Perth Voice Interactive

BAYSWATER council has been given the thumbs-up by seniors for asking what they want, but reduced membership at its two gyms should be a top priority, they reckon.

The council recently started working on its first Age Friendly Strategy and will be holding workshops on February 13, 15, 16 and 17 to hear what seniors have got to say about living in the city and what they need.

Mayor Barry McKenna says it’s important seniors feel heard.

“It is essential that our seniors feel connected and valued,” Mr McKenna said.

“Living an active and healthy lifestyle into older age can improve life expectancy and quality of life for our seniors.”

General fitness

Down at Bayswater Waves on Tuesday morning they take that seriously; Silver Sneakers is a gym session popular with seniors who are put through a weights circuit by one of the centre’s qualified instructors.

It aims to increase their muscular strength, bone density and general fitness.

While there’s a strong camaraderie amongst participants, there’s not much time for chatting between lifting medicine balls and pumping the walking machine.

“They should change the name,” says Carol Snape.

“It’s called Silver Sneakers which gives you the impression of people shuffling around, but we get really worked out,” she says in between gasps for air.

“It’s excellent,” she says of the council’s plans to develop an seniors strategy. Although she lives outside the council’s borders, she regularly uses Bayswater Waves.

“They should reduce the membership to encourage more seniors to participate,” says Patricia Anthony.

“They offer discounts, but a lot of people can’t even afford that.

“There’s a lot of people who are struggling that are renting,” she says.

Last year the Barnett government roped in a bunch of allowances, including for medicines, as “income” for Homeswest tenants and taxed them at 10 per cent.

Attendance at the four workshops is free, but book by February 9 on 9270 4107.

by STEVE GRANT

OPPONENTS of plans to widen Guildford Road say it will lead to an unacceptable loss of mature trees, including many native species.

Jonathan Messer from the Sixth Avenue Residents Action Group measured three big gum trees closest to the road around the Maylands town centre and says their girths were between 3.4 and 5.2 metres. He says despite their considerable size and age, they’d have to go to make way for bus and cycling lanes proposed by the WA Planning Commission.

“Considering the thousands of years of tree growth that was removed from the nearby Constable Care site for development, I feel we as a community need to act to protect these trees,” Mr Messer wrote on the SARAG’s Facebook group.

Resident Graeme Reany drove the length of the proposed widening and says people would be shocked by how many large trees in both public and private land would be affected. He says the WAPC has made it clear that anything that would hang over the road reserve has to go.

Mr Reany says apart from the trees in the town centre, there’s a small park near the bus stop on the corner of Guildford Road and Gordon Street that will lose much  of a big stand of ghost gums as well as half a dozen fully-matured leafy trees. Although only one gum is along Guildford Road, a truncation on Gordon Street would impact about three or four others.

Bayswater council is still assessing the impact of the widening, but has promised to consider the trees in its analysis.

“If the amendment was implemented in its current form it is inevitable that there would be some tree losses. However the proposed new layout would also provide wider verges and medians with opportunities for new tree plantings to replace those lost,” mayor Barry McKenna said.

Greg Smith (aka ‘The Lorax’) is an admin at the Bayswater Urban Tree Network, and says the shade and “sense of place” provided by big native trees is of “fundamental importance” to Maylands.

“In an area that’s like a fucking desert, these are two very special trees. They are part of the entrance into Bayswater and part of the town … those trees are super important to the history of Maylands,” Mr Smith said.

“You should be using them, not cutting them down. They’re your iconic trees that you should develop a sense of place on Guildford Road around.

“One of those trees gives more than 50 metres of shade.

“If you take the urban heat island effect seriously, and I don’t know how you couldn’t, if you cut down one mature tree, to get that shade you’d have to plant more than 10.”

Mr Smith is also the Mt Lawley candidate for Julie Matheson’s WA Party, and he likes to haunt Halliday Park wearing his Lorax costume to grieve for the row of trees prematurely “euthanised” by Bayswater council.

He’s now planning to bring the Dr Seuss character to Maylands town centre.

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM and STEVE GRANT

PERTH’S CBD hasn’t had a cinema since the old Piccadilly closed in 2013, but at the height of movie madness it boasted 15 screens.

Heritage Perth’s Richard Offen will relive some of those glory days while hosting free walk-and-talks visiting the sites of Perth’s lost cinema history.

It starts where His Majesty’s Theatre now stands: “That was a piece of open ground used for all sorts of open air entertainment, old fairs and things, but it’s also the place where Perth first saw the moving picture back in the 1890s,” Mr Offen said.

Perth’s early entertainment was often confined to private homes, but as the population grew public venues became economically viable and cinema hit the right nerve.

“I as a kid used to go pretty much every Saturday,” says Mr Offen.

The Esplanade Gardens at the foot of William Street alternated between films and boxing exhibitions, while Melrose Gardens, Shaftesbury Gardens and Olympia Theatre put on films with live vaudeville entertainment.

The grandest of all was the now-demolished Ambassador’s Theatre on Hay Street. “That was what’s known as an ‘atmospheric cinema’,” says Mr Offen.

“It opened in 1929 and the idea was you went into it and it was just full of carvings, statues, sculptures… it tried to give the impression of going into a Mediterranean courtyard. It took you away from yourself and out of the humdrum of everyday life to where you’d be entertained.”

But tellies spelled the end of cinema’s golden age, hastened by high overheads in the city and a populace that was fleeing to live in suburbia.

Mr Offen is thrilled the Piccadilly might be bought back to life. “The art deco cinema was beautifully ornamented,” he says, “you get a taste of the past with the Piccadilly.”

His Going to the Movies tours run February 22 and March 8 (two per day) and they’re free but book through heritageperth.com.au/news-events/walk-talk-2017/ because they always get booked out.

by DAVID BELL

REVISED plans have been drawn up for new classrooms at Inglewood Primary School, but parents who lobbied for the changes are cautious about calling it a win.

The former plans for a flat, L-shaped building on the school oval were condemned for taking up too much play-space, so the new proposal adds an extra storey and squeezes the new buildings against the existing music and toilet block.

Now a modest 550sqm will be shaved from the school oval, but some parents say concerns about traffic management, building design, and community consultation still haven’t been met.

Parent Petra Del Fante said she liked IPS’ small-school feeling, and worries it will be lost when more students are squeezed in.

“It’s a good start, a first step. At least they haven’t come down with the bulldozers and started excavating,” Ms Del Fante said.

“I don’t know if it is a good compromise. To be honest I am still not happy they are going to be building on the oval, but maybe they do not have any option.”

Meanwhile, Catherine Ehrhardt thinks it’s all short-term thinking, and worries parents will deal with the same issues again in 10 years.

“My concern around it is; are they going to future-proof these buildings or are we going to face this again when they go ‘we need to fit more students in’ and try use the oval?”

“It would have been nicer to see parental involvement in the new plan, but at least there’s a new plan.”

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM

MT LAWLEY author Tom Goode is on the hunt for a rare piece of trench art he glimpsed at his recent book launch.

Last Saturday he launched The Cold Footed Mob about Australian railway units on the front lines during World War I.

At the launch a woman briefly dropped by with two brass candlesticks from the 5th Australian Broad Gauge Operating Company. “They were made from what looked like one-inch shells,” says Goode.

But like a Great War Cinderella the woman was gone before the author had a good chance to talk to her. He hopes she read about the launch in the Voice and might see a followup.

“What we’d dearly like to do is get hold of them for photographic purposes,” he says.

Soldiers often made trench art whiling away the long hours between action, and spent shells were a common canvas for etchings.

“What was interesting was they had engraved around them ‘59th Australian BGORC, which was the name of the unit for about nine months over there … the name of the company dates them quite precisely.

“On one of the candlesticks they had engraved ‘Pefelhoek’ which was their main depot when they were in Belgium. I think the other [engravings were] St Jean, Ypres, and Boezinge.”

If anyone knows the woman (or if you’re reading this week) give Mr Goode a call on 0419 900 751 so he can help properly document the pieces.

by DAVID BELL

STIRLING council will hire an independent planner to look into how its planning department dealt with applications going to the local JDAP.

A group of Trigg, Karrinyup and Carine residents were incensed about a smattering of developments, particularly a four-storey building in Trigg which blocked neighbours’ ocean views, and say Stirling’s planning department is too developer friendly.

Around 140 attended a special electors meeting in December, and successfully passed a vote of no confidence in the CEO along with some other motions.

Those motions were simply “noted” this week, but Cr Karen Caddy put forward an alternative, which passed 11/1, for an independent planner to be hired to look into officers’ reports to JDAP and see if there were any hasty recommendations.

“I know there is a concern that the city is not listening to ratepayers. It is our job to … check to see whether there’s anything we can be doing better, and if there is, we should be acting on those,” Cr Caddy said.

The meeting was among Stirling’s most lively, and many residents left in a huff when it became clear Mr Jardine wasn’t going to be fired on the spot.

Public question time had to be extended twice as dozens approached the mic to air grievances.

Mayor Giovanni Italiano cut the microphone mid-question during several sermons from angry residents.

“This is question time not statement time,” he warned more than once.

During debate on the controversial item, Cr Italiano had to adjourn the meeting when the heckling got out of hand, and the manager of governance used the break to berate the crowd.

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM

WA war veterans are a step closer to a grand new HQ on St George’s Terrace after putting their plans before Perth council’s planning committee on Tuesday night.

ANZAC house will be demolished to make way for the new eight-storey building, which will be a “one-stop-shop” for all veterans affairs, and include the RSLWA club and offices, function rooms, and a restaurant on the ground floor.

RSLWA has owned 28 St George’s Terrace since the 1930s, but in 1974 surrendered the title to the state government to make way for the law courts on the adjoining block.

But last November premier Colin Barnett gifted the property back in recognition of the Anzac centenary celebrations.

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM

STIRLING mayor Giovanni Italiano and councillor Andrew Guilfoyle are off to Spain in April for a two-day conference on “coastal cities and their sustainable future”, while CEO Stuart Jardine will spend three days in Tulsa, Oklahoma for the “transforming local government” annual conference.

Both trips came under scrutiny during Tuesday night’s meeting of council.

Teresa Olow, who ran against Cr Italiano in the 2015 council election, used public question time to ask why the mayor’s expenses were more than $11,000 while Cr Guilfoyle was claiming a smidge over $4000 for the same trip.

Turns out Cr Guilfoyle is happy travelling economy class, while the mayor prefers business class, with Cr Italiano justifying the extra expense to the Voice on the basis he’d not spent all his travel allowance from the previous year and it had been rolled over to add to this year’s allocation.

“We’ve got funds to accommodate travel and it’s at the councillors’ discretion, whether it’s me or Cr Guilfoyle,” Cr Italiano said.

“I have not used any of my travel allowance at all, and that’s just how it works.

“I feel this conference will provide me with a wealth of knowledge to assist the city in tackling the need for resources, infrastructure and services that will be required as part of these major developments,” the mayor said of projects such as the Scarborough Pool.

Meanwhile councillors were divided over whether CEO Stuart Jardine should fly to Tulsa for “the premier thinking conference for local government” at a cost of $6198.

“I believe that two overseas conferences in one financial year … is more than enough absence for our CEO,” Cr Terry Tyzack said.

“And you might argue that a CEO at the top of his game … doesn’t need to go to the USA for seven consecutive years for personal development.”

But Cr Karen Caddy spoke in the CEO’s defence, and council approved his travel plans with only Crs Elizabeth Re, David Lagan, and Tyzack voting against it.

“If we approve this conference, it is my expectation it would be his one conference for this year”, Cr Caddy said.

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM

LOWLIFES have nicked the Beaufort Street Community Centre’s mini library.

Centre manager Lindsay Payne says around Christmas, someone rocked up and unbolted the cabinet that housed the Little Free Library from the external wall of the centre. Mr Payne reckons they’d have needed a ute or large 4WD to take it away.

“We’re not sure if they stole the books as well or whether they just threw them away – there would have been about 50 books in there,” she says.

The library was a communal facility, with centre users and locals donating the books then swapping them over or borrowing them.

“I guess it was quite a nice cabinet after the volunteers did it up. Originally it came from a verge pick-up pile,” Ms Payne said.

The local branch of the Labor party, which for many years rented a room at the centre for monthly meetings, has come to the rescue with another cabinet. However, once the centre’s got it back up more literature will be needed to fill it, so if you’ve got any spare copies of Battlelines gathering dust on the shelf, perhaps it might be time to make a donation; or will that come in handy over the next month or so?

by STEVE GRANT

A GROUP of residents in Bayswater say a rezoning by Meltham train station needs a rethink because of a severe transition between high density development and surrounding sitngle-storey homes.

Instead, they say, their properties should be given a little up-zoning and the tallest buildings shrunk slightly to make the transition a little smoother.

The Meltham structure plan, prepared by planning consultants WA Planning Solutions on behalf of a land-owner, would see the low-lying post-war cottages along Whatley Crescent and Railway Parade demolished to make way for high-density retail and residential blocks up to six storeys high.

Those buildings would taper to three- and four-storey apartment blocks (R60 and R80) within a 400 metre radius of the train station, but some adjacent home-owners want the development area extended.

Novak DeJong thinks the proposed high-density is too concentrated, and wants the zoning tapered more gradually so home-owners outside the 400m radius can develop their properties and potentially bring in more residents.

“We purchased those parcels of land because it was near a train station and earmarked for rezoning,” Mr DeJong said.

“I’m not against multi-rise, in fact quite the opposite. But it’s excessive, they’re asking for six stories plus in some pockets.”

Joe Lipari, who owns a property on Toowong Street, says he was just about to sign a contract to build when he got a letter from council informing him about the structure plan.

Unhappy with the consultation process, he says the jump to six storeys is too severe, and worries traffic and noise will have too much impact on the quiet residential area.

“If this goes ahead, I’ll be looking at three- and six-storey developments across the road,” Mr Lipari said.

Paul Shanahan, chairperson of Future Bayswater, says he’s “fully supportive” of the plan, but the community should collaborate with the council to perfect it.

“We believe there should be more density, we’d like to see mixed use, and believe retail should be a part of that,” Mr Shanahan said.

The submission period has been extended until February 28.

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM