Perth Voice Interactive

ST BART’S will open a new $1.3 million shelter for older single homeless women—the first of its kind in WA.

The shelter will be located at St Bart’s old aged care building on Brown Street, which has been empty since 2012.

St Bart’s CEO John Berger says the organisation raised $1.3m in six months and plans to open the new shelter in early November.

“Statistics show that more and more single women over the age of 55 are finding themselves on the streets,” he says. “We want to prevent that from happening by providing temporary accommodation in our new shelter to give these women time to get back on their feet.

“It’s often things like illness or loss of a job which trigger a chain of events that make older women homeless. We want to create a buffer between them and the streets.”

St Bart’s research shows that just under half the 13,000 people classified as homeless in WA are women, and the fastest growing homeless demographic is women 50 and older.

The most common reason women seek assistance at St Bart’s shelter in East Perth is family violence, closely followed by financial difficulties.

Perth’s tight rental market—with a particular lack of affordable private rentals—is keeping many homeless.

The new shelter will accommodate around 35 women and offer temporary accommodation for up to 12 months. Mr Berger adds the group hopes to raise $15 million to build around 70 independent living quarters at the old Brown Street site.

To donate to St Bart’s visit http://www.stbarts.org.au  

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

Voice photographer Matthew Dwyer was stopped in traffic when this little fella popped by for a preen.

And wouldn’t you, if you were as handsome?

DESPITE a last-minute scare, a multi-million dollar bar and live music venue in Maylands has been given the green light by Bayswater city council.

Council staff had recommended refusal for the three-storey Lyric Lane on the grounds of insufficient parking and 103 locals signed a petition opposing the development.

It was standing room only in the  chamber as supporters of the family-run Lyric Lane turned up in a mass show of support.

At the eleventh hour, Cr Terry Kenyon tabled a revised set of conditions that was unanimously approved by council.

Lyric Lane creator Michiel de Ruyter says he is comfortable with most conditions, including a 100-person limit  between 6am and 5pm on weekdays and a cash-in-lieu payment of $110,000 for the 11-bay parking shortfall.

“I deal with lots of stressful situations in my job, but this one took the biscuit,” he says.

“I’m just relieved it eventually got through and so thankful for all the community support we received.

“We will now start looking at a detailed design for the venue and a liquor licence.”

Cr Kenyon says the venue will bring Maylands to life at night.

“This venue will make the laneways a lot safer at night and clean up all the anti-social down there,” he says.

“I’ve been down there every night at 8.45 to check the area out and everything is shut, apart from a kebab shop which I predict will do very well when this venue is built.

“This will activate under-utilised laneways and bring the area to life.”

Cr Michelle Sutherland says the venue will show that Maylands is “hip and happening”.

“There are a lot of serious musicians and artists based in Maylands,” she says.

“This will gave them a local platform to showcase their talents”

Lyric Lane is the brainchild of engineer Mr de Ruyter and his extended family, who have worked in the bar, music and cafe sector.

It will have a licensed function room in the basement— earmarked for live music and comedy—and a cafe-bar on the ground floor.

The top two floors will be used for offices and limited accommodation with a rooftop-garden.

The bar area will hold 100 people and the sound-proof basement 150.

Mr de Ruyter plans to demolish the old Speedlite bike shop, near Rifo’s on Guildford Road, and build Lyric Lane in its place. He’d like to open in spring 2016.

by STEPHEN  POLLOCK

MAYLANDS town hall will be the new home of the WA Australian youth jazz orchestra.

Bayswater city council has approved a five-year lease for the young jazzers at $6000 per annum.

WAYJO plans to use the building as an HQ during the day and for rehearsals at night and on weekends. The hall will be made available to other organisations on days when WAJYO is not using it.

Cr Michelle Sutherland says the orchestra is a good fit for the area, with the Maylands ballet and just-approved music venue Lyric Lane nearby.

“I think Maylands, and in particular this area, is going to snowball into a music and arts precinct,” she says.

Cr Terry Kenyon says budding Louis Armstrongs will add vibrancy.

“We’ve seen Maylands transform over the years and now it’s really starting to take off,” he says.

“It’s an exciting time for Maylands, and for Bayswater”

Council staff estimate bringing the hall up to the standard of a bona fide public arena would have cost ratepayers around $2.5 million.

Now, WAYJO will pay for all outgoings.

The council also voted to consider allocating $156,000 in next year’s budget to improve universal access to toilets at the hall.

STUART LOFTHOUSE has pleaded not guilty to assault of a public officer.

Footage of a scuffle between Mr Lofthouse and Vincent council staff was captured on CCTV, but prosecutors won’t be tendering it as evidence.

The charge stems from the July 22 incident at council chambers. Ranger bosses Steve Butler and Simon Giles had sought to eject Mr Lofthouse from the public gallery after his repeated interjections and refusal to abide by the mayor’s ruling that he leave.

Mr Butler pressed the charges, alleging that during the struggle Mr Lofthouse “placed his arm around [my] neck in a headlock”.

Mr Lofthouse fronted the magistrate’s court this week, his preliminary appearance bookended by video conferences with other accused who are remanded in Bandyup, Casuarina and Hakea prisons.

The police prosecutor said four witnesses would be called to testify, but no video.

The Greens & Co cafe owner, who represented himself, said he’d present footage and call two witnesses of his own when the trial goes ahead January 21.

Conviction carries a maximum seven-year sentence.

by DAVID BELL

BAYSWATER city council has approved a 12-month trial of pop-up food vans in the city.

Council came under fire in June when it voted to delay approval of a pop-up food van on Railway Parade for three months so staff could prepare a formal policy first.

Pop-up food van owners will be charged $500 (3-month permit), $850 (6-month permit) and $1500 (12-month permit).

Council staff have earmarked potential locations for the vans, including Riverside Gardens, Bardon Park and Crimea Park.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

A DIGITAL model of Perth’s wetlands-laden terrain prior to colonisation has been crafted after researchers pored over old maps, explorers’ journals, early paintings, town plans, and Aboriginal stories.

Edith Cowan University’s Nandi Chinna says the genesis for the Reimagining Perth’s lost wetlands exhibition was a book that showed New York’s Manhattan before colonisation.

“The pictures were amazing and we wanted to do something like that for Perth,” Dr Chinna says. “There’s a lot of archival maps, looking at explorer’s journals—particularly the work of Charles Fraser, the botanist that came with James Stirling, looking at his descriptions of vegetation… it’s a bit of a jigsaw.”

Any major project in Perth—most recently the new arena and police complex—reminds builders of the area’s history as a wetland.

“When they excavated the carpark it filled up with water, and that was mid-February,” Dr Chinna says.

“It wasn’t raining. The water is still able to come up and it’s probably a bit of a nightmare for tunnel building.”

She says the mentality of filling in wetlands is an import from swampy England.

“The British fens had been drained for hundreds of years before 1829,” Dr Chinna says.

“There was already that engineering mentality: We can change this, we’ve got the drainage capabilities.”

Today only about 10 per cent of Perth’s original wetlands remain.

A joint project between the uni, Landgate and the Perth city council, Dr Chinna hopes the exhibition reminds people of the importance of wetlands.

“We have some of these places left but they’re under threat,” she says, noting the extension of Roe Highway through Bibra and North Lakes in Perth’s southern suburbs. The Barnett government considers the project vital to reduce traffic congestion and improve freight efficiency. “They’re important on many levels,” Dr Chinna says. “They’re important because they act as filters to clean the water. They’re important because they’re a habitat for biodiversity. They’re important for mitigating climate change.

“Just being in a place like North Lake… which has a lot of its natural vegetation still intact, you have that encounter with the wild which has that significant impact on people as far as their mental health and wellbeing.

“They’re actually very useful to humans. That’s something that a lot of people don’t realise.”

Reimagining Perth’s lost wetlands is on at the Perth Town Hall on Barrack Street until October 9.

by DAVID BELL

THE finance director who failed to spot a serious error in Vincent city council’s budget, which has left the council’s spending program in tatters, will retire in November.

Mike Rootsey has served as corporate services director for 15 years, and took over as acting CEO when John Giorgi left.

It was on Mr Rootsey’s watch that a $3.2million deficit was mistakenly transposed as a positive sum in the budget.

The council was made aware of the problem by state government employees, while Mr Rootsey was on leave.

The WA local government department has been concerned for years the council has, for at least five years, consistently forecast balanced budgets but each time ended up in significant deficit.

The council responded by deferring projects and raiding reserve accounts, which will impact future programs, and new CEO Len Kosova reviewed the council’s finances and modelling.

by DAVID BELL

A MT LAWLEY author has won a WA book award for her literary tale of same-sex love and regret.

Yvette Walker snagged the emerging writers gong for her debut novel Letters to the End of Love at this week’s premier’s book awards.

The epistolary tale—chronicling love letters written by gay, lesbian and straight couples from Bournemouth, Perth and Cork—took Walker five years to write.

“The epistolary novel used to be very popular, but it faded away and is now only used sparingly in books like The Color Purple by Alice Walker,” she says.

“I started life as a poet, so I like to agonise over every word, and it took me a long time to finish this book.

“I call it the slow-food approach: I’m not very prolific, and at one point almost gave up writing.”

Romantic architecture

Walker adds the Perth section of her book—a lesbian love affair involving a local bookseller—celebrates the city’s romantic architecture: “I touch on the beauty of the Trinity Arcade, St George’s Cathedral and how Perth is slowly getting built over,” she says.

“Living in Perth definitely colours my writing.”

Walker, 44, has been writing in fits and starts since her early 20s. She won a national short story award in 2003, but her big breakthrough came this year when Letters to the End of Love was published by University of Queensland Press, which kick-started the careers of David Malouf and Peter Carey.

Walker won $10,000 in the premier’s award, but still works at Collins Booksellers in Cottesloe and will remain a part-time writer.

“The reality is that most Australian writers have a day job,” she says. “Only the big names like Tim Winton, for obvious reasons, get to stay at home.

“But there is a great community of writers in Perth and I’ve just been invited to join Amanda Curtin’s writer’s group.”

Mt Lawley MP Michael Sutherland says he likes the idea of an effete Mills and Boon.

“Most creative writers don’t make much from royalties these days, and the days of big advances are long gone, so I hope the money from this award will help Yvette progress with her writing,” he says.

Walker says she has five or six ideas that could form the basis for her next novel. Letters to the End of Love was completed as part of a creative arts doctorate.

Walker lives in Mt Lawley with her wife, filmmaker Melanie Rodriga.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

FEARING a repeat of previous arts debacles Vincent council has deferred a $100,000 spend on new sculptures for North Perth’s town centre.

A minor arts world furore erupted two years back when the council pledged to pay Matt McVeigh $30,000 for his artwork AAG, a colourful abstract figure.

But when it came time to build it the council figured it’d have to be sturdier so it sent him off to redesign it. When the council still didn’t like what he was coming up with, it used the cash to instead pay for part of the $60,000+ Chen Wen Ling sculpture “Games”.

The whole controversy meant that instead of the usual big public ribbon-cutting ceremony for Games there was a self-conscious silent opening, with arts committee minutes quietly noting there was no need for a formal launch.

And while Beaufort Street’s rabbit and dog on a bike is hugely popular, when it launched it was notably flimsy: “You could rock it back and forth,” acting mayor Ros Harley recalls, and the next day fences went up and reinforcing rods were installed. “It was unsightly and a little bit embarrassing.”

Now with three new choices of art for North Perth on the table, councillors want structural integrity reports before even thinking about approving them.

The work favoured by staffers raised councillors’ eyebrows, with curious cute figures supported by spindly toothpick legs that looked dangerously alluring to vandals.

It was deferred for a month and public art may be relocated to Angove Street instead.

by DAVID BELL