Perth Voice Interactive

WA’S planning approval system is flawed, says lawyer and Bayswater councillor Dan Bull, who’s refusing to be part of it.

Cr Bull this week sent his council’s CEO, Francesca Lefante, a resignation letter stating he no longer wanted to be the deputy member of the metropolitan central development assessment panel, which is responsible for projects of more than $2 million.

“I tender this resignation on the basis that I am unable in good conscience to be a member of [the] DAP and provide support to a system that I have become fundamentally against,” Cr Bull writes.

The letter was prompted by last week’s DAP decision to approve a seven-storey apartment complex at 9-11 King William St, Bayswater — despite the council’s objection, a five-storey building cap and formal complaints from about 600 locals.

He criticised the fact the majority of panel members were unelected, branding it as “undemocratic”.

University of WA planning expert Linley Lutton says DAPs are approving “inappropriate” high-rise buildings willy-nilly across the city.

“This [Bayswater] development is a very good example of the type of poor urban planning occurring all over Perth at present due to the desire by our state planners to randomly increase residential density,” he told the Voice.

“Developments like this are being shoehorned onto inappropriate locations regardless of context.

“The density being sought on this site is equivalent to 270 dwellings per hectare. To give you some indication of just how inappropriate that is in this context; in London, the greatest density permitted in urban areas outside central London, where there is maximum access to all forms of public transport, is 165–275 dwellings per hectare.

“In a suburban context, similar to Bayswater, the maximum permitted is 80–120 dwellings per hectare, which would equate to between 8-12 apartments for this site.”

The 9-11 King William Street development will have 27 apartments.

Mr Lutton is hosting a public talk on Perth planning called “changing the ethos”, which will cover how detrimental poor planning decisions like these are ruining suburbia. He says three-storey developments should be built in Bayswater because the height respects existing urban amenity and character, and most importantly, considers community values rather than developer demands.

PROBLEMS relocating Morley Library have caused a budget blowout of $276,000 and resulted in Bayswater council going back to the drawing board.

Notes on a recent confidential council report state the city will spend $776,000 — instead of a budgeted $500,000 — moving the library to Les Hansman Community Centre because of unexpected issues with air conditioning and power supply.

The council had to move the library from the Galleria after losing its lease to ALDI as part of a shopping centre revamp.

Mayor Barry McKenna told the Voice the extensive work has forced the council to review long-term, multi-million dollar plans for Les Hansman.

“We’ll have to design the centre around the library,” he says.

“The plan was for the library to temporarily relocate for about five years until we’re able to implement the Les Hansman masterplan. But it looks like it’s staying, and we’ll have to rethink that redevelopment now. We’re back to square one.”

He says the overspend couldn’t be helped, and it’s still cheaper than the council’s alternative option to temporarily relocate the library to the Morley Sport and Recreation Centre at a cost of more than $4 million.

Cr McKenna concedes the bungle could mean the public is stuck with a smaller, less-sophisticated library.

What’s for sure is a four-year-old Les Hansman masterplan that cost tens of thousands of dollars to produce, as well as a broader plan for Morley’s entire city centre, are off the table.

The masterplan outlined two multi-storey redevelopment options: one costing $10 million, with a function centre, indoor garden and office space. The ambitious second option was four times larger, costing $73m and including aged-care accommodation, an outdoor cinema, medical suites, retail and a rooftop garden.

The library is expected to reopen “early” this year but no date was provided.

by EMMIE DOWLING

UWA has completed a study into the ailing Baigup Wetlands, an acid-sulphate-ridden and heavily saline area south of Kelvin Street.  Bayswater city council brought in the uni to work out the root causes of the problem and now consultants GHD have come up with ideas of where to go next. Their recommendations are being put forward at an open forum at Bayswater civic centre February 23 at 6pm, RSVP to the city’s environment coordinator at jeremy.maher@bayswater.wa.gov.au

PERTH city council has installed a $175,000 pop-up urinal in Northbridge near Russell Square. The first of its kind in Australia, the device disappears underground during the day then springs out at night with space for three people to have a wee, the intention being to cut down on public urination. The announcement came under fire from many a Facebook feminist complaining such money had been spent on something that only benefited men. However many complaints missed the fact there’s actually an auto-loo across the road, and the pop-up urinal can take three at a time out of that line to leave the loo more free for women. And given that during the trials the temporary street urinals collected about 1000 litres a month, which would probably otherwise have soaked through alleyways and front yards, local traders probably aren’t too worried about the whines of online femmos.

JACOB’S LADDER will be closed later this month—temporarily (ahem). While some nearby neighbours would sure like to see it shut for good to stop the huffing, puffing and grunting of some of its unfit exercisers, Perth city council is just shutting it down temporarily for a safety inspection. It’s shutting February 22, possibly for “an extended period, pending results of the structural survey”.

PERTH folk are apparently very, very keen for a new live performance venue, with 2500 individual submissions to the public interest assessment survey for the Sewing Room planned for Wolfe Lane. With the place masterminded by Martin Black and Patrick Coward of the Margaret River Chocolate Factory, the final hurdle is getting the, the survey’s part of the liquor licensing application which needs to prove to the liquor department that opening the place is in the public interest.

• BAYSWATER is a step closer to getting its own men’s shed and it will likely cost ratepayers $133,000: the proposed site at 21 Raymond Avenue has a shed on it that needs renovating. It is council-owned and has been used by rangers. Mayor Barry McKenna says it’s underutilised and won’t be missed. He hopes the men’s shed blokes are able to come good on their word to fund their own equipment. “There are 40 members and they’re keen on setting it up the way they want it,” Cr McKenna says. The council’s planning committee endorsed the plan this week, and it’ll go to the next full meeting for rubber-stamping.

• COUNCILLOR Terry Kenyon is in some hot water with old friend and colleague Alan Radford. The former mayor owes tens of thousands of dollars to Cr Radford, and the issue is playing out in Perth’s Magistrates Court. Both men say it’s “none of your business” to Voice readers. But the courts think the public has a right to know it’s not all sunshine and roses in their local government, and handed court transcripts to the Voice. The transcript states Cr Radford has loaned more than $65,000 to Cr Kenyon since 2010. Incremental payments were made, but an interest rate of 6.3 per cent per year is creating quite the headache for Cr Kenyon.

• RIFO’S Cafe in Maylands needs a hug after locals gave it a hard time online. Cr John Rifici, the cafe’s former owner, was reported in last week’s Voice saying the popular hawker’s markets should move or close, and that prompted a fair bit of flak from markets-loving locals. Cr Catherine Ehrhardt, the markets’ doyen, is taking to Facebook with nice words about the Eighth Avenue cafe, which for two years has been owned by a couple of young brothers. Cr Rifici remains the cafe’s landlord but has nothing do with the business.

• MAYOR Barry McKenna used a Barnett government event in Maylands to highlight the chronic problem of trucks getting jammed at the King William Street underpass, near the train station. In Maylands to cut a ribbon on Guildford Road’s new pedestrian crossing, WA transport minister Dean Nalder was earbashed on site about the issue. Cr McKenna proposed a cheap, temporary solution of using signs to steer truckies in another direction. A permanent solution, he says, is to build an underground station. Mr Nalder made no promises.

• AFTER three years of toing and froing, the council will build a bus shelter at Maylands’ main bus stop outside the hall on Eighth Avenue. Pensioners had asked former mayor Sylvan Albert for a shelter years ago, but because the WA transport department wouldn’t split the bill for one (eight commuters a day isn’t enough to warrant one, they claim), the council never committed to it. The council’s stance has since changed. Councillors reckon if they build it, people will come.

 

PLANS to build a WA Premix concrete batching plant in Bayswater are on hold following an EPA assessment of the application.

Bayswater councillor Sally Palmer — a long-time opponent of the proposed Collier Road factory — describes the delay as “a pleasing, if small, victory for the city”.

The Environment Protection Authority has spent four months assessing the council’s concerns over the proposal.

It will take at least another month for the EPA to consider the merits of the concerns, such as impacts on air quality and local amenity.

EPA spokeswoman Nadia Miraudo told the Voice her organisation was seeking advice from the planning department and awaiting further information from the council.

The EPA received 25 comments during a seven-day public comment period in November.

WA Premix wants to produce 150 cubic metres of ready-mixed concrete per hour.

Fighting the concrete plant has cost the council $80,000 in state administrative tribunal-related legal expenses since July — almost half the $154,800 it has spent on all SAT-related legal expenses for all developers.

The council’s SAT-related legal expenses have jumped more than 400 per cent since 2014-15.

by EMMIE DOWLING

VINCENT city council can do nothing to save two century-old Cheriton Street houses from the wrecking ball.

A planning oddity resulting from that part of town being handed to the council by the WA government makes the council powerless.

Early this year flyers went out imploring locals to contact the council and demand it halt the owner’s plans to demolish them.

Voice reader Janice Kelly went digging in the WA postal directories and found the buildings were far older than first thought, with a reference dating back to 1908 when music teacher Wm Key occupied number 60 and insurance agent WM Meek occupied 62, proving them well over 100 years old.

Mayor John Carey responded to concerned campaigners, thanking them for their efforts to fight to save the historic houses, but saying there was little the council could do. The council had opposed the demolitions in February 2014 but didn’t have a legal leg to stand on when the owner appealed to the powerful but unelected state administrative tribunal.

The whole area used to be overseen by the East Perth Redevelopment Authority, and in Mr Carey’s words “the planning framework we inherited from EPRA had failed us in this instance”.

by DAVID BELL

TIM HAMMOND is looking odds-on to win Labor preselection for the federal seat of Perth, one of only three seats the ALP holds in WA.

The Mount Lawley lawyer’s entry into the race follows Alannah MacTiernan’s announcement this week she’s calling it quits.

A member of the ALP for “about eight years” the 40-year-old has been busy.

He ran as Labor’s candidate in Swan in 2010 and, along with Matt Keogh, initially put his hand up for pre-selection in Perth for 2013 following Stephen Smith’s retirement.

Both stood aside to give Ms MacTiernan an unfettered run, recognising she had the best chance of winning the seat: Mr Keogh has since run for Labor in the Canning by-election and has been preselected to run in the new seat of Burt, which has a nominal Liberal margin of 5.2 per cent.

Last year Mr Hammond stood for the party’s national presidency. He didn’t win but scored enough votes to be elected federal senior vice-president. He’s also president of his own North Perth branch and president of the Mount Lawley Society.

His political interest was sparked by his law work on behalf of asbestos victims.

“What I wanted to do with my legal career is make sure I was spending my energy making a difference for people who needed help accessing justice,” he says.

“Those are cases where the exposure to asbestos has occurred 20 to 40 years earlier and all of a sudden these people are given a diagnosis for terminal cancer and they’re given six to nine months to live, and it’s incredibly motivating to run these cases through the court against [James] Hardie and CSR, and that’s really where I got a strong sense of the importance of justice and compassion.”

When James Hardie moved its HQ to the Netherlands, Mr Hammond was impressed with the campaign by Labor and the trade unions to ensure the company left enough money behind for restitution.

“I came to the ALP in the course of that process, so I’ve been a member now for about eight years,” he says.

These days his law work focuses on travelling to remote regions to help Aboriginal victims of road trauma.

“I act on behalf of men and women, often in the Kimberley, who’ve been injured in road accidents but don’t have access to the courts the same way you or I would.”

There have been whispers of Labor’s afffirmative action rules impeding Mr Hammond’s nomination: 40 per cent of nominees for held and winnable seats are to be women, yet for Perth, Fremantle, Brand and Burt, all front-running pre-selection candidates are men.

Mr Hammond says he doesn’t comment on internal party processes: “I simply focus on the things that I can control, and what I can control is demonstrating to the members the credentials that I have to be a candidate.”

The quota issue can apparently be solved by reshuffling Senate candidates to put women in the top two winnable spots, or pre-selecting a woman in Rockingham-based Brand or in Fremantle. Labor holds just three of 12 Senate seats in WA, with Sue Lines the only woman.

by DAVID BELL

LABOR has pre-selected lawyer Simon Millman to take on Liberal MP Michael Sutherland — also a lawyer — in the leafy inner-suburbs seat of Mt Lawley.

Mr Millman has a long background in law, often representing asbestos victims. He also represented former Labor minister Ernie Bridge, who is believed to have contracted mesothelioma when visiting Wittenoom on government business.

“Mount Lawley will be a difficult seat,” Mr Millman concedes.

War chest

“My opponent has the benefit of incumbency, he has a large war chest, but we are ready for the battle… if you look at recent opinion polls we’ve got to be in with a shot.

“There’s a number of broken promises, MAX light rail hasn’t been delivered,” and he adds the RPH hasn’t received its promised upgrade.

Meanwhile, Labor’s drafting upper house MLC Amber-Jade Sanderson to contest Morley, currently held by Liberal Ian Britza. In the past two elections Labor ran TV journalist Reece Whitby in the seat.

by DAVID BELL

“JENNY, Jenny, Jenny, won’t you come along with me?” Bill Culp crooned down the phone from his Melbourne hotel by way of an introduction to our interview.

I do believe it was the Little Richard version, by a man at home performing in the style of a variety of legendary artists, including Carl Perkins, whose part he takes in the Sun Records All Stars tour at the Astor Theatre.

The recording company discovered the likes of Elvis Presley, Perkins, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash–changing the face of music with the birth to rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s.

“It’s amazing really, you got to wonder 50 years from now will anyone be doing this for artists of today,” Canadian-born Culp says.

“The Sun Records artists were iconic.

“They had authenticity and they weren’t contrived–they were real artists.”

Culp will be joined by a talented cast of Roy LeBlanc as Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison, Gino Monopoli as Elvis, and Joe Passion as Jerry Lee Lewis in a high energy romp through the history of some of the biggest stars of the 20th century.

Sun Records All Stars, Astor Theatre, Wednesday March 2.

by JENNY D’ANGER

IT’S not just flesh being advertised on Perth’s Tinder scene, with drug dealers, wannabe politicians and Fringe performers sneaking ads onto the popular dating application amid profiles of lovelorn daters.

The phone app lets people create a profile and if two people both click that they like each other they can start chatting to arrange a date (or often just jump right to the chase).

But among the thousands of Perth people jumping on board looking for company, low-key advertising has crept in. Advertising can be a big expense for Fringe shows, but we’ve spotted a couple of performers sneaking in freebies, with ads for shows set up as pseudo-dating profiles.

Welsh comic Jenny Collier was spruiking her show Jenny Say Qua at the Skyebar in Northbridge, but her profile made it clear she wasn’t on the hunt for a fella.

Ms Collier told us “the more places you can put your poster up, the better”.

“Tinder seems to be pretty popular in my target demographic so it made sense to whack it up there. I wanted a mixed audience though so I put in my bio ‘bring a date. If she laughs, she’s a keeper’.”

Ms Collier says “I think it’s impossible to know how well it worked. There were some quite male heavy audiences but that could just be a coincidence. Although one man after a show said, ‘if you’d like a shag at any point, let me know.’ That had Tinder written all over it.”

She says most blokes on Tinder “were cool” about it. “I think some people saw it as a bit cheeky of me to advertise on there. One guy asked me on a date and then wrote ‘joking btw’, so that was nice.”

We’ve also seen a handful of neighbourhood drug dealers offering their goods on Tinder, mostly weed and occasionally some speed or ecstasy.

“Anyone looking for greens. Hit me up,” Shayles, 23, says in her profile.

While many believe they’re mostly anonymous on Tinder, many profiles are easily traceable: even though they only use a first name they’re linked to Facebook which brings back nearby results first, and users with uncommon names are quickly found.

While we had a hold of Ms Collier, we asked her what she thought about Perth’s Tinder men (and we apologised to her for all the dudes holding fish in their profile pics).

“I’m not a connoisseur of Tinder men around the globe but there are lots of very beautiful men in WA. I only saw a couple of ‘fish holders’, the overriding theme was quokkas.

“And sunglasses. Save us some time lads—show us your whole face!”

by DAVID BELL