Sky's Vic Park Newsletter #22: the Albany Highway Precinct Plan, motions from the community, and FOGO
This covers items coming up in June, including Black Swan Theatre’s ‘The Pool’; the Albany Highway Precinct Plan; and a report on parking.
Kaya!
I hope that you’re well.
With the shift to the colder, wetter weather of Mukuru it’s been time for me to get out my raincoat and consider whether it’s really wise to ride a bike without mudguards.
This newsletter covers:
What’s happening behind the scenes,
How to get involved,
Items coming up in June, including Black Swan Theatre’s ‘The Pool’; the Albany Highway Precinct Plan; and a report on parking,
What we decided in May, including amendments to strengthen motions from the meeting of electors, our local emergency plan, and FOGO.
Behind the scenes
This month the focus is still on budget workshops (which allow us to discuss different sections of the 2025/26 budget ahead of staff putting it all together). We’ve also had time to discuss updates to the Urban Forest Strategy and the Albany Highway Precinct Plan.
The process of discussion for all of these is complex: it brings together community consultation, staff responses and feedback, elected member input, and then each item eventually comes to a council meeting for decision (at which point there might be more community input and debate among council members).
Hopefully along the way we have plenty of opportunities to listen to the community, learn from expert advice, and balance different priorities.
Get involved
Reconciliation Week is drawing to a close, but there are always many ways to keep learning from Noongar knowledge and working forwards a more just future, including by practicing the Noongar language.
Friends of Jirdarup are looking for new board members! An interest in the environment, communications or governance and a commitment to working collaboratively are all that is required. Find out more here, and get your application in by 5pm, 6th June.
There are several important issues open for review on Your Thoughts. Remember that you don’t have to be a ratepayer to tell us what you think: local government has a responsibility to listen to all locals.
Tell us what you think about the shift towards 40km/hr on local roads, and if there are additional roads that should also have speed limits lowered.
Our draft short-term accommodation policy is out! Does it balance the need to made housing available with tourism appropriately?
What will the next few years of our Urban Forest Strategy look like?
Are you a Young Person? Do you perhaps know a real-life Young Person? It would be great to get feedback on the draft Youth Action Plan!
As I wrote last year, rates are a progressive tax that allow us to create a more resilient community: consultation is open on this year’s differential rates.
Do you want a livable planet? Woodside’s Burrup Hub project will belch out 6.1 billion tonnes of emissions over its lifetime to 2070, around 14 times the annual emissions of Australia. Let your federal MP Zaneta Mascarenhas and local MP Hannah Beazley (who is also Minister for Youth) know that we can’t afford it!
There’s always a bunch of great events at the library, but I’m particularly delighted at the idea of Boogie in the Bookshelves!
Coming up in June
Notes are now up for the 3rd June Agenda Briefing Forum, an opportunity for elected members and the community to ask questions about items we’ll make decisions on. The Ordinary Council Meeting (where decision are made) is on June 17th. I’m highlighting a few items here, but it’s always useful to read the full agenda!
Item 11.1 Council Resolutions Status Report - May 2025
As usual you can read a list of completed and outstanding council resolutions.
Item 11.2 Black Swan Theatre Partnership - The Pool
Staff recommend that we endorse a partnership with the Black Swan Theatre to host a production of The Pool.
Item 12.1 Albany Highway Precinct Structure Plan (AHPSP) - report on submissions and recommendation to endorse for WAPC approval
This is a big one! The Albany Highway PSP (p. 18) will have a major impact on the future development of our area. I’ve been heartened during workshops on this to see that our planning staff have paid careful attention to input during the consultation process. The report on submissions gives an overview of feedback and responses from staff. It notes that while 3,440 people downloaded a document from the consultation website, only 168 gave feedback - this might indicate that many people did not feel changes were necessary.
The schedule of submissions shows specific feedback that was given, providing a point-by-point response from staff. The schedule of modifications lists changes in table format.
You can read the entire precinct plan in its current format (still to be approved as-is or with amendments and then sent to the State government) here.
Item 13.1 Portion of 3 Canning Highway, Victoria Park - Evaluation of EOI submissions
This property was previously leased by Malubillai Wildlife Carers Network Inc, which has terminated its lease. Staff note that is is suitable for a not-for-profit, charitable, or community organisation, and have made recommendations from the three expressions of interest.
Item 14.1 Statement of Accounts- April 2025
This includes overviews of payments made; credit card transactions; and fuel and store card transactions.
Item 14.2 Financial Statements- April 2025
Monthly financial statements are included as an attachment.
Item 14.3 Transitional, Residential, and Support Worker Parking Permits Report
As long-time readers know, I’m slightly obsessed with parking policy. This item (p. 41) reports on changes to parking limits and applications for residential, transitional, and support worker permits on sections of Willis, Balmoral, and Hampshire Streets.
Decisions from May
The full notes for the May 20th meeting can be found here, and the livestream recording is here. I’ve provided summaries of items of particular interest, but as always remember this is just my own perspective!
Item 11.2 Outcomes from Annual Meeting of Electors 10 March 2025
There were a number of amendments to motions put forward at the Meeting of Electors, happily all with the intent of strengthening the Town’s commitment to acting on community motions (you can see the discussion starting at 30min on the recording).
Motions put forward by the community (p. 16 on) included calls for safer cycle routes, better bus stops, an upgrade for Parnham Park, investigation of electronic petitions to council, more work to get off gas locally, and other great ideas.
Cr Hamer moved an amendment (see p. 26) to begin the process of investigating options for electronic petitions, which passed unanimously.
Cr Devereux moved amendments (see p. 27) to:
investigate the potential restoration and costing of preserving the brick tram stop outside Elizabeth Baillie House (which passed unanimously);
survey the community about Parnham Park during the review of the public open space strategy in 2025-2026 (which passed unanimously);
investigate options for removal of gas from all town facilities and ways to support residents transition away from gas (which passed, with all in favour except Mayor Vernon and Cr Hamer.
Item 11.3 May 2025 Policy Review
This passed by exception resolution (which means there was no debate as everyone agreed ahead of time that they weren’t going to oppose it).
This included changes to our community funding and financial hardship policies. You can see policies that were amended here.
Item 11.5 Local Emergency Management Arrangements (LEMA)
This outlines our plan for dealing with emergencies at a local level, and recovering afterwards. With Labor’s approval of more fossil fuel projects, we’re going to see more floods, storms, fires, and heatwaves, so local governments will need to work out how to respond.
Item 12.1 Economic Development Grants 2024/2025
Four companies received grant funding (p. 47): Reach Her Inc; Spacecubed Ventures; Ask Fleur; and NAJA Business Consulting Services.
Item 13.2 13.2 Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) Implementation
The staff recommendation for this item was to delay the implementation of FOGO.
After significant discussion (see 1hr 16min on the recording), the alternative motion put forward by Mayor Vernon and seconded by Cr Miles was passed unanimously. This motion (p. 78) calls for the CEO to begin a FOGO education campaign by 1 June 2025, and to begin the roll out and implementation of FOGO from August 2025.
Item 15.3 Corporate Business Plan Quarter 3 Progress Report Jan - Mar 2025
This might sound dull, but it’s a useful overview of how the Town is going at meeting our strategic goals! This includes work on creating a safer community (p. 1), supporting people facing homelessness (p. 6), delivering our Reconciliation Action Plan (p. 11), Access and Inclusion Plan (p. 12), Urban Forest (p. 23), Climate Emergency Plan (p. 25), and Integrated Transport Program (p. 36).
Inspiration from elsewhere
London is increasing the number of roads with a 20mp/h limit (about 30km/h), after finding that lower speed limits don’t increase congestion; reduce collisions and casualties significantly; and create more welcoming streets.
Barcelona City Council has voted to cut ties with Israel for as long as human rights are not respected in Gaza.
Story Seed Library has lovely illustrations with Creative Commons licenses.
We are all connected
Our local decisions ripple out to affect others. What happens in the world spreads back to us. The only way to build a better world is to care for those beyond our borders, as well as our own community.
If you have money to spare, you can send help through large organisations or smaller efforts.
If you have time to spare, take action.
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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