Perth Voice Interactive

THREE hundred homes and about 60 businesses will be impacted by WA Planning Commission plans to widen the Guildford Road reserve through Bayswater and Vincent.

About six kilometres between Tonkin Highway and East Parade would be affected by the proposed widening, which won’t add any lanes to Guildford Road but will create wider footpaths, bike paths and cheat lanes at intersections to give buses the drop on cars.

A planning commission report says the street was designed around cars: “Most of the existing retail and commercial buildings along Guildford Road are built right to the boundary of the road reserve with minimal verge widths. This creates narrow pedestrian paths,” the report says.

Partial demolition

“It does not encourage the sense of pedestrian safety where pedestrians are close to the traffic. There are also no dedicated on-road or off-road cycling facilities, resulting in road safety concerns.”

But many locals have been told their properties are to be lopped as a result, while a number of businesses face partial demolition, which has the Maylands Ratepayers and Residents Association angry.

“The current plan is excessive, proposing to cut through various historic shops along Guildford Road in such a way that will require a partial or full demolition of those buildings, including their facades,” says association president Elli Petersen-Pik.

“While there might be a case for some changes to Guildford Road, any approach would have to be sensitive to the historic urban fabric of Maylands and Bayswater”.

Local Graeme Reany contacted the Voice saying he stands to lose six metres of his front yard if the project goes ahead.

The WAPC does compensate owners of reserved land, and the proposal states “generally reserved land can remain in private ownership until it is needed for the purpose for which it is reserved”.

Even so many aren’t keen: About 70 people showed up to a street meeting last week to oppose the plans.

The WAPC report says listed heritage buildings will be protected but there are other old buildings in the firing line that are not officially registered as heritage-significant.

“Whether you find those buildings beautiful or not, they make an irreplaceable contribution to the unique character of Maylands,” Mr Petersen-Pik says. “They are an enduring testament to the history of our suburb.”

Labor announced this week it would scrap the plan if elected.

The plan has been floating around since 2011 when it was considered and supported by Bayswater council, and was initially to have been put to the public in 2012.

The Voice understands that with a new regime at Bayswater, that support might now be revisited.

Submissions are open via http://www.planning.wa.gov.au until March 17.

by DAVID BELL

WITH just one person in the audience aMoment Caravan will be the tiniest show in Fringe.

The little caravan will be parked out front of the Blue Room during the first week of Fringe, letting the audience through one at a time for a free 10-minute show designed to transport them to a parallel world of memories and gazing into the future.

A collaboration between Alex Desebrock, street artist aMoment, and designer Kathy Holowko who’s responsible for the cabin, the project aims to interrupt “the grey landscape of the city with something curious, beautiful and insightful”.

Ms Desebrock says they keep the story “quite elusive” until people step inside. It’s free. Wander by January 21, 22, 24, 25, 27 or 28, 4-9pm weekends or 5-9pm weekdays.

by DAVID BELL

WHILE holidaying in Spain, local jeweller Rohan Milne and his family were so smitten with a Venetian carousel at La Concha beach boardwalk they decided Perth needed one.

It was too big for carry-on luggage and an overly lavish souvenir, so Mr Milne spent the next four years looking into the logistics of running a carousel as a business in Perth, when finally the opportunity popped up on Elizabeth Quay where he secured a lease from the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority.

Having inspected carousels from around the world with a jeweller’s eye, Mr Milne settled on one built in the Veneto region of northern Italy by the same company which made the iconic carousel next to the Eiffel Tower.

Mr Milne hopes the bright lights and artisan craftsmanship will bring Perth some of the same recognition which activates tourist destinations around the world.

“It all started with us and our two daughters in San Sebastian,” Mr Milne said

“They went on it in the morning and then they went back on it at night – it’s just simple fun, not crazy spinning fairground stuff. The girls just loved it and it meant we could kick back while they were having fun.

“I just get these ideas and I start researching them. Generally my accountant says ‘Rohan, you’re a jeweller, stick to being a jeweller’, but this time after I did a lot of research… he said ‘look if we get a lot of people it will work.’

“The Elizabeth Quay carousel had to be authentic, no short cuts or cheap imitations, it simply wouldn’t have the magic and quality of the real thing.”

For $5 anyone can choose between 40 hand-painted horses and carriages which all turn to the tune of traditional carousel music.

Planning minister Donna Faragher said the carousel would be a wonderful addition to Elizabeth Quay and praised Mr Milne for commissioning the piece of moving art.

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM

LOCAL town planner and environmentalist Greg Smith will run for the state seat of Mount Lawley under the banner of the Julie Matheson for WA Party.

In the past Mr Smith’s crossed swords with Bayswater council for being anti-tree, got stuck into the state’s planners over the Elizabeth Quay development, and pilloried the WA Planning Commission for its handling of a privately-owned Bayswater wetlands that’s been partially bulldozed.

He wants to bin the state government development assessment panels and the State Administrative Tribunal.

“I’m sick and tired of the lies and deception that the major parties trot out before elections,” he says. “In all the years they have been in government they have failed to deliver on the agenda they now claim to be a priority for them.”

While the Labor party’s grumbled about DAPs, it was originally an ALP idea, and the party hasn’t committed to scrapping them.

“It is time for the people of Mount Lawley to stand up against the establishment which united together to deliver them the failed DAPs and the unelected but all-powerful SAT, both of which only seem to serve the development industry at the expense of the residents,” Mr Smith said.

“Both Labor and Liberal seem to forget that it is the residents they are meant to serve, not the property developers, not the mining industry and not any other group which makes political donations.”

Given his party leader’s made a few anti-apartment comments (referring to them as “termite living”) we quizzed Mr Smith on his views on unit blocks. He’s less hardline than Ms Matheson: “Apartments can offer a viable source of accommodation and provide a worthy lifestyle choice to residents, however this must not be to the detriment of the area.”

He currently works teaching town planning at Curtin University and was previously the planner at East Fremantle council where his pro-heritage decisions ruffled feathers.

He was also once arrested (but not charged) after writing “cui bono”, Latin for “who benefits” in chalk on the wall surrounding Elizabeth Quay after giant Moreton Bay fig trees were cut down.

He calls the quay project a “big gift” to corporate interests.

 by DAVID BELL

WA’s education department has agreed to rethink its plans to build new classrooms on Inglewood primary’s oval.

The $3.5 million building would add six classrooms and make space for 192 new students, but the plan was roundly condemned by parents and neighbours who say losing play space to deal with increased demand is an unacceptable quick-fix.

There was also concerns about traffic management and the building’s newfangled design.

Following a 250-signature petition and lobbying from local MPs, education boss Sharyn O’Neill wrote to Inglewood parent Petra Del Fante saying an alternative location and redesigned building more in keeping with the traditional streetscape would be investigated.

Some impact

“The Department is working with the project architects to investigate the development of building plans for an alternative location behind the existing western teaching block,” Ms O’Neill wrote.

“Although building in this new location will still have some impact on the school oval, it will be less than if the building were to be constructed in the previous location.”

Ms Del Fante welcomed the back-down, but has reservations.

“The outcome, to be honest, has been so far not so bad. At least they are reconsidering what they should have done in the first place … what we don’t feel confident about is that they’re not going to have community consultation,” Ms Del Fante said.

Ms O’Neill said the department had ruled out a multi-storey building with a reduced footprint as too disruptive.

Bayswater councillor Catherine Ehrhardt, who’s a parent at the school, described that decision as unusual, as a two-storey solution had already been approved for similar upgrades to Mount Hawthorn primary school.

“I’m quite happy for the school to go to four storeys you know, if it gives the children enough space to play,” Ms Ehrhardt said.

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM