Sky's Vic Park Newsletter #20: waste, safer streets, and some big projects
Kaya!
I hope that you’re all well and enjoying the shift to some cooler days that Djeran brings. Reading about this season I learned that in Djeran red flowers blossom and flying ants can be seen - we had a beautiful cycle home from daycare recently through clouds of ants after the first rain after the heat.
This is a long one, covering:
Behind the scenes: what happens when you email an elected member with a question?
Getting involved.
Coming up at the April Ordinary Council Meeting: council meetings, short-term rental policy draft, the Rutland Ave separated cycle path, 21 Lichfield Street, and waste management.
Decisions council made in March: moving towards safer streets, the Oats St Precinct Plan, Elizabeth Baillie House and Mildred Creak playground, traffic management in Carlisle, the Australian and State Hockey Centre at Curtin, and the Perth Football Club development.
As always, if you find this newsletter helpful please do consider forwarding it to friends in the area or sharing the link to subscribe.
Behind the scenes
One process that isn’t always clear to the community is how elected members go about asking questions of staff. If you contact me with a problem or question, sometimes I can answer right away if I know the answer. Other times, I need to email questions through to the CEO (copying in our governance team), who then passes the question on to the relevant staff area. The answer then comes back to all members of council - this ensures that we’re all working with the same information.
Often, it might be useful to contact the Town staff directly so that you can get an answer more quickly, especially if it’s to do with the everyday operations of the Town (rubbish not picked up, a sad street tree, a development application). However, it can be useful to get in contact with councillors if you have a problem that staff aren’t dealing with, if it’s related to an item on the agenda at an upcoming meeting, or if you’d like to see a change in policy or how we prioritise resources in the budget.
And, of course, it doesn’t hurt to email if you’re unsure - even if I can’t help you, I’ll always try to explain why and how you might approach problem instead!
Get involved
Are you between 18 and 25, or do you know others who are? There are great workshops on Activism, Advocacy, Community Education where young activists and changemakers can come together to learn, nurture and harness their skills to enact change.
Share your thoughts on the Arts and Culture plan!
Arts season is on! There’s a huge range of activities for all ages, check them out here.
Nature Play in the Park is a free program designed to connect pre-school aged children and their families to nature through outdoor play: book here.
A petition has been put forward to State government noting the potential negative impacts of the proposed Burswood Motor Racing Circuit on the environment and community. The petition calls for a review of the plans, and you can sign here.
Coming up in April:
At the Agenda Briefing Forum on 1st April we discussed items to be decided on at the 15th April Ordinary Council Meeting. You can see the recording here.
Item 11.4 Efficiencies in Council Agendas
Item 11.4 (page 23) recommends changes to what's reported at council meetings. I'm particularly concerned about the recommendation to no longer include the Outstanding Council Resolutions Report and Completed Council Resolutions Report, as these give the public a much easier overview than the resolutions register.
Item 12.1 Consent to advertise draft revised Local Planning Policy 31 - Unhosted Short Term Rental Accommodation and Residential Buildings
Item 12.1 (page 29) recommends sending out a draft policy on unhosted short term rental accommodation (like Airbnbs) for public feedback. The new draft policy responds to revised State rules and our recently-adopted Local Planning Scheme 2. The officer report notes that we had 35 applications for housing to become short-term rentals last year, a notable increase.
Item 13.1 Rutland Avenue - progress of advocacy for funding
We had questions and statements from the audience on the importance of this project (see 13:40 on). In one of the answers to these questions, the Chief Operations Officer noted (at 17min) that the Town is currently seeking a contractor to install some Watts-style speed humps on Rutland Ave, with the number and location informed by the results of a previous community survey.
After a council resolution not to pursue the State-funded one-way design last year, we are seeking $10.6+ million in funding to complete this 900m stretch of separated path to connect sections of the Principal Shared Path. The notes from staff explain that this advocacy has so far been unsuccessful, and the recommendation is to continue advocacy. No end date is included in that recommendation.
Item 13.2 21 Lichfield - Options and future use Business Case
Staff recommend (page 44) demolishing the vacant and disused building on 21 Lichfield Street to allow for the expansion of green space at Read Park. This building is in disrepair, and the legal deeds commit it to recreational use, which limits what it might be repurposed for. Demolishing the building would cost about $60,000 (which includes the cost of dealing with asbestos), which would need to be funded in the 2025/6 budget.
Item 13.3 TVP/24/22 FOGO Bin Supply Tender
Staff recommend (page 56) awarding the contract for FOGO. The cost of this contract will be higher than initially budgeted. Commencing FOGO is an important element of the Town's Climate Emergency plan, as rotting organic matter in rubbish dumps release methane, a potent climate pollutant.
Item TVP/24/21 Verge Collection and Processing Services Tender
Staff recommend (page 61) the award of verge collection tenders, and the adoption of a system of two pre-booked verge collections and one pre-booked green waste collection per household a year. This item notes that pre-booked collections is the preferred approach under State Government guidelines. Evidence suggests that this approach is likely to decrease resources sent to landfill.
March Decisions:
In March we had two decision-making meetings, the usual Ordinary Council Meeting and an additional Special Council Meeting. I’m giving a wrap-up here, but as always it’s just my perspective and not a complete summary: I encourage you to check out the full minutes or recorded version of the meeting.
Item 12.1 40kmh on Local Streets - Request to proceed to community engagement phase
This was passed unanimously, meaning that community engagement will start soon and we’ll get a report to council in June 2025 (see page 18 for more). The City of Perth have begun their engagement process, so if you work in, visit, or travel through City of Perth, you can give them some feedback in this survey.
Item 12.2 Draft Oats Street Station Precinct Plan and Scheme Amendment - Request to proceed to public advertising
The Draft Oats Street Station plan aims to manage urban ecology; higher density development near the train and bus station; community infrastructure; the public realm; mixed developments; and transport.
Cr Minson put forward an unsuccessful procedural motion (page 34 or 1:05:30) to bring this back to council for a workshop before it goes out for public comment. Mayor Vernon, Cr Hamer and Cr Minson voted for this motion, while Cr Anderson, Cr Devereux, Deputy Mayor Ife, Cr Melrosa, Cr Miles, and I voted against.
The item was passed unanimously without changes to the officer recommendation, which means that the Draft Plan will go out for community consultation, and then be brought back to council with that feedback for a decision.
Item 12.3 Proposed naming changes in the Edward Millen Precinct
Mayor Vernon put forward an amendment to the officer recommendation (see page 41 or 1:19:15) so the item endorsed “the renaming of Edward Millen Home to Elizabeth Baillie House, and Edward Millen Park to Elizabeth Baillie Park” and “the naming of the new playground, designed to be constructed as part of the Edward Millen Redevelopment Project, as Mildred Creak Playground”.
I put forward a procedural motion to delay this item (also at page 41) for a month so that we would have more time to consider Mayor Vernon’s amendment, but no one seconded that (which is council procedural speak for: ‘absolutely no one thinks that is even worth considering, Cr Croeser’ - we live and learn!).
Mayor Vernon’s amendment was passed unanimously, which means that in the future we will see Elizabeth Baillie House, Elizabeth Baillie Park, and Mildred Creak Playground in use, with further discussions about dual naming to follow.
Item 14.3 Mid Year Budget Review 2024-2025
This was passed unanimously allowing adjustments to the budget as set to include budget variations and budget requests not previously approved.
Item 17.1 Mayor Karen Vernon - Carlisle Traffic Management Issues
This item (page 88) was added to the agenda the Thursday before the meeting, which meant that councillors had quite a few questions about it. Mayor Vernon clarified that while I and others may have assumed the wording suggested an immediate removal of rubber speed cushions, this was not the intention.
Discussion began at 1:35:40 into the meeting with three amendments having been presented, and continued for another hour and a half, after which the item was moved to Item 11.1 of the Special Council Meeting. In the following week Cr Hamer and I discussed each others’ proposals and found that there were several points that we agreed on, and others that we did not. That allowed us to send through updated wording for these amendments ahead of the meeting.
We revisited the item at the Special Council Meeting (see page 55 or 39min in on the livestream). I won’t try to summarise the full discussion as it continued for nearly two hours, but several separate amendments were put:
One from Cr Hamer (page 65) to requesting the CEO to “remove the speed cushions installed on Archer St, Carlisle between Planet St and Orrong Rd by 30 June 2025.” This was unsuccessful, with Mayor Vernon, Cr Hamer and Cr Melrosa voting for, and Cr Anderson, Cr Devereux, Deputy Mayor Ife, Cr Miles, Cr Minson, and I voting against.
One from Cr Hamer (page 65) requesting the CEO to list the costs of installing a raised or dedicated crossing on Archer St, Carlisle for consideration in the draft 2025/26 budget, and to list the funds required to accomplish the Carlisle traffic management review. This was passed unanimously.
One from me (page 66) requesting the CEO to give us more information on how we might go about a collaborative place design process with residents and other stakeholders, should staff decide a Traffic Management Plan for Carlisle is necessary. I noted in the discussion of this that my framing of the amendment drew on Cr Devereux’s advocacy for more inclusive and holistic approaches to managing traffic issues. This was passed unanimously.
Item 9.1 Development application for Australian and State Hockey Centre
At the Special Council Meeting council unanimously supported the development application for the construction of the new Australian and State Hockey Centre at Curtin University, adding a number of conditions (see page 10 on) to recommend to the WA Planning Commission (which will makes the decision). These include conditions related to tree retention and planting and noise management.
Item 10.1 Lathlain Zone 1 options analysis and request to proceed (Perth Football Club)
This relates to the development of the Perth Football Club site. We had several statements from the Club at the opening of the meeting (from 11min on) about the urgent need for upgraded facilities for female club members in particular.
The staff recommendation (at page 53) was to proceed with the project and discuss the $4.8 million shortfall in future budgets.
Deputy Mayor Ife put forward an alternative motion incorporating suggestions made by Cr Hamer (at page 54) not to proceed with the project at this stage, to continue advocacy for funding the project, and to report on the possibility of a State Government lease arrangement or sale of property that would allow the project to proceed.
There was unanimous support for Deputy Mayor Ife’s motion, which meant that only the mover and seconder (Cr Hamer) had the opportunity to explain their reasons. For myself, I would like to see the project continue and see better facilities available for all players (and also some serious work on male players’ behaviour, given that statements from the Club made it clear that some of them are choosing not to stay out of spaces designated for female players). However, given the very significant costs to the Town and the potential for cost overruns, I wasn’t comfortable supporting the staff recommendation at this stage.
Inspiration from elsewhere
I love this Green Urbanist podcast about Wild Cities - the book will have to go on my very long (and sadly neglected) to-read pile.
This report from the UK talks about how the built environment can help to build social connection…or create loneliness.
The Climate Council have brought out new awards for inspiring community energy projects.
Finland is ahead of schedule in its shift toward renewable energy.
We are all connected
Watching the news, I often feel a deep grief for the world we live in. I deal with my feelings by asking: ‘What can I do?’ If you have time to spare, you can speak up against genocide. If you have money to spare, you can send help through large organisations or smaller efforts.
As Arthur Ashe said: start where you, use what you have, and do what you can.
That's all folks!
Thanks for reading! As always, I encourage you to get in touch if there's anything you want to ask about or discuss.
best wishes,
sky.
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