Perth Voice Interactive

SEVERAL mature trees used by endangered black cockatoos are to be felled, to make way for an upgrade of the Reid Highway/Malaga Drive interchange in Bayswater.

The marri trees on Malaga Drive, just outside Lightning Park, are used by the native cockatoos for feeding and form part of their rapidly diminishing WA flight corridor.

When the Voice rocked up Tuesday, state government contractors were marking trees to be axed.

Helene Kayes, whose house backs onto the road, says she only found out Wednesday morning from contractors the trees were to be cut down, to be replaced by a three-metre high concrete noise wall, a footpath and wider road.

“The whole nature strip will be wiped out on this side of Lightning Park,” she told the Voice.

“Aside from the aesthetic implications, we will lose a tremendous amount of shade on our back garden.

“It’s a terrible blow for the fauna, the contractors told us that virtually all the trees on Malaga Drive would have to go.

“We have been here 13 years and enjoyed watching the Barnabys in the trees.”

Friends of Lightning Swamp member John Williams described the government’s community consultation efforts as “an inexcusable slur”.

“I acknowledge the community’s justifiable need for the improvement at Malaga/Reid intersection,” he says.

“However, when you are not allowed due process to consultation and to be informed of the imminent changes and impacts on a locally highly valued environment it is an inexcusable slur from the minister of transport and his department.”

Malaga Drive is a major arterial link between Morley and the growing north-eastern suburbs: around 75,000 vehicles pass through every week day.

The works will include constructing two new bridges to provide four lanes for Reid Highway traffic to flow uninterrupted over Malaga Drive.

The cockatoos make their homes in the hollows of trees being destroyed by logging and land-clearing in WA’s remnant south-west forests.

Malaga Drive also has mature banksia and paper bark trees.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

THE closing of the North Perth KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken for the old-timers) sparked an unofficial rave in the carpark to see off the grease hut with a few chicken dances. Organisers Get Weird, an incomprehensible organisation hosting quasi-monthly parties “for cool kids and people that like to rave in bathrooms,” sent the word out but the idea nearly proved too popular.

A thousand people announced on Facebook they’d be heading along and the organisers—feeling a bit chicken—were on the verge of canning the whole thing. However, the allure of the Fitzgerald Street carpark was too strong and the show went ahead. With the rave a big hit, one attendee suggested the next gig be held at “any remaining Blockbusters”.

THE fight for the future of Charles Street saw a score of residents front a development assessment panel meeting to see off a 93-unit block planned for their street.

The DAP unanimously rejected Salomone Projects’ $28 million plan, saying it was too tall and bulky Vincent mayor John Carey said the big problem was “the bulk to the rear”—referring to an 18-metre-high wall.

Cr Josh Topelberg agreed, saying the front was fine and fitting for Charles Street but not the neighbours at the back.

The owner’s planning hireling Ben Doyle defended the design as being of “astounding quality,” pointing out a rare feat that saw every apartment get sunlight while other big blocks leave some tenants in the shadows.

But the DAP sent them back to the drawing board to work out something without such a big backside.

by DAVID BELL

IT could be rubber duckies at dawn as the Swan River Trust and Bayswater city council go prow-to-prow over dinghies.

Boat owners at Clarkson Reserve use the dinghies to get to their vessels and unofficially store them on the foreshore, often chaining them to the fence of the Maylands boat yard.

The SRT says dragging the boats ashore and storing them on the ground damages vegetation and causes erosion.

It wants Bayswater city council to build storage racks ($20,000-$50,000) or bollard and chain storage ($2000-$3000).

A boat yard staffer, who wished to remain anonymous, says half the dinghies next to the fence have been abandoned and are not seaworthy.

“The dinghies have nothing to do with us and we cut the chains to discourage people using our fence as a security measure,” she said.

“I actually think they don’t do much damage to the foreshore: I think the SRT just want rid of them for aesthetic reasons.”

Officers say the 15-20 dinghies stored at Clarkson Reserve have “minimal impact on the shoreline” and could be accommodated by the WA transport department, which owns moorings at the site.

“It should be noted that this approach would likely result in the SRT removing the dinghies at Clarkson Reserve,” wrote officers.

“…the matter can become a politically contentious issue.

“It can potentially polarise the community for and against dinghy storage along the river.”

Another storage option involves dinghy owners being charged a $50 annual registration fee.

The SRT issued a policy in 2010 that “generally prohibits” dinghy storage on the foreshore, affecting all riverside councils.Melville banned all dinghies last July. The issue comes before the council later this month.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

THE world of alternative games developers lives in the shadows of once-in-a-blue-moon success stories like Minecraft (creator Markus Persson sold it for a tidy $2.5 billion).

Far more common are tales of developers labouring in garages on lines of code for hundreds of hours, only for the end result to make hardly a ripple in the gaming universe.

Perth games creator Louis Roots wants to create some middle ground between the rare stars and the many coders who toil in obscurity.

The owner of SK Games on Fitzgerald Street, he’s now setting up an online equivalent of an art gallery, selling carefully curated alt-games to an increasingly discerning video game crowd.

It’s hard to find a best-selling game that doesn’t involve square-jawed heroes blasting zombies with dual-wielded shotguns.

Roots specialises more in arty, thoughtful story “alt games” that are gaining some recognition. They’re controversial—hardcore gamers deride some of the more pedestrian offerings  as “walking simulators” due to a lack of action—and often they’re big on narrative, mood and introspection.

“What’s common is they’re created from passion, they’re not commercially minded,” Roots says. “They’re usually about personal expression.”

He describes it as the difference between watching an arty foreign film at Luna and “going to Megaplex Innaloo to watch Transformers… there’s nothing wrong with that, but we’re trying to offer an alternative”.

One problem when an indy developer tosses their creation online is they’re a drop in a massive ocean of no quality control. Most online stores let anyone on, so being listed is about as prestigious as having your movie sit next to Coneheads in the video shop.

For his storefront, Roots wants to carefully curate the selections, linking up with developers without a good means to get their babies out there,

While touring around the country presenting his own quirky twist on DIY arcade games, Roots says “We’ve found a lot of people have games that no-one knows about,” he says. There isn’t a curated place to buy alt games. No-one hears of these people.”

His curation is now online at backyard.sk.

by DAVID BELL

BAYSWATER city council is considering spending up to $93,000 to beautify artificial lakes in Maylands that have become an eyesore.

Bungana and Brearley lakes were constructed from abandoned claypits, excavated during the operation of the Maylands brick kiln.

The lakes were part of a 300-property residential development in the late 1990s, designed to improve the quality of water entering the Swan River and create a habitat for fauna.

But recently the council has fielded around 20 complaints from locals worried that algal blooms, faulty lights, inoperative fountains and weeds are affecting their house prices.

“Officers have had further phone correspondence with some residents who articulated that their belief was that the city has not maintained some elements of the reserves in accordance with their expected service level,” wrote council officers. “There have been a number of complex management issues identified in this report in relation to the Maylands lakes.”

Local environmentalist John Williams says the lakes are a white elephant.

“My realistic view is they are what they are, a man-made relic of clay pits filled with water,” he says.

“It would be no surprise to me when the developers were allowed to build right up to edge of both clay pit lakes to attract expensive homes and residents wanting exclusive surroundings, the road drainage constructed was networked to discharge into the lakes.

“I consider the council will be throwing good ratepayer money into a pit that will never give these residents what they are wishing for.

“Just compare this with the canal projects at Mandurah which is just a much bigger version of this problem which to this day has never been fixed.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

A 10-year-old Inglewood boy has drawn up plans for a hoverboard, inspired not by Back to the Future II re-runs but a quantum levitation exhibit at Scitech.

After getting home and sketching out detailed schematics, Brandon Boylen wrote to Scitech asking where he could find the right materials (20 super-strong magnets, a metre-long ceramic board and two litres of liquid nitrogen) and an estimate of how much it’d cost his folks.

A WWE fan and long-time John Cena supporter, Brandon reckons he can achieve lift by cooling the surface, because magnetic fields and superconductors repel each other.

He notes the technology is “not ideal for getting away from people”—something Marty McFly learned—and is best to use in winter.

When the folk from Scitech received Brandon’s letter they knew they had a special mind to nurture: they invited the lad down for a behind-the-scenes tour to chat about planning, prototyping and building projects at home.

“There’s nothing better than hearing about visitors who have been so inspired on their Scitech trip that they take the science, innovation and fun they learnt here straight home with them,” says Scitech’s Rachael Hughes.

While commercial hoverboard technology is probably a few years off, the team did give Brandon a sneak peek behind the scenes of how things work and a look at the Astronauts exhibit more than six months ahead of the rest of us.

Brandon’s going to keep working on his prototype (he’s also drawing up plans for a simpler version, powered by fans instead of quantum levitation) but like a young Nikola Tesla he prefers to toil in secret than chat about his works.

“I haven’t told many of my friends because of the first few comments I got from them,” he says.

“I told them my idea and they said it wasn’t going to work. That just made me want to do it more.”

by DAVID BELL