagement undertaken,” he said at this week’s council meeting.

by DAVID BELL

KYILLA Community Farmers Market has its fifth birthday this Saturday (June 9) and organisers are putting on a big shindig for the occasion.

The markets were started by Kyilla Primary School parents as a way of fundraising for much-needed resources at the school, as well as bringing locals together to sell them some farm-direct and locally-made produce.

Co-founder Carli Keane says; “it’s so fantastic five years on to see the Kyilla neighbourhood connecting with the broader community and making the choice to support the farmers and producers directly.”

Vincent mayor Emma Cole calls the markets “a local success story”.

“It is an amazing achievement to reach this five-year milestone and I congratulate the organisers and volunteers from Kyilla Primary School, their P&C and the Market Committee,” Ms Cole said.

They have worked so hard to make this market a weekend favourite in North Perth.”

There’ll be a silent disco, tug of war, buskers, food trucks and a bunch of free stuff for the kids. It’s on at Kyilla Park on Clieveden Street (just opposite the school), and runs 8am to 2pm.