FREMANTLE’S UNIQUE HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE ACKNOWLEDGED

 

 

The new Western Australian Minister for Heritage David Templeman came into Fremantle today, in the company of Freo’s own Minister Simone McGurk, to announce at the National Hotel the official permanent listing of the historic West End in the State Register of Heritage Places.

The Minister said this was the largest single place to be included in the state register. The area of the Goldrush Period includes 250 buildings and 200,000sqm.

Templeman said that the City of Fremantle had played a critical role in the very long process and that the report about it is 574 pages long. It was a process of collaboartion with state and federal agencies, property owners and Fremantle Council and administration.

Fremantle is unique, the Minister said, and the state heritage listing has the potential to increase tourism marketing and attract new bars and eating opportunities.

The listing does not mean however that the place can not be altered and developed, he said.

Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt said he was proud to have been part of the process that took a very long time.

The listing changes the way we understand heritage, the Mayor said, and he quoted CoF heritage architect Alan Kelsall that Fremantle is not a museum and that it was essential to restore and use heritage buildings.

National Hotel owner Karl Bullers said there needed to be more state and national marketing for the historic area and the state listing would be a catalyst to drive heritage tourism to Fremantle.

Heritage and business need to work together as there needs to be a good return on investment.

Heritage is getting quite trendy, Bullers told the audience.

Roel Loopers

STATE DEVELOPMENT PANELS THREATEN LOCAL DEMOCRACY

Communities, councils and planning experts are getting more and more vocal against inappropriate infill, higher density, and the role the State’s Development Assessment Panels and State Administrative Tribunal play in it.

Already four local councils, including the big City of Vincent, have expressed their dismay about DAPs and want the state government to scrap the process or make it more democratic, because it has a pro-developers bias. The two Councillors on the panels are outnumbered by three public servants, and while developers have the right to challenge the DAP decisions, local councils have not. That is undemocratic.

The Mayor Brad Pettitt Facebook page has a discussion going on about infill, and highly-respected city planner and architect Dr Linley Lutton will argue on Wednesday at UWA that inappropriate infill is destroying communities.

It is disappointing that the  WA Labor party has remained silent on this subject, although I believe it would win them a substantial number of votes if they abandoned the Direction 2031 Liberal party infill targets for more density and the disliked DAPs.

In my personal opinion there is nothing wrong with higher density and higher buildings in the right locations, but the push to have it all happening close to railway stations and public transport corridors is a threat to the lifestyle and unique character of older suburbs such as Fremantle, Subiaco, etc.

It is outrageous that the State agencies overruled Subiaco Council and approved a 16-storey-building on the former market site at Rokeby Road, when council only wants buildings up to eight storeys. Imagine the DAP would have allowed the Atwell Arcade building in Freo to be twice as high and eight storeys instead of four!

The problem of setting indiscriminate infill targets for all local councils is that high density building are popping up in the wrong locations, where they do a lot of damage to the amenity and streetscape and severely and negatively impact on the community. That needs to change!

It is wrong for older suburbs that infill needs to be within walking distance from a train station, when on the outskirts of the CBD there is ample opportunity for higher apartment buildings, and bus routes could be adapted to accommodate more residents in those areas.

I welcome the very substantial development along Fremantle’s Queen Victoria and Beach street and other important new buildings in the CBD, but there is a whole lot more to come with the development of the Woolstores shopping centre site to a possible ten-storey-high mixed use, rumours about the Marilyn New-owned woolstores site at Clancys also talk about substantial height, and the corner of Henry and High street is also on the cards to be developed in the near future, together with the former Workers Club site opposite it.

There is no doubt for me that Fremantle needed development and to modernise and attract more residents to the CBD. It is also essential we build more tourist accommodation in town and I hope that will stop the mad rush of people signing up their homes with Air B&B because that is negatively impacting on neighbours.

It is very good that there is a serious social and mainstream media debate going on about all this, and that some councils are now putting their foot down and say enough is enough, because DAP and SAT are undermining local council democracy, like dictators do with human rights, and that needs to end!

Roel Loopers

 

COOGEE LIGHTRAIL ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS

Short-sighted piecemeal planning seems to be very much what Western Australia is all about, both at state and local levels. The planned Coogee Coast development south of Fremantle’s South Beach, that includes the heritage significant former South Fremantle Power Station, is another example of non-integrated planning.

While Cockburn Mayor Logan Howlett and Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt say that the influx of some 12,000 residents would make lightrail the perfect form of public transport, Lands Minister Tony Redman stated that a bus priority corridor along Hampton Road and through the new development would be adequate. Who is he kidding?!

We constantly hear from State Government experts that higher density living along transport corridors is the way forward for fast-growing Perth, but a bus service that would accommodate 10,000 commuters during rush hour each day is just a ridiculous and outdated proposition. It would require some 200 busses to drive from Coogee to the Fremantle train station between 6.30-8.30 am to shift that many people. 200 busses in 120 minutes along Hampton Road? YES Minister.

Why can’t the cost for lightrail be included in the massive development, so that the developers who are going to make millions from it actually pay for most of the transport infrastructure required. Imagine that same light rail also looping past Fiona Stanley Hospital, and the Murdoch and Curtin universities and we might start seeing the light on how to deal with traffic congestions and the associated air pollution.

Roel Loopers

FREMANTLE CEO’S THOUGHTS ON AMALGAMATION PROCESS

City of Fremantle CEO Graeme McKenzie has sent me an article he wrote about council amalgamation and while it now is water under the bridge, I believe it is still relevant to read the thoughts of Freo’s CEO about it. It’s a bit too long for a blog post but worth reading:

The elector polls are now done and dusted and several council amalgamations have effectively been blocked. This includes the proposed amalgamation of East Fremantle and Fremantle. I made some public comments earlier this week that some people found contradictory so wanted to explain myself in a little more detail.

The confusion lay in the fact that I firstly outlined what a missed opportunity this was for East Fremantle residents and the region in general. I then went on to say how much the process was flawed. Many took that as contradictory, but it isn’t.

There is a very big difference between a confused process and what I think would be very clear benefits once the merger had occurred…let me explain.

Yes it was a flawed process – no question

The process has been shambolic to say the least – how can the government allow eight mergers through boundary adjustments, denying those communities a say in their futures while allowing three mergers to proceed under amalgamation rules which provide for a poll?

How can large local governments like Canning be boundary adjusted out of existence while a council the size of East Fremantle is allowed a vote?  Surely the people making the decisions would have realised that East Fremantle had every chance of mobilising their relatively small community to reach the required vote to overturn the government’s plans? Surely, as a matter of equity and fairness, it should have been all boundary adjustments or all amalgamations.

I did say that I respect the vote, but the process the government undertook for this reform has failed dismally – a point the Premier acknowledged this week in the media.

But the benefits achieved could have been significant

The outcome that could have been achieved from this amalgamation is a totally different matter.  For me, council reform has always been about the capacity to deliver services and facilities to our community.  This was also the government’s rationale but wasn’t explained well enough by them.

Let me put it as simply as I can.  East Fremantle has a budget of about $8 million of which about $6.5 million might be untied (that is it can be used however the council sees fit).  Fremantle has a budget of $90 million of which about $60 million is untied.

A generally accepted benchmark is that a council should have about 30% of its untied revenue available for capital works or new initiatives each year.  That gives East Fremantle about $2 million to spend each year on major maintenance, upgrade or replacement of facilities, parks, roads, footpaths, foreshores etc compared to Fremantle that can spend around $18 million each year on capital and new initiatives.

On its own, that differential allows Fremantle to undertake more and larger projects for the community.  Add to that the ability to leverage significant grants from both state and federal government from $18 million compared to $2 million.  And add to that again the ability to borrow significantly more (in gross terms) and you start to get an understanding of what capacity means.

I often give the extreme example of the Gold Coast City Council in Queensland.  It has a budget of $1.5 billion of which over $500 million is untied and available for capital projects and new initiatives.  It was able to leverage $800 million from the federal government for a light rail system down the coast with a contribution of $200 million of its own funds.  It was also able to build eight new libraries and completely refurbish its five existing libraries in just 11 years.

I don’t support a Queensland model here in WA, but you really understand capacity when you look at that example. Under the reform that was proposed, the larger City of Fremantle would have doubled its population and added about a third to its budget. This would have increased the opportunity to provide significant new or upgraded infrastructure for the community – with this I mean major capital programs that can really enrich people’s lives.

There are clearly efficiencies to be gained from larger local governments although this does need to be weighed up against local democracy, hence one of the reasons I don’t support the Queensland model of local government for WA.  Those efficiencies of scale were achievable under the Fremantle proposal, but with the outcome of the poll, both the efficiency and capability benefits have now been lost – for a while at least.

I do expect sometime in the not too distant future there will be another crack at council reform by a state government, but maybe next time we’ll end up with a different approach.  I fear that given what’s happened this time around, the new approach won’t be consultative.

Graeme McKenzie-CEO City of Fremantle

DISGRACEFUL GOVERNMENT HERITAGE DEMOLITION BY NEGLECT

One has to question the commitment to heritage preservation at all levels of government in Australia when one looks at the disgraceful state of neglect of three Fremantle sites.

The Department of Defence announced last year they would start renovating the Married Quarters cottages at Cantonment Hill in November but nothing is happening there and the place is an eyesore as an entry statement to our city.

Not far from there the National Trust has custody over the Royal George Hotel in East Fremantle and we were told last year that they had a tenant and the place would become office accommodation. Nothing is happening there either, as these photos that I took on Tuesday morning show.

Premier Colin Barnett made a big media announcement sometime late September last year about the State setting up a heritage fund and he promised the first properties that would be restored were the Warders Cottages next to the Fremantle Markets, but there are no tradies within a cooee of the place.

We keep getting promises but the status quo of utter neglect remains and that is not acceptable! It is not acceptable that Fremantle looks uncared for because government departments neglect their duty of care on our important heritage buildings. Promises are not good enough and the Freo community wants to see action now!

Roel Loopers

ONE STEP CLOSER TO COUNCIL AMALGAMATIONS

THE W.A. State Government is one step closer to implementing local council reform with Chief Justice Wayne Martin today dismissing the case against the government by some local councils.

It is now to be seen if the Nationals will support the act in parliament and if councils like East Fremantle, Melville and Cockburn will have enough no votes to make the Dadour act work and stop the City of Fremantle from doubling in size. Time will tell.

Roel Loopers

FREE AND CHEAP PARKING IS BAD FOR US

Bad news for all those people who complain about the lack and cost of parking in Fremantle. (It’s a myth anyway that there is not enough parking, just a lack of signage, or a phone app, to point drivers in the right direction).

According to a report in the West Australian newspaper today the Western Australian Department of Planning has published an Activities Centres Parking discussion paper, that recommends the end of free and cheap parking, as this sends the wrong messages about the costs of driving a car, and people will be less inclined to use public transport instead.

Although Fremantle was not included in the major activities centres paper, it appears the city is doing the right thing by wanting less parking bays in the inner city, if the Department of Planning paper has any merit.

Of course it is essential to have good public transport, if we want to discourage people from driving cars, and this is going to be the challenge for Transport Minister Troy Buswell. State Government urgently needs to order more train carriages, and light rail for Fremantle and Cockburn, linking us to the universities, needs to be brought back onto the State Government agenda as a priority.

Maybe Fremantle Labor candidate Simone McGurk can tell us her views on lightrail for Freo, so we know what to expect should Labor  unexpectedly win the next election.

Roel Loopers